VHS Violence: Bootlegged (2022) (USA)

⭐️⭐️

Some dude in a Satan mask watches VHS tapes. Tape 1 follows a woman named Destiny in Vegas with some friends, keeping a video diary of her trip. Cue half-heard conversations, making plenty of faces at the camera and just capturing the completely mundane shenanigans of she and her group. Her friend Shay shares the story of a tragedy at an abandoned gas station which is now supposedly haunted. As she gets drunk and wanders around the desert, weird shit begins to happen. We can kinda see what’s going on. That’s what gives us a hazy glimpse of some dude in a white mask and black leotard combo scurrying around on all fours. There’s a quick glimpse of a truly eerie image involving someone playing the piano in the middle of a pitch black desert and then our hero is confronted by a hairy man who I think is bleeding from his mouth and spits blood all over her. It’s a bit frantic. Destiny is found by Shay and believes she was attacked by a homeless person and that whatever the hell she was drinking fucked up her head. Destiny is freaked out the next day and tries wrapping her head around the scary-ass encounter. After a tearful chat with her camera, she goes on a hike and encounters a different homeless man who grabs her and then someone finds the phone she dropped and records with it. He stumbles upon what looks like a black mass and it doesn’t end well. It’s a bit of nothing but Destiny Soria is solid as the lead and there’s at least one image that stands out. Tape 2 is (naturally) up next and we watch the recording of some Californian in the British countryside. He too is hiking and filming things for his mom… he promised he’d catch a sunrise for her. Sweet kid. He films as night envelopes him and he searches for an ancestor’s farmhouse and marches through the marshy fields… lost, spooked and just a little fucked. He remembers a creepy story his grandpa told him about the field and a couple drowned children who stayed around after death, snatching up folks stupid enough to be out in the dark. He rambles on to alleviate the growing despair which turns to terror when something sinister starts creeping around. He comes across a local who heard him screaming and she offers to take him back to her farm. She lets him know about a local legend involving the sacrifice of virgins to bring about a fruitful harvest. You know where this is going. Throw a man in the middle of a vast darkness and it’s a solid time until it throws out its stinger and it gets a bit daft. Still, it ain’t that bad. Back to ol’ Devil-mask and onto Tape 3. It’s Halloween in 1999 and some young dopes are recording whatever the hell shenanigans they’re getting into while the girl’s (Alexie) parents are away. That includes stealing a handle of vodka and annoying her younger sister. Alexie, her “cameraman” Cody, her little sister Chloie and her friend Caylie head to an old abandoned trailer to get drunk and cure the case of the boredoms they’ve developed. Chloie really doesn’t want to do it and keeps protesting but Alexie is persistent, Cody seems like he’s wrapped around her finger and Caylie doesn’t seem to have much of a backbone. So, they trespass and make their way into the trailer to get their drink on. It’s as exciting as any pre-legal drinking party one would have in an abandoned trailer in the middle of rural nothing could be. We’ve all been there and we’re all lying to ourselves if we seriously think it was the “good old days”. Giggles and stupidity lead to sibling arguments and the revelation of a dead little brother who got hit by a car three years ago on Halloween. A pin is put in the tomfoolery and family drama when a car pulls up and the quartet get freaked out. The place is supposed to be abandoned. They watch on from the darkness as some podunk drags what looks like a body wrapped in a bloody sheet out behind the trailer and then proceeds to beat it with an aluminum bat. When they’re discovered, they flee into the night… Cody and Alexie make it out. They watch as the two others are dealt with. Cody attacks the overall-rockin’ dope and gets his neck snapped for his stupidity. Alexie gives her position away and gets grabbed. It’s alright and may not have the best performances but as a former teenager, I can say they’re not strong at delivering solid performances. It’s slightly unsettling and seems like an actual bit of found footage one would unearth on a vhs tape stuffed away in a box in someone’s attic. Lastly, Tape 4 begins in pitch black with some woman named Janet wondering where the hell she is and then babbling in Spanish. Is she buried alive? Kinda seems like it. She finally gets night vision on and it looks like she’s been crammed into a trunk. She gets her hands on a hammer and talks herself through the predicament she’s found herself in. It’s revealed to be the guy in the Devil mask or maybe? I don’t know. The segment has an ending and it’s a bit limp and I think it leads into a wrap up of the wraparound which feels like a cheat that was just rushed into being filmed because everyone kinda shrugged and said “Sure. Why not? We gotta get home.” Below low-budget found footage may be lacking any meaningful wraparound but the low-fi aesthetic is solid (especially in the last two) and there are a few slices of memorable dread. Even the weakest segment has the beyond disturbing image of a creep playing a piano inexplicably left out in the middle of the desert. Shame it kinda craps the bed in the close.