Anthologies are famously uneven, and the V/H/S franchise is no exception. When the original V/H/S arrived in 2012, its tidy conceit — a roster of notable horror filmmakers (including Joe Swanberg, Ti West, Scott Derrickson of The Black Phone fame, and Adam Wingard of The Guest) crafting gritty, low-budget short scares presented as salvaged VHS footage — sparked a mini-renaissance in themed anthologies. Films such as The ABCs of Death, Tales of Halloween, and Holidays followed, offering inexpensive opportunities for emerging talent — and, inevitably, a mixed bag of memorable highs and forgettable lows.
While many of those imitators have faded, boutique horror streamer Shudder has kept the V/H/S line alive. Its installments still oscillate between superb and skippable shorts, but V/H/S Halloween stands out as one of the more consistent entries: cohesive in theme, varied in tone, and rich with striking imagery. Among its segments, Casper Kelly’s “Fun Size” is particularly unforgettable — possibly the most delightfully deranged short the series has offered.
“Fun Size” isn’t the most terrifying piece in the collection — I’d give that honor to the haunted-house vignette “Coochie Coochie Coo” — but it’s arguably the oddest and most gleefully unhinged. Kelly, who previously created the surreal digital shorts Too Many Cooks and The Fireplace, delivers a short that leans into cartoonish grotesquerie and off-kilter humor. If you want to dip into V/H/S Halloween without committing to the whole runtime, jump to roughly the 49:44 mark for this one.
The short follows a group of adults who, emboldened by alcohol at a Halloween gathering, decide on an impromptu trick-or-treating romp. Haley (Jenna Hogan) suddenly craves candy, and her boyfriend Austin (Jake Ellsworth) — along with friends Josh (Riley Nottingham) and Lauren (Lawson Greyson) — indulge the whim. They soon encounter a porch bowl labeled “One per person,” packed with bizarre, off-brand confections. Temptation wins out and Austin pockets extra sweets, ignoring the ominous signage and the bowl’s unsettling contents.
As you might expect, that lapse in judgment spirals spectacularly out of control. The sequence that follows is equal parts gruesome and absurd, with Kelly treating the premise like an extended, gleefully deranged gag. There’s a faint fairy-tale moral at play — greed punished in grotesque fashion — but the short rarely aims for solemnity. Instead it revels in anarchic, darkly comic chaos.
Kelly also pokes fun at found-footage conventions. Josh and Lauren arrive at the party already dressed as “found-footage camera operators,” bedecked with cameras strapped to their bodies. The bit slyly addresses the genre’s perennial question — why victims don’t just set their cameras down — while simultaneously providing a plausible source for the story’s recorded material.
Character dynamics add another layer. Lauren resists engagement and marriage, while Josh cheerfully insists on calling her his “fiancée” and imagines a predictable “tradwife” future. That interpersonal friction—Lauren’s reluctance and Josh’s oblivious bluster—creates darkly comic tension that plays well against the escalating mayhem when the group’s ill-advised candy heist goes catastrophically wrong.
Despite explicit gore, “Fun Size” skews toward horror-comedy: frenetic, increasingly surreal, and unapologetically performative in its nastiness. If you appreciate genre pieces that trade genuine dread for inventive nastiness and satirical bite, this short is a standout. It’s a compact, gleefully warped experience that’s unlikely to be replicated elsewhere in your Halloween playlist.
V/H/S Halloween is streaming on Shudder now.
Source: Polygon
