V/H/S

By their very nature, portmanteau films are a mixed blessing. When the uniting element is horror, things are even trickier: it’s not easy to sustain tension when the story changes every 15 minutes. So under the circumstances, this American collection of six tales housed under one roof is a minor triumph: three of the six in ‘V/H/S’ are impressively creepy, and one is truly bloodcurdling.

The main framing story follows a gang of obnoxious macho ‘video terrorists’, who find a stash of videos in an abandoned house, and the tapes’ contents become the stories we see. The theme of lads on the rampage carries into the first standalone tale, David Bruckner’s enjoyably nasty ‘Amateur Night’, before disappointment arrives with Ti West’s ‘Second Honeymoon’, a directionless ramble through Midwestern motels.

It’s in the last two chapters that the film comes into focus: Joe Swanberg’s webcam shocker ‘The Sick Thing that Happened to Emily’ chills the blood, before Radio Silence’s pulse-pounding ‘10/31/98’closes proceedings – a scrappy and confrontational end to this uneven but enjoyable bag of dirty tricks.