VHYes is a lot of fun. If you’ve seen films like the WNUF Halloween Special and are obsessed with making your own videos, you’re gonna have a good time with this one.
The beginning of this movie gave me Memory Hole vibes and then I started to see the pattern of a narrative begin to show. VHYes is basically a tape that you find hidden away somewhere, covered with dust and filled from start to finish with recorded randomness. It’s a wedding tape that a kid got ahold of and put everything he could on it, but then it turns into something wild. The film goes from antiquated and nostalgic to dark and surreal over the course of its very brisk 72-minute running time.
In VHYes we never really see the characters outside the lens of the camcorder until the end when things break out of their reality. The structure here is just like any experimental videotape from the days of recording everything possible in life and off the tv. The main character Ralph is a kid with a video camera and everything he can do he does. He records himself and his parents and best friend, and once he figures out how to hook it up to the television it’s game on. What we then get is a clipshow of his antics and moment after moment of everything from commercials and shows to crime documentaries and censored cable tv porn. It’s quite the video mixtape indeed.
I kind of love the way this film goes in the direction of the WNUF Halloween Special and Ghostwatch. It makes me think of the endless amount of VHS tapes that users have uploaded to video and gets me remembering when I used to record stuff off of tv too. I never did take the family camcorder to the town’s most infamous haunted house though, but now I’m kinda wishing I had. Once this movie crosses that bridge, that’s when things begin to get interesting and very surreal. Like in an Adult Swim and Too Many Cooks kind of way. That kind of surreal.
Check VHYes out. It’s fun and fast-paced and full of laughs and dumb jokes. The pedigree of comedy here is great with some of my favorites like Thomas Lennon and Kerri Kenney pulling sharp jokes and satire, and seeing them like this made me think of the days when I used to watch them in The State when I was recording shows off MTV. I’m glad Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (seeing him in the end credits just makes me want to watch Tapeheads again) decided to make this. Director Jack Henry Robbins does a fantastic job here crafting and weaving together each segment into a cohesive trip with a solid and special payoff. VHYes is worth the admission. It’s good times.
VHYes is in select theaters January 17