V/H/S

Demons and ghouls come out to play in this 21st-century spin on the portmanteau horror film (fans of Dead of Night, Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow, take note). Using the found-footage subgenre to unleash a killer collection of short, sharp shockers, the mayhem begins when a gang of roughnecks is hired to steal a videotape from a derelict house. With only a dead man on the premises, it appears to be a simple enough task for the felonious foursome, until other tapes pique their interest. That's the set-up for a quintet of stories (each from a different director, including The House of the Devil's Ti West) that range from the stomach-churning and (literally) gut-wrenching to the spooky and utterly bizarre. Some yarns are stronger than others - lads on the pull get a rude awakening from a haunting Hannah Fierman in the stand-out Amateur Night - but the rough-and-ready format (particularly in slasher yarn Tuesday the 17th) cranks up the general eeriness of the anthology. Gruesome, creepy and unnerving, this set of tales will linger long after the lights go up. A sequel was released in 2013.