WGTC: The first V/H/S had five shorts, while the sequel only has four shorts. Do you think having even one less short makes the film feel more cohesive?
Jason Eisener: Yes. The way that these films are stylistically, I think it does get a little exhausting. Since we do so many experimental things with the camera work, since it’s the found-footage aesthetic, I felt like it’s better to make it shorter. When you’re watching the first V/H/S and you reach the fifth short, it does feel too long. We wanted the overall feature to be shorter. Everyone who became involved in this knew exactly what we were going for. Except for Gareth (Evans) and Timo (Tjahjanto), who were filming in Indonesia. Their short (Safe Haven) turned out to be much longer.
Simon Barret: We really focused on the pacing, even though one of the movies stands out. But we did feel that four shorts in 90 minutes would be about right.
Adam Wingard: When Simon and I did the first V/H/S, we did it right before You’re Next. We thought about not just about how to make a movie, but how to make a fun movie. The first segment we did in V/H/S (Tape 56) wasn’t very fun. That movie in general is a little bit more dark. Going into this, I knew that I at least wanted to do something more fun, like the fun we had with You’re Next. Fortunately, it wasn’t something that was communicated to everyone else, but everyone seemed to be on the same page. Everyone seemed to be in that same head space of wanting to do something fun and fantastical.
At the end of the day, the first film had this dragon lady and succubus, and was doing supernatural stuff all over the place. So we couldn’t scale that back and make everything mysterious, since we had already done this stuff. There was no point in going in this psychological route. We showed so many things, so we had to amp it up even more. So that’s why this movie has a bigger and crazier feel. I felt that was the appropriate way to go.
WGTC: What was the process you all took in creating the visuals and sounds for your shorts?
Simon Barrett: Adam said this earlier, that found footage is the only style of horror where the visual style is dictated by the story. The first thing you come up with for a found footage horror movie is, why are the characters filming this? Both Jason and Eduardo had the idea of just keeping the camera running, as it’s mounted on their star. That worked really well, because you get that point-of-view.
WGTC: Speaking of the found footage genre, why did you all feel it was important to tell your shorts in that style?
Adam Wingard: For me, it came first as a found footage, and the ideas came from there. Simon wrote mine, and I don’t think the two of us had the idea in mind, and said “Let’s do this as a found footage.” We also didn’t think, “Oh, we have to do another found footage, what are we going to do?” Like Simon just said, it became, whose found footage is this, and why are they filming it? What situation is in that context? For my short, it started off as, let’s do something sci-fi that doesn’t exist. It’s a camera that exists in the guy’s eye. So what would be interesting for him to see in that context?
Simon Barrett: To be honest, I think the idea of doing a successful movie of found footage tapes, with people actually finding footage and watching the tapes overall, came from our producer, Brad Miska. He came to us with this concept, and we worked out what the first film was going to be. At the time we shot the first V/H/S, movies like Paranormal Activity were raking in money. We were all thinking, how do we do something different? That was the main challenge-doing something that would stand out. In terms of found footage horror, the genre hadn’t really evolved since Eduardo’s movie, The Blair Witch Project. But by doing shorts, you can do something different. That was the fun of it.
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Simon Barrett, Adam Wingard, Jason Eisener and Eduardo Sanchez for taking the time to speak with us. Make sure to check out V/H/S/2 when it’s released on VOD on June 6, and hits select theaters on July 12.