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The horror anthology series, V/H/S, stands apart. Credited with igniting renewed interest in short-form horror, it continues its legacy with a seventh themed offering. The latest installment, *V/H/S Halloween*, hitting screens in 2025, presents five terrifying tales set against the backdrop of Halloween night. These shorts are interwoven with a central narrative, “Diet Phantasma,” where a detached scientist conducts disturbing product testing involving a diet cola that yields spectacularly gruesome results for its consumers.
The premiere of *V/H/S Halloween* at the 2025 Fantastic Fest in Austin brought together all seven directors from the project. During a post-screening Q&A, Anna Zlokovic, one of the directors, wryly noted the significant challenges of creating found-footage horror. Her sentiments were enthusiastically echoed by her fellow directors. Following the event, we spoke with each of them to explore why they believe crafting a found-footage film presents unique difficulties – or, in one director’s view, surprising advantages – compared to traditional horror filmmaking.
(Note: This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
Horror Fans: We’ve previously spoken with directors in the found-footage realm about the complexities of specific shots or scenes. However, this marks the first time we’ve heard someone declare the genre universally difficult. What key hurdles do you see in found-footage horror?
Micheline Pitt, co-director of “Home Haunt”: For me, the biggest struggle as a creative is the inherent limitation. Everything must be justified by the person holding the camera. Restricting myself from my full creative potential, staying confined within those boundaries, is profoundly challenging.
Alex Ross Perry, director of “Kidprint”: While I understand that perspective, I also vehemently disagree, albeit in a very specific way. I thrive in a 360-degree open set. I found it incredibly liberating because the blocking and coverage become one and the same. In traditional filmmaking, they’re typically at odds. [Collective sounds of agreement and surprise]
In a traditional film, if a character looks left, the camera must look right. But in found-footage, once you establish the scene’s blocking, you’ve essentially determined your coverage. This realization was revolutionary for me. Despite having seen countless found-footage films, it didn’t truly click until I was on set, directing one. It was a revelation!
Once you know a character’s movement, that dictates the camera’s movement – the camera doesn’t move opposite to the character. You film the scene once, capturing everything in one go, eliminating the need for repetitive shots. As a filmmaker accustomed to narrative filmmaking but growing frustrated with traditional coverage, I found this constraint liberating. It forces you to solve the visual puzzle just once.
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<div class="responsive-img image-expandable img-article-item" style="padding-bottom:56.25%" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/coochie-coochie-coo-still-1.jpg" data-img-desc=""“Coochie Coochie Coo”"" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""Image: Shudder"">
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<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" alt="A spooky witch with a creepy grin blocks an open doorway out of a house in the V/H/S Halloween short "Coochie Coochie Coo"" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/coochie-coochie-coo-still-1.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/coochie-coochie-coo-still-1.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2"/>
</picture><figcaption>“Coochie Coochie Coo”</figcaption><small class="body-img-caption">Image: Shudder</small></figure>
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</div>Anna Zlokovic, director of “Coochie Coochie Coo”: I believe the biggest challenge lies in maintaining the audience’s suspension of disbelief. Everything needs to feel authentic. The sound design needs to mirror reality, the performances need to be believable. How do you convincingly portray something as absurd as an adult man in a diaper? You have to make it feel like it naturally exists within the world. This is incredibly challenging, as audience members can easily lose faith. One misstep can unravel everything.
Bryan M. Ferguson, director of “Diet Phantasma”: I agree with Alex – once the blocking is established, things flow smoothly. But when managing numerous practical effects simultaneously, trying to ensure you’re capturing everything correctly without errors, the setup becomes time-consuming. It requires precision to get everything right within a limited timeframe.
Our set had a significant obstruction, making communication difficult. Alex’s experience sounds far more enjoyable. Our shoot was incredibly demanding, compounded by a mere three-day production schedule. While found-footage offers certain liberties, allowing for a degree of imperfection, it also presents challenges. Since the intention is to create a raw, unfiltered aesthetic through filters and low-quality cameras, a few mistakes can be easily masked.
R.H. Norman, co-director of “Home Haunt”: Establishing a consistent rhythm is a significant challenge, particularly when relying heavily on long takes. Our approach involved creating the illusion of in-camera editing. The father character turns the camera on and off, which served as our cuts. This necessitated the use of simulated long takes, demanding that we fully immerse ourselves in the moment and carefully observe the shot’s feeling. What is being captured is final and you can’t edit around it.
Knowing we had limited takes per shot due to the ambition of our vision, we focused on exploring different rhythms between takes, anticipating uncertainties in post-production. Hiding those cuts, whether in moving fog or other elements, is a real challenge. You never quite know if the cuts will betray the illusion of a seamless, point-of-view camera moving through space.
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<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" alt="Two ghoulish, blood-spattered figures rip at the face of a crying teenager in a dark hallway as a third lurks behind in the V/H/S Halloween short "Home Haunt"" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/home-haunt-still-3.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/home-haunt-still-3.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2"/>
</picture><figcaption>“Home Haunt”</figcaption><small class="body-img-caption">Image: Shudder</small></figure>
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</div>Zlokovic: The goal is to minimize relying on glitches to cover imperfections, but it becomes necessary at times because the process is so demanding.
Norman: Actually, Anna is right. This whole thing is easy, just glitch the hell out of it. [General laughter]
Paco Plaza, director of “Ut Supra Sic Infra”: For me, the hardest thing is getting the audience to believe that the people operating the camera would continue filming rather than fleeing. That’s also what is most important to do. There are certain found-footage films where I simply do not believe that the characters would continue recording in that situation.
I think the camera should always arrive late to whatever is happening because that mirrors real life. For me, the magic disappears if the camera is already in position, anticipating the event. If you are here, recording and you hear a noise and pan toward it, that noise is already gone. It’s this imperfection that creates a feeling of truth that is very important to preserve.”
What’s the single shot in your movie that you’re proudest of?
Perry: Definitely the shot of our character seated at a four-monitor editing setup, each displaying different videos simultaneously. It was all done using analog equipment. The videos were filmed days beforehand, processed by the editor, and then displayed on four computers linked to four monitors.
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<div class="responsive-img image-expandable img-article-item" style="padding-bottom:71.951219512195%" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kidprint-still-1.jpg" data-img-desc=""“Kidprint”"" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""Image: Shudder"">
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<img width="825" height="594" loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" alt="A man looks at a pair of videotapes marked "Drew" and "Lisa" as bloody scenes play out on the cameras behind him in V/H/S Halloween's "Kidprint" segment" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kidprint-still-1.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kidprint-still-1.jpg?q=70&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=1"/>
</picture><figcaption>“Kidprint”</figcaption><small class="body-img-caption">Image: Shudder</small></figure>
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</div>That image of the character surrounded by playing videotapes is the image that I wanted out of this project. If that was the only still I saw of this movie, I would be hitting play immediately. It looks so cool! But it took three days of planning, getting four different people to press spacebars at the same time. I swear it was harder than it looks.
Pitt: I would say it’s definitely the witch’s flight scene in our film. Selfishly because I got to perform it, but also because we were able to pull off an impossible shot. It only took two takes and I was really proud of what we accomplished together.”
Zlokovic: There’s a scene in mine where the girls race up the stairs, attempt to open a door, enter a playroom, the cheerleader hurls blocks, they approach the cheerleader, spot the mother behind the door, exit, descend the stairs, and enter the “poop room” – all captured in a single, uninterrupted shot. I am particularly proud of that scene. It was challenging to create, but it was incredibly rewarding to see it all come together. The first five takes were horrible but it started to feel more real as it went on and I was proud of it.
Ferguson: Definitely when the little boy explodes on the glass. [Crowd cheers and laughs] It was the last, we had the cannon set up with all the effects, and we only had like five minutes to get it right. It didn’t work. We had to reset it very quickly and we got the shot on the last part of the day, but we got the laugh I was hoping for.”
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<div class="responsive-img image-expandable img-article-item" style="padding-bottom:56.25%" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/diet-phantasma-still-2.jpg" data-img-desc=""“Diet Phantasma”"" data-modal-id="single-image-modal" data-modal-container-id="single-image-modal-container" data-img-caption=""Image: Shudder"">
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<img width="1650" height="928" loading="lazy" decoding="async" fetchpriority="low" alt="In a blurry close-up, a man resting his hand against his mouth pensively is silhouetted against a window covered with blood and slime in the V/H/S Halloween segment "Diet Phantasma"" data-img-url="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/diet-phantasma-still-2.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2" src="https://static0.polygonimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/diet-phantasma-still-2.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2"/>
</picture><figcaption>“Diet Phantasma”</figcaption><small class="body-img-caption">Image: Shudder</small></figure>
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</div>Casper Kelly, director of “Fun Size”: The shot at the end of the film, when they are on the air duct conveyor belt and she is getting proposed to, while she is crawling backwards. It always makes me laugh.”
Plaza: For me, when the boy starts vomiting up eyeballs. That was very, very fun to shoot. We were giggling the whole time. It was really nice. He was very skilled with his tongue and it is not easy to pop four eyeballs out of your mouth, but he did it. So I am very proud of that.”
V/H/S Halloween is now available for streaming on Shudder.
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