Once Again, In Lieu of This Week's Newsletter, I Ranked All of the V/H/S Segments

Happy Spooky Season, readers! If you’ve been subscribed to Dust On The VCR for a while now, you might’ve suspected that this temporary shift in programming was on the horizon.

After launching this newsletter in early 2021, I really needed a break around October of that year; if you must know, I was shooting a feature film in Tennessee with some amazing collaborators. And since I’d just written a ranking of every segment in the newly resurrected V/H/S franchise for my friends at Modern Horrors, I just ran that rather than totally taking a week off. (Besides, it still kinda fits the retro spirit of our mission here, right?)

Since then, a week off in October has become an annual newsletter tradition—while releasing a new V/H/S film has become Shudder’s October tradition. Without delving too much into my personal life, let’s just say I needed the break again, as is usually the case. And as always, I didn’t want to just leave y’all hanging; I know your Friday mornings wouldn’t be the same without my blathering.

Also, this is a bit of a celebratory break for us: Today marks 200 issues of Dust On The VCR!* 🎉 Whether you’ve been there from the beginning or you’re a new subscriber, it really means a lot that you’ve been rocking with us all these weeks. I still really enjoy writing these pieces, and the more we grow, the more I’m motivated to keep it going.**

So if you love these anthology films like I do, or you’re curious about them and unsure where to start, here’s my updated ranking of all 37(!) segments of the V/H/S franchise!*** As long as Shudder keeps churning these things out, I’ll do my best to keep up with them, no matter how ridiculous the article gets. (It’s up to nearly 3,500 words now, so you have my blessing to skim and skip around if you choose to take a look.)

Also, I’ll note that I’m pretty excited about our next two issues, as we’ll be debuting a new guest writer to round out October and then welcoming back one of our very first guest writers for a new piece to kick off November. Lots of fun seasonal writing is on the horizon, folks.

Until then, stay safe out there!

*If you include the occasional posts where I drop in on a Tuesday to promote something, that is. Since I’m bad at math, I decided not to subtract those and go with Substack’s count.

**Speaking of newsletter data, shouts out to author Stephen Follows for mentioning Dust On The VCR in his recent piece about film-related Substacks. Now that I know there are 240 other movie newsletters out there, I’m flattered that y’all chose this one! (Among others, I hope.)

***The newest film, V/H/S/Beyond, is not my favorite. But as always, there are some fun shorts mixed in (and a really good one) that make it worth a watch.

V/H/S is now streaming on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi, PlutoTV, Kanopy, Hoopla, and Freevee. V/H/S/2 is now streaming on Peacock, Tubi, and Hoopla. V/H/S: Viral is now streaming on Amazon Prime, Peacock, Tubi, Hoopla, and Freevee. V/H/S/94, V/H/S/99, and V/H/S/85 are now streaming on Shudder, AMC+, and Hoopla. The first six films are all available to rent elsewhere. V/H/S/Beyond is now streaming on Shudder and AMC+. (Whew.)