This sequel to the innovative 2012 indie is not for the faint of stomach, more for its relentless hand-held camera reliance than blood and guts (though there are plenty of those, too).
Sticking with the original framework, “V/H/S/2” sees a private investigator (Lawrence Michael Levine) and his assistant (Kelsy Abbott) watching a cache of mysterious tapes in a rundown house.
Their found-footage contents are four short horror films by various directors, the most effective of which is Timo Tjahjanto and Gareth Huw Evans’ genuinely creepy “Safe Haven,” in which a documentary team chronicling a doomsday cult gets a rather extreme inside look.
The other three, “Phase 1 Clinical Trials,” “A Ride in the Park” and “Slumber Party Alien Abduction,” are pretty silly, especially in their monster depictions — all three call to mind those Halloween haunted houses for grown-ups.
But that’s not really the problem here. With the exception of “Tape 49” — the Simon Barrett-directed segment about the PI — the films are ridiculously shaky, their camerawork so determinedly guerrilla-style that it’s difficult not to look away, sometimes at crucial moments. Found footage is all well and good, but if it’s unwatchable, it might as well have stayed lost.