VHYes Please: A Comedic Fever Dream You Can’t Miss

Rating: 🎥🎥🎥🎥

When I first read a review of VHYes from Fantastic Fest, I was sold. Not only was I promised a phenomenal cast and a sea of allusions to the basic cable of yesteryear, but the entire premise seemed like a comedic fever dream I couldn’t miss. After finally seeing it, I can truly say it did not disappoint. 

The film follows Ralphie, a pre-teen boy, who is gifted a camcorder for Christmas of 1987 and immediately begins filming his daily life, including his favorite Public Access TV shows and commercials. However, what quickly could have become a tired storyline that relied heavily on nostalgia develops into so much more. 

Our story begins with wedding footage of Ralphie’s parents’, where it becomes obvious Ralphie is actually recording over his parents’ wedding video, despite telling his father otherwise. As the movie progresses, we watch Ralphie and his best friend Josh navigate the world of being curious middle schoolers by playing with firecrackers, unsuccessfully smashing watermelons (dibs on that band name), and exploring the environment around them, including the media of the late ‘80s. 

The entire movie begins to shift about 20 minutes in when Ralphie, in fear of being caught and punished by his parents for staying up past bedtime, darts to his room but leaves his camcorder on, allowing us to hear his parents brutally arguing nearby. Soon after, Ralphie and Josh go see a movie and watch as Ralphie’s father and another woman sit down several rows in front of the two, and the pair immediately decide to leave. 

The movie continues with an almost formulaic layout of marriage footage, Ralphie and Josh, a deteriorating relationship, and skits without somehow ever becoming predictable. You are not only happy with but willing to go through the cycle repeatedly; you’re given a multitude of emotions but never enough time to linger on just one. 

Finally, we reach the last 15 minutes. I absolutely refuse to ruin the final 15 minutes of this movie because it subverts and exceeds all expectations by being hilarious, touching, terrifying, and absolutely brilliant. Everything comes together in a way I never expected or predicted, but it works. 

There is so much more I could say about VHYes, but I think the less you know going in, the better. I will say the unsettling nature of Kerri Kenney’s Joan and the charming and relatable Charlene Yi’s Lou were both major standouts for me, but every skit is written so well I never found myself unhappy or underwhelmed with anyone’s performance. Boldly combining the absurdist humor of Tim and Eric (especially seen in the security system commercial and Kerri Kenney’s “With Joan” bits) with the storytelling devices of The WNUF Halloween Special, VHYes is an odd piece of heartwarming nostalgia (especially for someone whose family heirloom is a VHS recorded copy of the 1984 Halloween CBS lineup) that successfully portrays coming of age and the shift in media without being stale or leaving behind anything in the static.