Synopsis
This bizarre retro comedy, shot entirely on VHS and Beta, takes us back to when 12-year-old Ralph, over one formative week, mistakenly records home videos and his favorite late night shows over his parents’ wedding tape.
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Cast
- Jake HeadRalph's Dad
- Christopher MarblePriest/Extra
- Christian DrerupRalph's Mom
- Mason McNultyRalph
- Roy AbramsohnGavin Johnson
- Helen KennedyBree Jones
- Amos VernonNew Zach
- William Frederick KnightKindly the Cowboy
- Lucas JayeKiddo
- Deborah Sale ButlerRadio DJ/Infomercial Announcer
Recommendations
- 87
Polygon
The strangeness of the material isn’t VHYES’ primary attraction; it’s the atypical mode of storytelling and sense of sincerity. - 79
Paste Magazine
Think of the film as an extended cousin of Too Many Cooks, where parody gives way to weirdness, which gives way to surrealism, which gives way to genuine horror by the end. Bonkers as the combination sounds, and it is unimpeachably bonkers, the effect of their marriage is hypnotic. - 67
Austin Chronicle
Television is reality, and reality is less than television. And that is, by the end of the 72-minute-long VHYes’ gleefully immersive, intermittently profound “found footage,” a lesson Ralph osmotically absorbs through the VHS viewfinder of his life. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
Though hardly groundbreaking in either its content or its aesthetics, the film is more serious than it initially lets on, and can only benefit from the VHS nostalgia that has, often irrationally, taken root in some quarters. - 58
The Film Stage
A lot of the times the jokes feel reliant on the video format and its limitations, as if the video tracking and purposefully bad production qualities can fill the gap between ideas and execution. Instead, the gap gets filled with memories of shows and movies that do a better job at the same thing. - 58
The A.V. Club
Unfortunately, this handheld coming-of-age story is frequently interrupted by variably convincing stretches of channel surfing, as though someone recorded over much of the former with the latter. And even with pros like Charlyne Yi and Kerri Kenney lending their deadpan chops, real weird TV is funnier. Weirder, too. - 40
Variety
The best thing the film has going for it is editor Avner Shiloah’s scrambled channel-surfing assembly, which seldom sticks with any bit long enough for it to get too stale. Still, VHYes feels overextended even at the 66 slim minutes it takes to reach the final credits. - 38
Slant Magazine
The film settles much too comfortably into the well-trodden footsteps of other works.
