The production companyRadio Silencehas become a big name in horror over the last several years.Formed in 2011 by friendsTyler Gillett,Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, andChad Villella, they rose to fame in 2019 throughReady or Not, starringSamara Weaving, and directed by Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin. It wasn’t their first movie, and it wouldn’t be the last, as the success ofReady or Notled to them landing a huge franchise gig with the 2022Screamand 2023’sScream 6. This year,they’re back with the wild vampire romp,Abigail, but theirorigins go back to another horror franchise, the firstV/H/Sin 2012. There,Radio Silence not only wrote and directed the found footage anthology film’s last segment, “10/31/98,” but they starred in it as well. One watch of the chaos they created here, and you may see how it influenced everything to come after.
When a group of misfits are hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained for.
“10/31/98” Is One of the Best Segments From ‘V/H/S’
WhenThe Blair Witch Projectcame out in 1999, found footage became all the rage in horror asthe genre transitioned from theScreamera slashersto offerings that felt more raw. Though there were some hits,like the Paranormal Activity franchise, the overabundance of the gimmick and the recycling of plot devices led to the fad dying out. It staged a comeback, however, in 2012 with a found footage film calledV/H/S. This one didn’t get a big theatrical release, but it gained significant attention through its approach, asV/H/Sis an anthology film akin toTales From the CryptorCreepshow, but with all of its stories told in the found footage format.
The film was notable for its segments beingdirected by many up-and-coming names, likeAdam Wingard,David Bruckner, andTi West, but for the last segment, “10/31/98”, it was Radio Silence at the helm.V/H/Sis actually how Radio Silence got their name, as they toldVarietyin 2022.Brad Miska, the founder of popular horror website Bloody Disgusting, served as the producer onV/H/S, but when he asked Gillett, Bettinelli-Olpin, and Villella who should get the credit as director, they told him, “Well, it’s all of us.” Miska asked for a group name and five minutes later they had it.They would be called Radio Silence, a joke about how badly their careers were going.
“10/31/98” is the last segment ofV/H/S, and as the title suggests, it takes place on Halloween night 1998, with three friends (played by the Radio Silence crew) headed out to a party only to end up at the wrong house. Strange happenings quickly begin, which they first think is a Halloween haunted house joke, but everything is turned upside down when they get upstairs and find several men surrounding a restrained woman. Our protagonists quickly go into hero mode, trying to rescue this person they don’t even know. Even though we don’t know them either, we now root for these men, which is a welcome change, as much ofV/H/S,like the chilling opening segment “Amateur Night,“is about men abusing women. Supernatural events begin to occur, with the house seeming to come to life around them, but these men do not chicken out. Instead, they rescue the girl and drive off, saving her life, only to find out that she’s not as innocent as she appears. She is the true villain, and the men who had her restrained the good guys, a fact found out by our three protagonists all too late.
Radio Silence Is Disappointed They Won’t Get to See the ‘Scream’ Franchise Through to the End
The directorial duo relaunched the popular slasher franchise with ‘Scream’ and ‘Scream VI’.
‘Devil’s Due,’ ‘Southbound,’ and ‘Ready or Not’ Share Similarities With ‘V/H/S’
“10/31/98” is special effects-driven chaos set in a confined space, at once exhilarating and scary, with barely any time to breathe, but it also takes time to focus on the characters and why we should care about what happens to them.It feels a bit like a found footage version ofPoltergeist, with a ghostly presence taking over a home and our likable characters on the run.After the success ofV/H/S, Radio Silence’s next project was their first full length feature film,Devil’s Due, in 2014. The similarities to “10/31/98” are there, as it again takes the found footage style and uses it to update a story we know well.Devil’s Due, about a newly pregnant woman, Samantha (Allison Miller), and her husband, Zach (Zach Gilford), finds the young couple being stalked by dark forces that turn out to be a cult wanting their unborn child.It’s reminiscent ofRosemary’s Baby, and while directorRoman Polanski’s film is one of horror’s all-time greats, an audience can detach itself from it a bit as the plot happens to an actor and his wife in New York City. We might think that couldn’t happen to us, butDevil’s Duetakes something similar and makes it unnerving in its realness. What happens to the McCalls can happen to anyone. It has the immediacy and realism of “10/31/98,” including a dark, tragic ending not done just for shock’s sake, all while being stretched out into a longer format.
Sadly, critics and audiences didn’t feel the same way.Devil’s Dueonlyhas a 19% on Rotten Tomatoes, and despite opening in 2,500 theaters,made just $15 million domestically. After that failure, Radio Silencereturned to the anthology format withSouthbound, but this time they stripped away the familiar and made themselves uncomfortable by using a traditional filming style, instead of being dependent on the constraints of found footage. That strategy worked,as critics loveSouthbound, and much of that acclaim goes tothe opening and ending segments, both directed by Radio Silence, “The Way Out” and “The Way In.“Both segments focus on supernatural chaos like “10/31/98” did, and just like those protagonists were trapped inside a house, one segment here resides mostly inside a run-down gas station, and the other involves a home invasion, giving us a nerve-wracking contrast of the unexplainable happening in a space so small and mundane.
It was in 2019 when Radio Silence hit it big withReady or Not, with the Fox Searchlight filmtaking in $57 millionand regarded as one of the best horror films of the year. Although the plot is unique, with Samara Weaving as a bride who finds out thather new in-laws are psychopaths out to kill her as a sacrifice to the Devil, Radio Silence used well-worn techniques that started in “10/31/98.” The supernatural aspect is there, as are characters we care about who are out of their element, planted in a plot that could happen to anyone despite their best intentions, all while occurring in the confines of one setting. Sure, the house inReady or Notis a mansion instead of something much smaller, but nearly every single scene is set there. The horror might have a few more rooms to travel in, but there is still no escape. The only change is that this time Radio Silence wisely went for the happy ending.
Radio Silence Has Kept the Same Style With ‘Scream’ and ‘Abigail’
Ready or Notled Radio Silence to the chance to reboot the Scream franchise, an impossible task, asevery previous film had been directed by the legendaryWes Craven, and now they were attempting to follow in his footsteps. The 2022ScreamandScream 6succeeded against the odds, and even though they had to follow the defined rules of the franchise,Radio Silence still found a way to do what they started with “10/31/98.“No, there are no witches or exploding bodies, but just as they weren’t afraid to go for broke,killing off main characters like poor Dewey (David Arquette), they also kept most of the chaos contained. Characters are trapped in a bodega, a small apartment, an alleyway, and a theater, making wherever Ghostface is feel like a haunted house.
Radio Silence have recaptured that magic one more time withAbigail.It feels similar toReady or Not, taking place in a large, empty mansion, as the bad guys attempt to capture our female hero. Instead of Samara Weaving as a resourceful bride, we instead get a little girl named Abigail (Alisha Weir). That would be a problem for her except for the fact that she’s a murderous vampire. Everything is then flipped, as we now want the villains to live, just as “10/31/98” flipped expectations by making the perceived rescued girl a bloodthirsty witch.
Everything Radio Silence does can be traced back toVHSand “10/31/98.“The supernatural, the frenzied pace, the switched expectations, the darker endings and confined spaces, all goes back to a little movie from Bloody Disgusting. This is where they learned their craft, putting that into everything they’ve done since, but without ever making the same film twice. Because of that, they are now Radio Silence in name only because the reaction to their films has been very loud.
