Any self-respecting horror fan has checked out at least one of the V/H/S movies, and if not, the latest installment, this year’s V/H/S/Beyond, is a great place to start. The found-footage anthology franchise has been going strong for over a decade now, offering up a huge variety of different shorts made by different filmmakers from all around the world throughout its nine feature-length collections.
V/H/S/Beyond doesn’t stray from the established formula of the series, serving up five new found-footage segments as well as an overarching frame narrative that opens and closes the movie and segues between each short. While every V/H/S movie is usually centered around a theme, it’s hard to say whether any of them embody theirs quite as fully as Beyond does.
The theme this time around is science fiction, mostly of the extraterrestrial kind, and the handful of segments built around these ideas are among some of the franchise’s very best. Documentary filmmaker Jay Cheel, best known for his Shudder series Cursed Films, directs “Abduction/Adduction”, the framing story of Beyond that features Cheel himself investigating supposed revelatory footage of a genuine alien encounter.
Cheel’s segment gives interesting cultural context for how people have viewed and portrayed extraterrestrials through the decades, citing everything from War of the Worlds to Communion in how alien and UFO stories have shifted from the analog into the digital age as he and his team prepare to analyze the footage. The setup may be greater than the payoff in this instance, but the history lesson this segment gives is essential.
The next part, “Stork”, takes the body cam POV of a special police unit as they investigate a string of baby disappearances. When evidence leads them to a creepy old house, things quickly turn into video game-inspired chaos as the squad takes on the monstrosities within and bullets, blood and guts start flying across the screen. “Stork” comes from Jordan Downey, director of the infamous ThanksKilling series, and it’s a fun, action-packed way to show off the V/H/S franchise’s usual penchant for wild prosthetics and effects.
Likewise, the following segment, “Dream Girl”, is a strong display of the digital side of things. Changing the scenery to beautiful and lavish Mumbai, director Virat Pal (Night of the Bride, Recapture) stages a short and vicious story about a pair of paparazzi stumbling upon the dark secret of the latest Bollywood sensation, Tara (Namrata Sheth). There’s an entire Bollywood dance number to enjoy in “Dream Girl”, in addition to, you know, the kind of violent carnage you’re probably expecting.
“Live and Let Dive”, besides being the segment with the best title, also has the most immediately amusing premise: A group of friends going on a skydiving jump get caught in the middle of an airborne encounter between the military and a UFO. Director Justin Martinez (Devil’s Due, Southbound) returns to the V/H/S franchise for the first time since the 2012 original and delivers some truly hectic aerial horror, followed by a heart-pounding crash and chase through an orange grove.
Beyond saves the best for last. The final two segments knock it out of the park, with “Fur Babies” from brothers Justin and Chrstian Long easily winning the award for the most disturbing out of the collection. The less you know before going into Becky’s Doggy Dream House, the better. “Stowaway”, from modern horror legends Kate Siegel and Mike Flanagan, is the segment that feels the most intentioned and realized. It offers an interesting protagonist in Halley, a reporter who is documenting possible alien encounters when she comes across what appears to be a ship. Those looking for some good old fashioned sci-fi body horror will find plenty of inspiration in “Stowaway”.
V/H/S/Beyond is continuous proof of concept for this unique horror franchise and shows that when the right filmmakers get involved, they can make some real found footage magic. It certainly doesn’t hurt that this latest entry in the series also features an absolutely killer track from Holy Blade. That might make it the best one just by default.
‘V/H/S/Beyond’ is now streaming on Shudder.
