V/H/S/Beyond (Various, 2024) Review

Find more horror reviews here.

“That's why everyone likes filming spooky things with VHS cameras.” A few years ago the terror-fuelled streaming service Shudder took over the portmanteau horror franchise V/H/S, one that has always produced mixed results, from soaring heights of inventive and gore-drenched scares to crushing lows of misplaced fumbling for direction. Now onto their fourth entry in the long-running series, does Shudder's alien-themed V/H/S/Beyond deliver the gruesome, gruelling goods?...

Click “READ MORE” below to continue the review and see more screenshots…

 

“In terms of human nature, there is more thrill in pursuing something than catching something.” There had once been an idea to produce a Christmas-themed entry in the V/H/S series, and that still strikes as a good idea unfortunately left untold, but now V/H/S/Beyond stands as the first in the franchise that aims for a more specific theme: that of extraterrestrial frights. The wrap around story 'Abduction/Adduction', directed by Jay Cheel, sets-up this notion with an aesthetic that convincingly portrays a documentary on the subject of aliens and two videotapes that supposedly contain evidence of life from beyond our Earthly realm. However, quite quickly we are thrust into the first of five horror stories to pique the interests of Mulder and Scully.

“Lost your fuckin' head there, didn't ya?!” Directed by Jordan Downey, who co-writes with Kevin Steward, 'Stork' gets the film off to an energetic start as a convert group of New York cops – known as W.A.R.D.E.N. – look to solve the troubling mystery surrounding the disappearance of seventeen infants over a three month period. Arriving at one of the franchise's favourites haunts – a spooky old dilapidated house in the middle of the night – things quickly spiral into a mash-up of VR-style first-person-shooter chaos as Aliens meets The Blair Witch Project. Swarming the team from all around come these zombie-like humans who appear to have been altered by alien DNA, brains sucked out of their heads to leave behind empty shells (the peek inside is suitably icky) acting on the telepathic orders of something in the attic. 'Stork' is a pretty efficient way to get the ball rolling, delivering plenty of lead-flinging action before a first-person POV chainsaw massacre ensues – including an excellent moment when a severed head slides down the blade towards the camera. It's only then that the creepy darkness of the attic beckons for the weird and icky denouement.

“I'd rather be normal.” The second story, 'Dream Girl', is directed by Virat Pal, who co-writes with Evan Dickson. Arnab (Sayandeep Sengupta) and Sonu (Rohan Joshi) are two low-down paparazzi guys who scheme their way onto a Bollywood film set to nab an exclusive behind-the-scenes peep at Tara (Namrata Sheth), the newest starlet on the scene. Hiding in her trailer, after a glitzy and catchy musical number, it is revealed that Tara is not all she seems to be and, naturally, the soundstage floor is soon awash with blood. The down-at-heel desperate plight of Arnab and Sonu works well, as they seek to exploit the rich and famous to scratch out a living in a harsh world, but the story feels a bit too vague, resorting to a lot of running around in the dark as people get chewed up and the crimson stuff gushes from every angle. Ultimately, this one felt a little ill-fitting to the theme.

“Oh God, I'm sat on my balls!” Next up is 'Live and Let Dive', one of the more stand-out segments of the film judging from viewer reactions, directed by Justin Martinez, who co-writes with Benjamin A. Turner. An annoying bunch of woo-hooing sky divers are out for a birthday celebration, only for their brush with adrenaline-seeking interrupted by the appearance of a UFO and the Air Force. Suddenly, their plane strikes the ever-shifting UFO and the inhabitants are tossed out into free fall. Landing in an orange grove, the beleaguered bunch are hunted down by some curious and unique-looking aliens, a segment that feels a little overlong and generic considering the more impressive sequences that bookend the story. It's also unfortunate that the sketch-thin characters are little more than cannon fodder, there to just run around and scream a lot. However, despite its decidedly mixed highs and lows, this story also contains the best jump scare of V/H/S/Beyond, precisely commanding the audience's attention to pull off the effective jolt.

“Humans are such entitled brutes.” Usually with the V/H/S series there is one story that just doesn't fit in with the rest, indeed that's often the case with many portmanteau horror anthologies (see Scare Package II), and so we come to 'Fur Babies' co-written and co-directed by Christian Long and Justin Long, the latter of whom no doubt brought along a dose of inspiration from his time on Kevin Smith's wonderfully weird horror flick Tusk. A squabbling bunch of activists have taken against a doggy day care centre due to the owner's fondness for taxidermy, and so they pose as prospective customers with some hidden cameras to expose the very talkative and very weird Becky (Libby Letlow), who lives with the lumbering curiosity that is Bo (Phillip Lundquist) and her selection of pets. This story is certainly gross and even manages to turn the stomach somewhat, but with absolutely zero connection to anything remotely extraterrestrial, its inclusion is confusing.

“Like, he saw it … visually?” Finally, we come to 'Stowaway', written by Mike Flanagan and directed by Kate Siegel, in which UFO-hunting Halley won't be winning any mother of the year awards thanks to her all-consuming obsession with 'greys', spaceships, and mysterious lights in the skies over the Mojave desert. YouTube and videogames personality Alanah Pearce brings a charm to her bumbling amateur documentarian, and this story certainly makes for a welcome up-tick in quality after a rather mixed time thus far. Introducing some interesting ideas and a strong visual style with the use of infrared vision to see the invisible, this entry does unfortunately lack some internal logic and, come the body horror climax, an over-reliance on obscured visuals. There's not wanting to show too much of the beast, as it were, a tried and true element of horror filmmaking, but then there's barely being able to even figure out what's happening.

“No reward for going home with extra ammo.” As the film wraps up with the concluding part of its framing story, the general sense of confusion and disappointment is unavoidable. What was the real purpose of the wraparound story, particularly as the reveal of what was on those two mysterious videotapes proves to be an underwhelming damp squib of a climax. Furthermore, 'Abduction/Adduction' feels quite disconnected from the five tales. The original V/H/S at least had the notion of the stories all being found on videotapes stacked inside a creepy old house, whereas here there's no real link – even the featured E.T. beasties would arguably be totally different species. Considering that V/H/S/85 had the neat surprise of linking multiple stories, it's a shame that V/H/S/Beyond never tries to provide any such linking material. Sticking to a specific theme in and of itself is not a bad idea, but with V/H/S/Beyond it seems to be too constrictive, and the scope of possibilities – the broad range of tone and sensibility on offer – is never mined for all its potential. On a random side-note, and in-keeping with the inclusion of YouTubers in the cast, there is a welcome cameo appearance from some of members of The Corridor Crew, a group of computer visual effects artists, in the wraparound story to analyse UFO footage for fakery.

“I wanted to go bowling.” It has become somewhat typical of the franchise, and V/H/S/Beyond is no different, that there is usually one-too-many stories crammed into the running time, which itself is generally too long. V/H/S/2 nailed it with three stories and a wraparound, clocking in at a thoroughly reasonable and efficient 96 minutes, the second shortest of the series (franchise low-point V/H/S/Viral was a mere 81 minutes). While the original movie is still the longest at 116 minutes, Shudder's four entries have all trended increasingly close to that two-hour mark: 103 minutes, 109 minutes, 110 minutes, and now 114 minutes – but too many stories, or one or more stories outstaying their welcome, has been a consistent yet abstract problem with the series. George A. Romero's 1982 team-up with Stephen King, the much-lauded fan favourite Creepshow is the exception to the rule that (in portmanteau horror) more is rarely more, thanks to its impressive hit-rate of all five tales being genuine classics in their own right. The V/H/S franchise has yet to achieve that, but this will be inherent in combining the visions of a multitude of filmmakers, instead of just one, across multiple stories.

“We're the ones under pressure.” Considering that the supposed focus of V/H/S/Beyond is for alien-themed stories, it's quite baffling that 'Fur Babies' was even included (it has absolutely nothing to do with aliens), while 'Dream Girl' feels similarly wide of the mark once the twist is revealed. While the franchise has always been successful in producing a wide variety of horror tales, and is commendable for frequently showcasing fresher talent and always including a non-English language story, a lack of consistency and rigorous oversight has nonetheless stalked V/H/S from the get-go and continues to frustrate. Despite numerous, albeit scattered, high points, V/H/S/Beyond ultimately stalls as frequently as it fires and must therefore be considered more like the disappointing V/H/S/99 (albeit ranking above it), rather than the mostly-quite-good V/H/S/94 or V/H/S/85 entries. This latest instalment is undoubtedly far superior to V/H/S/Viral, but with paper thin cannon fodder characters and muddled story ideas, it's too often below par of what could have otherwise been achieved.