A Pivot to Sci-Fi Offers Limited Inspiration for V/H/S/Beyond

For a streamer like Shudder, there’s nothing more valuable in a potential piece of flagship, marquee content than a recognizable name and IP. Rest assured, they could produce a competent horror anthology for release on any given year, assembling a who’s who of notable indie genre film directors, but said film would have little to no guarantee of attracting an audience or making any kind of splash upon release. Name it V/H/S/____, on the other hand, and you can rest easy knowing that there’s a ready-make community out there that is ready to jump aboard and appraise that new entry. And this dependence on a format has been both the allure and the pitfall of the series ever since Shudder revived it with the surprisingly visceral and effective V/H/S/94 in 2021. They’ve been chasing that high ever since with annual releases, but (correctly) assessed this time around that the series needed a new conceptual wrinkle to stave off the encroaching entropy of revisiting the found footage franchise each and every year. And that’s how we’ve ended up with V/H/S/Beyond, which purports to break new ground for the horror anthology series, but in truth is mostly comfortable alongside its past installments. What we have here is just a tighter thematic focus, which works for a handful of its higher-quality segments, but makes other entries read more oddly than they would otherwise.

The new bauble is sci-fi, if that wasn’t clear–and not just in a general sense, but in the very specific one of “alien sci-fi.” That would represent a significantly more focused prompt for the filmmakers contributing segments, but not necessarily a novel one–we should note that there are actually alien sci-fi installments in not just the original V/H/S (“The Sick Thing That Happened to Emily When She Was Younger”) but also V/H/S/2 (“Slumber Party Alien Abduction”). This reality, that there’s nothing new under the sun when it comes to this series, is something that is perpetually difficult to shake off.

But with that said, much of V/H/S/Beyond actually does feel more fresh and novel than the last few entries in the series, such as the particularly derivative V/H/S/99 and V/H/S/85. Those entries couldn’t seem to help themselves from habitually cribbing from earlier anthology segments of the series, and although those moments do reprise from time to time in Beyond, it also features long stretches that are free from such comparisons. Its settings are largely its own, which is to its advantage, and they almost all serve its theme nicely, with one glaring exception.

Framing device story “Abduction/Adduction,” written and directed by Jay Cheel, is an interesting exercise in blurring the lines of documentary and meta-horror filmmaking, thanks to his use of recognizable faces from around the world of indie filmmaking and YouTube content generation, all of whom are basically playing themselves. It serves to frame the subsequent tape entries–the anthology segments–as revolving specifically around UFOs and alien encounters, but doesn’t do the best job of giving context to the individual pieces of footage we watch, often feeling totally disconnected from them. It’s more like the anthology segments have been edited in haphazardly to an existing TV documentary on UFOs and alien abduction, leading us to wonder who exactly was supposed to be the kayfabe editor of the master tape we’re now watching. Tonally, this framing device has a bit in common with David Bruckner’s “Total Copy” from V/H/S/85, being studded throughout the runtime in a similar way, although it mostly just sets mood rather than feeling like a main feature, with the exception of its disturbing final moments.

Jordan Downey’s “Stork,” on the other hand, hits the ground running and immediately starts delivering the messy genre goods, with a sense of speed that is almost comical–it’s as if the writer-director was afraid you’d leave the room if he didn’t start stacking bodies immediately when the police crew we’re following first enters a cursed abode full of monsters. This actually will make perfect sense to those who have seen Downey’s infamous Thankskilling, though, a film that once promised the payoff of “boobs in the first second,” ultimately being exactly as crass (but thankfully hilarious) as that oath would imply. His “Stork” sets the hook for V/H/S/Beyond immediately, being an action-packed hybrid of Doom and Dead Alive that ends up functioning as an FX, gore and bullet play showcase. Of all the entries here, it feels the most like what the median viewer probably expects to find in any given V/H/S installment, which is perhaps why it leads off. It never quite ascends to the absolutely gonzo FPS carnage of Timo Tjahjanto’s “The Subject” from V/H/S/94, but it also doesn’t skimp on the creative bloodletting, building to a wackadoo conclusion that doesn’t hold back from paying off in straightforward, direct fashion, unafraid to be linear. Downey knows what this audience wants, and he gives it to them like a professional.

The same could also be said of “Live and Let Dive,” the film’s most creatively rich and ambitiously shot segment from director Justin Martinez. I didn’t immediately recognize the name, but Martinez actually has a pretty prominent connection to series history, being an original member of the Radio Silence filmmaking collective that also included Tyler Gillett, Matt Betinelli-Olpin and Chad Villella when they co-directed the FX-driven segment “10/31/98” for the original V/H/S. Here, Martinez leans into technological showmanship again in a story that begins aboard a plane with a group of birthday revelers preparing to skydive, before it all goes very wrong. Of course, you already have an idea of where we’re going before the UFO appears in the sky next to them, but nothing can still prepare you for the sheer thrill of plummeting toward the ground as a pair of gangly aliens make their move. Both primary settings–the plane/open air and the orange orchard the protagonist crash lands in–perfectly suit this short film, offering first boundless space and then maze-like constriction as the characters try to evade the alien menace. There’s just enough limited character building before the series of big, gory payoffs begin, leaning into moments of unadulterated chaos during the 20,000 foot plunge, and then piling on more and more in effectively gratuitous fashion. To its credit, “Live and Let Dive” continues on for a while after you’re expecting the simple premise to conclude, putting its viewpoint character well and truly through the wringer.

Also strong, though significantly more contemplative, is actress-turned-director Kate Siegel’s debut segment “Stowaway,” written by husband and cottage horror industry Mike Flanagan. This one is effectively a solo performance by actress Alanah Pearce as a wounded woman searching for some meaning in a series of mysterious lights in the desert sky. Naturally, this leads her someplace that she really shouldn’t be going, but it gives an opportunity for “Stowaway” to more deeply evoke the true meaning of “alien” in a way that the other shorts don’t really attempt to get at, because they’re more busy delivering genre building blocks. Spliced throughout, footage of the younger woman (that she is consciously choosing to tape over) hints at the disappointments that made her into the questing person she has become. It’s good to have at least one more cerebral installment in an anthology of this nature, which Siegel and “Stowaway” provides, though its garbled imagery sometimes verges on the totally inscrutable, while also presenting a major case of “Wait, how did we get this footage?” That can all be forgiven, though, seven entries into a horror anthology series. It doesn’t pay to demand much reality of these things.

Less engaging off the bat is director Virat Pal’s “Dream Girl,” which does at least provide an entirely different aesthetic than any previous entry. Taking place largely on the set/behind the scenes of a Bollywood movie, it might be the first V/H/S entry not primarily written for the English language, so there’s no denying that it feels pretty novel in its setup, as a pair of paparazzi stalk a superstar performer to snap candid photos. What they find, on the other hand, is surely more or less what the audience would expect, and whatever minimalist commentary is being made on the expendability of performers or anxiety related to A.I. bastardization of the creative process is mostly trampled under derivative chaos as the resulting antagonist runs amok on the set. “Dream Girl” drags its feet big time when it comes to the reveal of said science fiction element, with entire music numbers that feel perfunctory rather than adding anything significant to the genuine horror sequences that come afterward. Even one of the goopiest death sequences feels itself largely lifted from the face-melting conclusion of Chloe Okuno’s “Storm Drain” in V/H/S/94. I’m going to need directors in this series to start looking at the prior films a bit more closely, when it comes to dreaming up scenes of violence.

And that brings us to the near tonal derailment of “Fur Babies,” the segment written and directed by Christian Long and Justin Long, which might well end up being the most divisive of the entries in V/H/S/Beyond. Revolving around a deranged dog trainer–played with wonderful verve and eccentricity by actress Libby Letlow–who is more or less moonlighting as the mad scientist from Tusk, “Fur Babies” has a pleasantly sick sense of humor, but feels like a segment designed for an entirely different V/H/S installment. It’s connected to the theme by only the most delicate connective tissue of theoretical “science fiction,” but when Cheel’s framing device segment spends its every waking moment exclusively discussing aliens/UFOs between every other segment, “Fur Babies” stands out in a way that becomes bizarre and out of place. If Beyond‘s theme had genuinely been a wider slice of sci-fi, the shift here would feel a little less abrupt or unearned, but having every bit of the framing device be about extraterrestrial life ends up establishing tight parameters that the rest of the anthology really should live up to. The inclusion of “Fur Babies” ends up feeling like a practical joke or padding as a result, which doesn’t feel particularly fair to the directors, who may well have been entirely unaware how close the rest of the segments would be hewing to a tighter central theme. The segment itself is alright, buoyed mostly by Letlow giving one the better performances we’ve seen in these anthologies, but simply eliminating it entirely would help Beyond feel that much more cohesive.

At the end of the day, the V/H/S franchise still feels like a prisoner to some extent, trapped in a series of boundaries of its own making. The idea of a science fiction offshoot is a good one, but that’s just one element in a series that is still 7 films deep on found footage horror, and it can only make this Beyond feel distinct in a relatively modest way. If these films continue with annual releases, what do you do next? V/H/S/Beyonder? V/H/S/Fable? The strong results of segments like “Stork,” “Live and Let Dive” and “Stowaway” buy the series a brief reprieve for now, but the yearly releases feel increasingly like a beast that will never be satiated.

Directors: Jordan Downey, Virat Pal, Justin Martinez, Christian Long and Justin Long, Kate Siegel, Jay Cheel
Starring: Dane DiLiegro, Alanah Pearce, Phillip Andre Botello, Namrata Sheth, Libby Letlow
Release Date: October 4, 2024 (Shudder)

Jim Vorel is Paste’s Movies editor and resident genre geek. You can follow him on Twitter for more film writing.