Welcome to the 31 Days of Horror Redux, a month-long celebration of genre filmmaking. Last time around, I made the recommendations. This time, I will be watching 31 days of films that are completely new to me. I hope you will join me on this journey of discovery.
Day 4: V/H/S/Beyond, various directors
We talked about horror anthologies a bit in our last entry, and the original V/H/S film is one of the best in the subgenre’s long history. The directors on that first project comprise a who’s who of modern independent horror: Ti West (The House of the Devil, the X trilogy), Adam Wingard (Blair Witch, The Guest), and the Radio Silence team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not, Scream 5 and 6). And that’s not to mention David Bruckner, Chad Villella, and mumblecore legend Joe Swanberg. It’s a remarkable collection of talent that came together to produce a truly singular work of art.
Hollywood being Hollywood, that singular piece of art has now been turned into a seven-film (and counting) franchise. While consistently fun, the quality is much more hit and miss than you’d like to see after the excellence of the first two films. V/H/S/Beyond, however, is the best in the franchise since those first two efforts. It is more focused, visceral, and terrifying than any of the preceding four entries (Viral, 94, 99, and 85).
One of the underrated aspects of a great anthology is the wraparound segment, the connective tissue that brings all of the stories together. This is what makes the original Tales from the Hood such an excellent film. A mortician explaining the circumstances of his clientele’s deaths is tailor-made for this format. The first V/H/S has a fantastic conceit: Burglars break into a home and discover a trove of bizarre and disturbing VHS tapes. As a general rule, the stronger the connective tissue, the stronger the anthology.
In the case of V/H/S/Beyond, the basic premise is that we are watching the footage from two VHS tapes that purport to show proof of extraterrestrial life. These tapes are incorporated into a History Channel-style alien documentary, directed by Jay Cheel. This section includes interviews with real-life paranormal experts and investigators like Mitch Horowitz, Brian Baker, and the Corridor Digital YouTube folks.
This is a strong backbone for an anthology, particularly considering that all of the previous films in the series essentially say, ‘Here’s a bunch of wild stuff that was caught on tape,’ and leave it at that. Now, at least one of the six shorts presented here – and probably two depending on your interpretation of Dream Girl – doesn’t have anything to do with aliens, so I would not begrudge anyone arguing it does not have the strength of its convictions. But, the point stands that these are largely connected and add up to a satisfying whole.
The two best segments do directly engage with the premise: Humans encounter aliens. The first, chronologically, is Live and Let Die, directed by Justin Martinez, a co-founder of Radio Silence along with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett. In this short, the action is caught on GoPros worn by a group of friends on a skydiving trip. When a UFO shoots down the plane they are in, some survive the fall, and some don’t. Those who don’t are the lucky ones.
What follows is a wonderfully tense chase sequence through an orchard as the survivors are stalked by alien beasts. The cat-and-mouse game is given plenty of space to breathe as our main survivor, Zach, from whose POV we see the action, alternates between running for safety and running toward the danger as he seeks to help his screaming friends. The alien effects are good, the POV-style action is exhilarating, and the ending is a thrill.
The other best segment is the final sequence, not counting the wraparound, Stowaway. Directed by Kate Siegel and written by her husband, Mike Flanagan (he of Ouija: Origin of Evil), this short packs the biggest emotional wallop of anything in this anthology, which is no surprise coming from this duo. The sequence stars Alanah Pearce as Halley, a woman who we learn has given up everything – her husband, her daughter, her former life – in pursuit of proving the existence of extraterrestrials.
The slow burn of revelation in Stowaway is its greatest effect, so I will not reveal much more than to say that when Halley achieves her goal, it is much more than she bargained for. Pearce is great as a woman who is aware that her obsession could cost her everything but cannot stop herself. The writing is all heartbreaking setups and payoffs, and the direction is suitably stomach-churning. This is not just the best short of this film, but one of the best in the franchise.
Briefly touching on the others: The opener, Stork, directed by Jordan Downey, is positioned as a kind of first-person shooter video game with a crew of cops tracking down a kidnapping ring and instead discovering something much more horrifying. I am generally not a fan of this kind of shoot-’em-up aesthetic in which good guys with guns (and, in this case, badges) solve all the problems. As such, this short is fun but slight.
Dream Girl, directed by Virat Pal, follows two Mumbai paparazzi tasked with getting exclusive footage of the latest Bollywood star. Of course, nothing is what it seems, and things go wildly off the rails in the way things tend to do in these shorts. What is interesting here is that for a couple minutes at least, we get a full-on Bollywood-style musical sequence. It’s an unexpected delight and an unnerving digression, given everything else going on around it.
Finally, there is Fur Babies, co-directed by actor Justin Long and his brother, Christopher Long. This is a lot of fun, and it’s creepy and gross in the best ways, but I have to talk about one aspect of it that requires me to spoil the big reveal. So if you want to go in blind, skip the next paragraph.
Spoiler paragraph: The secret of this film is that the woman who runs a doggy daycare (Libby Letlow) is kidnapping humans and turning them into dogs by sewing the pieces of dead dogs onto them, including their full jaws, which is a suitably horrifying image. However, this is the exact plot of the 2014 Kevin Smith movie Tusk, which stars Justin Long. Yes, the Smith movie is about a walrus, not dogs, but nevertheless, it is the same story. I don’t know what it says that Long starred in Tusk then felt the need to create this specific short, but there is definitely something under the surface there.
End spoilers.
The V/H/S series has become an annual tradition at Shudder, and if the entries continue to be as strong as this, I will continue to be excited for future installments. For posterity’s sake, my ranking of the seven films in the franchise:
1. V/H/S (2012)
2. V/H/S/2 (2013)
3. V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
4. V/H/S/85 (2023)
5. V/H/S/94 (2021) … Hail, Raatma
6. V/H/S/99 (2022)
7. V/H/S/Viral (2014)
