October not only signals a true beginning to fall, but also the approach of Halloween and the glorious deluge of horror flicks that comes with it. Content streamers capitalize on this time of the year by focusing on the horror genre during the season, but Shudder is dedicated year-round to horror as it is all that its catalogue consists of, and in more recent years they have also been producing and distributing their own films, one of the latest releases being V/H/S/Beyond, which might just be one of the best horror releases this Halloween season.
For those unfamiliar with the V/H/S franchise, it’s a series of anthology films that present a succession of found footage segments, each directed by a different filmmaker, depicting paranormal or just plain disturbing occurrences, tied together by an overarching narrative that plays out between the segments, thus transcending simple horror compilation status. There are now seven mainline entries in the franchise, featuring segments directed by many notable filmmakers, such Adam Wingard, Ti West, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Joe Swanberg, Eduardo Sánchez, Gareth Evans, Jason Eisener, Flying Lotus, Johannes Roberts, and Marvel’s latest darlings Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead.
V/H/S/Beyond is no different, featuring the talents of some notable filmmakers, most prominent of them all being Katie Siegel and her husband, the already legendary horror filmmaker Mike Flanagan, who respectively direct and write the final segment of the film. “Stowaway” centres on a woman who abandoned her husband and child to chase UFOs – with UFOs generally being the unifying element of the film as a whole – only to eventually find herself onboard an alien aircraft, but with dire consequences she could not have foreseen. There is also a segment written and directed by actor Justin Long and his brother Christian, who have waded into filmmaking in recent years, making their directorial debut with the fantasy comedy Lady of the Manor in 2021. The less that is said about their short “Fur Babies” the better as it could easily spoil the payoff, but suffice to say, it emphasises the psychological rather than the paranormal, with legitimate Human Centipede vibes. And yes, the results are gloriously fucked up!
However, the best segments are handled by the lesser known filmmakers. Jordan Downey’s “Stork” opens the V/H/S/Beyond with a bang, delivering unabashed B-movie thrills accompanied by over-the-top action, violence, and cheesy dialogue, making this apparent Evil Dead homage the perfect adrenaline cocktail to kickstart the anthology. It’s then followed by a narrative and cultural change of pace as Virat Pal takes us to India in “Dream Girl”, which features sharp commentary on our obsession with celebrity culture, mixing the pleasantly surprising social satire with some of the tightest horror beats in the entire movie. Though, it’s Justin Martinez’s “Live and Let Dive” that unquestionably steals the show. Martinez cleverly mixes skydiving gone wrong (cue sweaty palms) with UFO phenomenon, simultaneously inducing the adrenaline injection found in “Stork” with the gradually pervasive sense of horror seen in “Dream Girl”, taking its short narrative in directions I didn’t quite expect.
Each of these segments are woven together by Canadian filmmaker Jay Cheel, who wields his background as a documentarian to full effect by presenting V/H/S/Beyond as a documentary where he primarily interviews real-life author, host, and specialist in the occult, Mitch Horowitz. Cheel’s sharp, eloquent writing, which is at once both intro and extrospective, paired with Horowitz’s effortless delivery makes for the perfect segue into each short, while Cheel later brings in members of the special effects analysis YouTube channel Digital Corridor to add further credibility and verisimilitude to the film. This particular narrative gradually builds on a story about the son of successful Chinese immigrants in Toronto, wherein he believed that the Victorian era home he inherited is haunted and filmed one particular overnight experience, after which he went missing. While this approach is undeniably effective in presenting V/H/S/Beyond as a cohesive whole, the payoff is admittedly underwhelming, and perhaps the only glaring blemish in what is otherwise a solid horror flick.
It should also be noted that the cinematography can infrequently be frustrating (particularly in Katie Siegel’s “Stowaway”) or even nausea-inducing given the handheld nature of much of the footage, though Virat Pal does find clever ways of subverting the franchise’s inherent style in “Dream Girl”. Still, V/H/S/Beyond proves that the franchise is still very much at its peak twelve years after its inception, and I would recommend this instalment not just to the horror aficionados, but also anyone looking for a horror to watch on Halloween night and, well, beyond.
8/10
