V/H/S/BEYOND - Mark Reviews Movies

V/H/S/Beyond, Shudder

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 3, 2024

With its seventh installment, the horror anthology series figuratively and, perhaps, literally goes to space. This description may make V/H/S/Beyond sound as if it's a jump-the-shark moment for this franchise, and honestly, one kind of wishes that was the case. At this point, the series jumping anything other than the low bar of not having too many bad segments would be a nice change of pace.

There aren't any overtly terrible shorts in this newest entry, so that's the good news. The unfortunate news is that only one of them really succeeds from its concept, through its execution, and until its sudden but appropriate ending. Of the remaining five, the majority of them come up with a neat foundation, but when the conceit of an anthology movie is picking various filmmakers and hoping for the best, the results probably won't be ideal.

This installment does at least have a running theme, beyond the series' central gimmick of framing its horror tales as found-footage evidence of strange occurrences—usually found on old pieces of physical media. The core of these stories is based in science-fiction, with four of them incorporating aliens into their brief narratives. That might seem to point toward a lack of imagination on the parts of this collection of filmmakers, but then again, the two segments that don't have aliens are the weakest of the mediocre lot.

There's an obvious contradiction in there—between wanting something new from this franchise but pointing out that the most superficially distinct shorts are the least successful ones. We'll just have to let it hang there, because it's probably not worth the effort of dissecting in the case of this series in general or this movie in particular.

It is a decent place to start with the segments, at least. The two alien-free shorts are "Dream Girl," directed by Virat Pal (written by Pal and Evan Dickson), and "Fur Babies," written and directed by the fraternal pair of Christian and Justin Long. The first of those is set in Mumbai and follows a pair of paparazzi (played by Rohan Joshi and Sayandeep Sengupta). After failing to get decent photos of one celebrity, the two sneak onto the set of a music video for a famous actress and singer's newest tune.

The artist is Tara (Namrata Sheth), and after wasting a lot of time showing the music video in its flashy emptiness, Pal eventually reveals a secret about the singer. Since it's the only surprise of the segment, that part won't be divulged here, but the fact that it results in a lot of bloody violence will. What else could happen? Well, anything else might have been favorable, but it's obvious the filmmakers can't think of anything except, well, the obvious.

"Fur Babies" is slightly amusing in a demented way, as representatives of an animal rights organization infiltrate a dog kennel run by canine enthusiast Becky (Libby Letlow). After investigating and questioning the proprietor, the activists learn what she's really up to with the place, but once the punch line arrives, the story keeps going for some reason with a lot of bloody violence. What else could happen?

That brings us to the alien-centered segments, with "Live and Let Dive" being the clear highlight of the entire project. Directed by co-writer Justin Martinez (with Ben Turner also writing the script), it's a doozy of momentum-building, as a birthday skydiving adventure is interrupted by the sight of a UFO outside the plane. It's really all about velocity—from fighter jets screeching past the plane, to the occupants finding themselves in freefall, to a chase through an orange grove, to how the poor birthday boy finds himself face-to-something with alien technology.

Two of the remaining three shorts get isolated presentations, while the third is spread out as a shaky framing device for the anthology. Serving as the first standalone segment, the one co-written and directed by Jordan Downey (with Kevin Stewart as co-screenwriter) won't be named, because it might give away the piece's ridiculous villain, which looks like a flayed iteration of a famous and very tall children's puppet. It has a team of rogue cops investigating the abduction of babies in the area, but it's mostly an excuse for a lot of first-person-view shooting at zombie-like entities. It becomes repetitive quickly.

Katie Siegel, a regular horror actress, directed and Mike Flanagan, a regular horror filmmaker (who often collaborates with Siegel and is married to her), wrote "Stowaway," which follows independent documentarian Halley (Alanah Pearce) as she looks into mysterious lights appearing the sky in the Mojave Desert. After the noise and gore of the other shorts, this one's quieter approach feels admirable. Its exposition-heavy monologues, somewhat explaining what happens when Halley looks inside one of those lights, are less so, as is its anticlimactic resolution.

Speaking of anticlimaxes, there's writer/director Jay Cheel's "A Special Presentation," the framing narrative of V/H/S/Beyond, which promises shocking footage of an alien and gives us a medical procedure instead. It does feature one ingenious idea by introducing a team of visual-effects experts who debunk videos of alleged alien encounters. As you can probably guess from the rest of the movie, this segment doesn't take advantage of that potentially novel conceit.

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