As a fan of anthology films, I have really come to get excited every fall, since we have gotten a new V/H/S film every year for the past few years, and it’s a tradition that I hope will continue. This series is one of my favorites, consistently delivering fun, creative entries from a variety of different creative talents. V/H/S/Beyond shifts gears a bit and brings six horror shorts with a sci-fi bend. Aliens, body horror, and strange phenomena abound, along with musical numbers, fly through the air at breakneck speeds with some gnarly special effects. It’s pretty freaking great!
Stork: Directed by Jordan Downey and written by Downey and Kevin Stewart, Stork follows a police unit as they take on the most terrifying night of their lives. Over the past year, there have been a rash of kidnappings involving infants across the city. Intel has led investigators to a run-down house, and when the film opens, a unit is preparing to go in and raid the place. They are ready and determined and know that tonight will finally put an end to the horrors that have plagued the community for the past few months. What they encounter is far more terrifying and strange than your standard kidnapping ring.
Downey employs a somewhat rigid visual style here that is reminiscent of a video game. The events are being recorded via body cam footage, so we see a lot of shots of long hallways, turning corners, moving through doorways and the like as the unit progresses further and further into the house. They are carting a ton of firepower with them, but it won't be nearly enough for what they find.
Fur Babies: From Justin Long and Christian Long comes a funny (and surprisingly disturbing) tale about the scariest dog lady you’ve ever met. You know the one - she’s overly sweet, seems harmless, and is VERY obsessed with her precious doggies. She also has some pretty fucked up secrets in her basement.
When an animal rights group decides to infiltrate her dog sitting service to investigate reports of abuse, their simple ruse is quickly upended and they find themselves at the hands of the strangest psychopath they have ever seen. This woman has a bit of Annie Wilkes in her, so she is hilariously unhinged and unpredictable in equal measure. There is a lot of humor in this one (no dogs are hurt, I promise) and it goes to some fantastically strange places.
Live and Let Dive: I will never go skydiving. Ever. The idea of plummeting through the air, potentially to my death, is not really something that has ever appealed to me. But add in an alien invasion, and my response goes from “No” to “HELL NO.”
Written by Ben Turner and Justin Martinez (and directed by Martinez), this segment opens up in a plane as a group of friends prepare to go skydiving as part of a birthday celebration. Before they jump, they spot a UFO out the window of the plane. Suddenly, they are surrounded by military aircraft and their plane is torn to pieces, leaving them to plummet helplessly toward the ground.
But they all have parachutes, so everything should be okay, right? Not so much. Because the real alien encounters start after they reach the ground again.
This one is a lot of fun (though the skydiving sequence, while impressive, left me feeling dizzy). The creature design is solid and Martinez crafts a story that takes us from pre-jump anxiety to adrenaline-fueled terror as we fall through the sky to a primal fear as our characters are hunted by the alien creatures after they hit the ground.
Dream Girl: Directed by Virat Pal (and co-written by Evan Dickson), Dream Girl is a story that takes on identity, technology, and musical numbers. A pair of photographers infiltrate the set where a starlet is recording her new music video. One of them hides in her trailer to try to get some exclusive shots, but winds up witnessing more than he expected.
We haven’t yet had a V/H/S entry with a musical number, so this one immediately scores some points there. It’s super fun and the video helps to establish the world and this woman's place in it. They dig even deeper into this when we are with the photographer, spying on her from her trailer closet.
Stowaway: Directed by Kate Siegel, from a script written by Mike Flanagan, Stowaway is an effectively creepy and emotionally affecting story about a scientist who investigates some strange lights in the sky and encounters a strange alien vessel. This piece proceeds slowly and builds tension throughout. The design of the ship is amazing, particularly given the limited budget. It is very other in nature and has a bit of a biological look, but not in the often used, Giger-esque way.
The thing that really sells this one for me is that the story establishes an emotional anchorpoint for this character early on, so as she advances farther into the ship and becomes more and more entrances by what she sees, there is an underlying tension there in that we know how much she as to lose if this journey goes sideways.
A Special Presentation: The wrap-around film for this anthology comes from Jay Cheel, and focuses on a beautiful home with a very strange story. It presents itself as a documentary, interviewing both skeptics and believers on the nature of unexplained phenomena, and asking them to weigh in on the validity of the evidence that has been put forward.
As we know, some folks are all in on a lot of these stories and theories, and others need a bit more convincing. Or, might be completely closed off to the possibility. This one is fun because Cheel pulls in several specialists, including YouTube's The Corridor Crew to serve as experts in the art of creating and faking some of the footage that has been presented up as evidence. It’s a great segment and a perfect wrap-around for the entire package.
-
Another V/H/S movie to make your Halloween spectacular! It’s always fun to see what this series comes up with, and this entry sees it stretching in new and exciting ways. The sci-fi angle opens up a lot of different doors, while still keeping one foot firmly in the horror genre. This is a really solid entry and fans are going to be very happy with the result.
Movie Score: 5/5
Emily von Seele hails from Seattle, where it rains a lot, which gives her plenty of excuses to stay inside and watch movies. She has written for Bloody Disgusting, Daily Dead, the Women in Horror Annual and Grim Magazine, and is co-host of the Dead Ringers podcast. You can usually catch Emily on Twitter (@horrorellablog), where she has been known to gab excessively about movies and tweet adorable pics of her two cats - seriously, they are the cutest ever.
Daily Dead's Official Podcast! Daily Dead's Official Podcast!
