Horror anthologies have been a part of the genre nearly since the beginning. Some have been great, like Tales from the Crypt and Creepshow, while many others have been forgettable. Like anything else in horror, from slashers to found footage, if it’s done too often, it loses its impact. The same thing happened with anthologies, but in 2012, they were given a breath of fresh air with V/H/S, which combined the short film approach with the realism of found footage. Created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting, V/H/S was one of the scariest films of the 2010s and helped launch the careers of the Radio Silence guys.

With the success of V/H/S, a franchise was born, which has resulted in six sequels of varying quality. Now we have the seventh film, V/H/S/Beyond, released on Shudder on October 4, which aims to shake things up a bit by making sci-fi the center of every story. Gone are short films that have to do with slashers or Earthly monsters and demons, but the same formula of shaky cams and a scared group of actors being chased by a monster is still part of every segment. Although the segments in V/H/S/Beyond are predictable, they are fun and well-made thanks to the involvement of big names such as Mike Flanagan, Kate Siegel, and Justin Long. If you enjoyed the previous V/H/S films, you’ll like this one too, just don’t expect any reinvention of the wheel.

‘V/H/S/Beyond’ Starts Off Strong With Its Best Segment
Image via Shudder

The direction of V/H/S/Beyond is given away in the title, as it seeks to give us monsters beyond the realms of our own planet. We can see that in the wraparound segments surrounding the short films, with Jay Cheel’s “Abduction/Adduction” taking the format of a docuseries about aliens, which sets out to explore whether life on other worlds truly exists. This puts us in the format for V/H/S/Beyond, but there is not as much of a storyline here as there’s been with wraparounds in other V/H/S films. “Abduction/Adduction” is about immersing its audience in the new themes, and it is effective in doing this.

The horror really begins with “Stork,” co-written and directed by Jordan Downey, the man who gave us ThanksKilling. That part of his resume might be off-putting to some (including this writer), but “Stork” is not a crude, amateurish, silly horror comedy. Instead, it’s pulse-pounding and terrifying. Through the video camera footage of a cop named Segura (Phillip Andre Botello), and the body cam footage of other police officers, we learn that several babies have gone missing in a local town over the past several months. Now, however, the cops have a lead about where the suspect is, so they prepare themselves for a raid on a creepy house at night. You can never go wrong with that setting. It’s what inside that is truly scary, and truly not human.

The police encounter several monsters inside the house, the vicious type who run straight at their target (which just so happens to be our TV screens) and who won’t go down without a couple of shots to the head. Their makeup is what truly sells “Stork” because these aren’t bad CGI creations, or nightmares hidden in the dark. We get to see them up close, and the realism of their design keeps the viewer engaged as the plot breaks down to feeling like a shoot ”em-up video game. And just wait until you see what waits in the attic. We won’t give away what it is, but let’s just say it’s played by Dane DiLeigro, who held the role of the Predator in Prey.

There’s nothing human about Virat Pal’s “Dream Girl” either, the first Indian segment in the franchise. It tags along with a two-man paparazzi team, including a young man named Sonu (Rohan Joshi) on the set of a Bollywood film. They are there to get photos of the beautiful Bollywood star, Tara (Namrata Sheth), and find themselves lucky to be invited on set to watch her perform. Not satisfied with this gracious amount of access, one of them decides to go much deeper behind the scenes into Tara’s life, discovering things not of this world that he’ll wish he stayed away from. “Dream Girl” might not be the scariest segment of the bunch, but it is one with the deepest message for our times. The final images speak to just how obsessed we are with famous actors. We don’t treat them like actual people, and in “Dream Girl,” they just might not be.

‘V/H/S/Beyond’ Falls Into a Redundant Pattern

While “Dream Girl” is creepy horror with a message, it also exposes a weakness with much of the rest of V/H/S/Beyond. The segments, like many others in the V/H/S franchise, follow the same old predictable formula of friends with a camera discovering something sinister, with that sinister presence then chasing our protagonists as the camera shakes wildly before they are killed one by one. It’s a funhouse for the eyes, but the ride isn’t as exciting if it has the same exact twists and turns as the ride we were just on. This is never more apparent than with “Live and Let Dive” from Radio Silence co-creator Justin Martinez. Here, skydivers are on a small plane filming themselves before their jump when they see a UFO in the distant sky. Curiosity turns to fear as the strange aircraft gets closer and the usual alien chaos ensues. This leads to some great midair shots, and an intriguing new design for the alien monsters, but the camerawork is more shaky than usual, so much so that even I, who has seen countless found footage films, had to turn away from the screen at times to avoid getting dizzy. The repeated jump scares and monsters who disappear simply so they can jump at the camera again quickly get exhausting. The premise is fun, but you’ve seen what happens next so many times before.

By far, the weirdest segment belongs to “Fur Babies,” written and directed by Justin Long and his brother, Christian Long. It deserves to be commended simply for not having a formula you can initially figure out, with a film crew of animal rights activists going to the home where a woman named Becky (Libby Letlow) runs a doggy daycare. Becky is by far the best character in V/H/S/Beyond. You know her type, the chipper, single middle-aged woman who wears sweaters and is obsessed with her pets, with excitement so over-the-top that it can’t be real. The animal rights crew takes in some hidden cameras to investigate Becky as they pretend to be interested in her services. It’s absolutely chilling to see ber going from exuberant to stone-dead quiet when she notices a camera. When she takes the crew down into the basement to show off her dog training studio, we get to see what Becky is really up to. It’s silly at times, and “Fur Babies” is the only segment that will make you laugh, but it’s also so messed up and disgusting that you’ll think twice about going to a doggy daycare next time.

‘Stowaway’ Comes from the Minds of Mike Flanagan and Kate Siegel
Image via Shudder

V/H/S/Beyond ends with “Stowaway,” written by one of the modern kings of horror, Mike Flanagan, and directed by his longtime collaborator and wife, Kate Siegel, in her directorial debut. With this coming from Mike Flanagan, “Stowaway” has to be the best segment, right? Sadly, for me, anyway, it was surprisingly the one that worked the least. There is pretty much only one character in this segment, a woman named Halley (Alanah Pearce) who is making a documentary exploring the strange lights seen in the Mojave Desert. It starts out as something akin to The Blair Witch Project, but when Halley follows the strange lights and steps onto an alien craft, it begins to fall apart. “Stowaway” does deserve credit for breaking free from the restraints of the V/H/S formula of shaking cameras, screaming, and rampaging monsters, for a story where we’re not given all the answers. But the camerawork is so dark and low-tech that it’s hard to tell what’s going on most of the time.

V/H/S/Beyond falls in the middle of the pack for the franchise. It’s not as terrifying as the first film, and nowhere near as bad as V/H/S/Viral. Instead, it’s more on par with recent entries. There will surely be more to come, but when they do, it’s time to change things up a bit somehow. It’s not enough to make more segments with different genres; it’s not really anything new. V/H/S needs to get rid of the shaky camera, and monsters-on-the-loose formula, and take a leap into new territory like “Stowaway” tried (just with better results, please). In 2012, V/H/S reinvented the found footage subgenre. Now it’s time to reinvent itself.

V/H/S/Beyond will be available to stream on Shudder in the U.S. on October 4.

WATCH ON SHUDDER