V/H/S BEYOND (2024)

V/H/S Beyond (2024)
Directed by: Christian Long, Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Kate Siegel, Virat Pal
Written by: Benjamin A. Turner, Christian Long, Evan Dickson, Jordan Downey, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Kevin Stewart, Mike Flanagan, Oleg Vdovenko, Virat Pal

V/H/S BEYOND (2024)
Available on  Blu-ray, DVD and Digital

I’m beginning to lose count how many V/H/S anthologies there have been (I believe this is the seventh), but with no signs of the films slowing down, in what appears to be one produced every year as of late, you’d think that they’d be running out of material, but that’s certainly not the case. In V/H/S BEYOND, we’re taken on a journey that explores life outside of our own, of extra terrestrial beings and the not so human.

Kickstarting the six story anthology is an alien documentary by Jay Cheel, who presents an investigation into UFO sightings, focusing on a particular house once owned by Chinese immigrants that is said to have had visitations. The eldest son, who lived at the property alone after the death of his parents, sought proof of visits in the night and recorded footage, of which two tapes have been recovered.

In STORK, a number of babies have been snatched in the community and a group of cops operating under the name of WARDEN think they have a lead on where the kidnapped children are being held. With one of the WARDEN members the father to one of the missing babies, the team know they need to strike fast and hard. Armed with guns, they raid the property but what’s waiting for them is nothing they could have anticipated.

Shot in first-person shaky cam, thanks to the newbie member of the team ‘Bodybag’ on camera duty, this short feels like a live-action Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead (one of the characters looks like Bill). It’s quite up-tempo and thrilling to watch once the action starts and doesn’t really relent, only allowing enough breathing room for fear to build about what horrors lie ahead. The resulting creature they encounter is a bit laughable, considering the short is quite serious in many ways, but the design of the monster is well done, even though I wish it hadn’t perhaps opted for that specifically. It feels a little tongue-in-cheek as a result.

In DREAM GIRL, two paparazzi in Mumbai manage to sneak into the Bollywood studio lot and trailer of Bollywood starlet Tara with the aim to snap some candid photos. Having blown up on the scene out of seemingly nowhere two years earlier, Tara’s success has gained the envy of budding actors everywhere, but is there more to this superstar than meets the eye?

I really enjoyed the build up of this as we see the paps trying to get some footage to sell to the paper. The resulting turn of events plays with the idea of perfection, celebrity and always performing, how some people, especially in business, push people beyond natural limits. When we look at present day and some companies’ quest to get more out of people at the same time as paying them less, the result comes as no surprise.

If you’re scared of heights, you’ll probably want to give LIVE AND LET DIVE a wide berth as a group of friends on a skydive for a pal’s birthday end up fighting for their lives when the aeroplane they’re travelling in collides with a UFO. This is proper heart-in-the-mouth stuff as it straddles both disaster movie and sci-fi horror as merely surviving the fall is only one part of the story. Landing in an orange grove means the survivors are unable to easily see and find one another nor know just what is hiding just around the corner…

Christian and Justin Long showcase a doggy day care with a difference in their short FUR BABIES which, if you’re familiar with Justin’s work, won’t be too much of a surprise where the story leads. Whilst the narrative is fine and there’s lots of dark humour, it’s not a patch on the work that no doubt inspired it. I personally would have liked them to have taken a different approach rather than retreading familiar ground.

Kate Siegel’s directorial debut STOWAWAY, penned by husband Mike Flanagan, is one of despair after a woman on the search for extra-terrestrial life gets more than she bargained for when she investigates an alien spacecraft that has crash-landed in the Mojave desert. Her curiosity as an independent journalist gets the better of her and goes to show it’s better to leave well alone…

As far as V/H/S instalments go, this is a fairly decent effort with no duff entries but no real jaw-droppers either. Each satisfies in its own storyline, with LIVE AND LET DIVE and STOWAWAY offering some intriguing alien escapades for those looking to scratch that itch. In fact, these two could easily be explored further if the filmmakers wished, especially as there’s been a significant lack of extra-terrestrial movies in recent years.