Review: V/H/S/Beyond
Jun. 12th, 2025 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rogueslayer452V/H/S/Beyond is the latest installment of the V/H/S found footage horror franchise. This one centers on the concept of aliens, and following the themes of abduction and experimentation.
Frame Narrative: "Abduction/Adduction"
The frame narrative is done in a documentary style, something similar to what you'd see on Netflix, which focuses on the topic of an unnamed man who had mysteriously disappeared after recording evidence of what he claimed were strange things happening to him in the middle of the night, and those videotapes were found and uploaded digitally for those being interviewed to decipher the validity of these claims. Now, I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely sold on this particular frame narrative because the modern documentary-style did unfortunately lose the immersion just a bit, however I understood what they were going for and how it all ties into the themes of the rest of the segments, and I did like them delving into the fictitious history of this man and also the real world history of the fascination of aliens, the claims of encounters and the continuous searching for proof that supposedly exists out there. Still, in comparison to the previous frame narratives of the franchise this isn't my favorite.
"Stork"
The first segment focuses on a police investigation task force that is tracking the mysterious disappearances of children, leading them to a supposedly abandoned house where they encounter zombie-like creatures which then leads them to a gigantic stork-like alien creature in the attic where it has been sucking out the brains of people (turning them into these zombie-like beings) and feeding it to the stolen babies (which were taken by these zombie-like followers) and turning these babies into some kind of mutated monstrosities.
What I liked about this segment was how gruesome it was, along with how creative it was, both the design of how the zombified people were to the stork-alien itself. Plus there was a lot of things left purposefully unexplained, as is the case with the majority of V/H/S stories, but that makes it even more lived-in and of the moment and interesting. The task force reminded me of the frame narrative from V/H/S/94, especially with the over-the-top tough-ass attitude of some of the members, however it's revealed that this task force is made specifically for being monster hunters. The little Easter eggs in their little investigation board features things from previous installments, which is a nice little bonus for fans but because we know all of this takes place in the same universe it demonstrates that there are forces being organized to take down some of the strange shit that is going on. It's a great way to start off the movie by having such an action-packed, bloody, and intriguing story, and one that had a happier ending than most of them.
"Dream Girl"
The second segment follows two paparazzo in India as they are instructed by their boss to get exclusive footage of Bollywood's newest star, Tara, who seemingly rose to popularity overnight which spawned some online rumors about her being involved with witchcraft. However, after one of the paparazzi members consoles her after her manager berates her in her dressing room, she is revealed to actually be a robot who takes the advice given to her to heart and breaks free from the chains of her abusive manager who created her, making her go on a murderous rampage.
Although this one isn't about aliens necessarily, it seems that Tara isn't your regular robot since she excessively pukes out some kind of acidic liquid onto her manager that kills him instantly, so there could be some kind of otherworldly elements by creating her. Nevertheless, I really liked this one as well since I'm quite a sucker for robots, and seeing how mistreated and feeling trapped in the role that her manager created her for (quite literally), I was immediately rooting for her even when she went on her murder spree. No, especially when she went on her murder spree. I really liked how she used her music as her empowering element in the end when she was killing everyone.
Also? The song itself, "Goddess", is quite a bop.
"Live And Let Dive"
A group of people are on a plane ready to go skydiving in honor of their friend Zach's birthday, but before they could they all suddenly see a visible spaceship blinking in and out of existence, however this causes the plane to malfunction and the spaceship appears before it causes the plane to crash, having everyone falling and needing to deploy their parachutes immediately. Zach, who is in possession of the camera on his person, miraculously survives the fall as did some of the others, however it doesn't last long as an aliens are pursuing them, taking them out one by one.
I felt very bad for Zach because this is a guy who was terrified of heights, who clearly didn't want to go skydiving for his birthday but felt pressured by his friends, only for the worst possible thing to happen and the trauma just kept on coming. The irony being that even when he tries to make his escape after everything, he is still being transported up into the alien spaceship. What happened to him afterwards is a mystery, leaving his fate unknown because we see that he is being ambushed by the aliens from aboard the ship, but the camera and the white blaring light makes it unclear of what is happening. Was he abducted? Did they kill him? If the latter, why do it on their ship and not on the ground like they did with everyone else? It also gives us questions as to whether these aliens were there to be violent and attack humanity, or if they were just there appearing and felt like they were under attack and that the small plane was the same as the military jets going after their spaceship and therefore deemed the skydivers as threats? Again, we'll most likely not get answers, but it's still fun to speculate all the possibilities.
"Fur Babies"
An animals activist group sends two of their own to investigate a woman who runs a doggy daycare center and believes she is performing taxidermy on dogs that she kills, however things quickly start going south when she gives the pair a tour of her home where she reveals her true colors of kidnapping and psychologically torturing people who she deems are "naughty" for asking too many personal questions and is physically turning them into her dead dogs.
Looking at who wrote and directed this segment, it's very clear as to why this seems familiar since Justin Long starred in Tusk which features quite similar elements. This segment also reminded me a bit of an episode of Night Visions with a story called, "The Doghouse". So while this doesn't feature aliens, it does have the fucked up abduction and experimentation angle of "taking humans and turning them into something they're not", with the juxtaposition of the woman's bubbly personality and demeanor making it very unnerving. Of course, the victims aren't entirely blameless either since their amateurish way of approaching this investigation was not smart or subtle at all. So, this was very uncomfortable and unnerving, but knowing wrote this makes it click into place as to why from the visuals and tone of the story itself.
"Stowaway"
The final segment has a young woman named Halley who traveled to the Mojave Desert to document findings of possible extraterrestrial encounters that she had heard about in the area. She sees several lights hovering in the night sky, with one of them falling away from the others and she goes searching to where it had gone. She finds a spacecraft and goes to investigate its interior, which is where she is in awe with its structure, but ultimately her distractions and inexperience becomes her biggest downfall.
I adored this story because it's the only one featured where the extraterrestrial beings are actually benevolent, they don't seem to want to cause harm at all. Rather, they are mere explorer and scientists taking small animals from Earth before disappearing (and possibly reappearing to return them back). It's a quite different and refreshing approach to the typical malevolent aliens angle that we're used to seeing, especially in this franchise. It's also a good exploration of the concept of human curiosity, that even with good intentions it can distract us from being smart and ultimately lead us astray. It's implied that Halley abandoned her husband and daughter to pursue this personal investigation of hers, which seems almost like an obsession from the way she talks. It's clear that she needs this to be a success in order to justify her leaving her family behind, so when she finally sees the spacecrafts and finds the one that lands to investigate this enthusiasm blinds her from acting smart. She touches things without knowing what they are or do, she rambles on and on when she needs to put the camera down and just get out, even after she is trapped in the spacecraft she doesn't take proper cover knowing that there are razor sharp strings all around her that she's cut herself on twice.
But what fascinated me the most were the nanites, the advanced alien technology that healed Halley from her wounds, and how it wasn't healing her from her own DNA since it doesn't know human biology but rather from the DNA from the living creatures aboard the ship itself, so the more she was being healed her DNA was being morphed and merged with animal DNA, making her look less and less human. With her literally being sliced from foolishly not taking cover when the ship went into light speed travel, she literally became an unrecognizable blob that just kept on regenerating as something else. That is the true horror, the worst than death kind of fate. To be trapped on an unknown spacecraft, headed out into space to who knows where, and be revived over and over again unable to die as not yourself.
This is the kind of scifi horror that I dig a whole lot, because there is no actual enemy. The alien from the craft wasn't much of a presence, and from observation was more of a scientist than a being looking to do harm. The nanites weren't doing anything wrong, they're doing as they are designed and programmed to do, it's just that they had no prior reference to what Halley was so they worked with what they had. Halley, while still alive, unfortunately suffers from being repeatedly painfully resurrected and continually to be horribly disfigured each time. In the end that is the price she pays for her own arrogance and ignorance.
Also, this segment was written by Mike Flanagan and directed by Kate Siegel, which looking back is not quite surprising at all knowing the kinds of stories that Flanagan himself likes telling.
Final Thoughts: V/H/S/Beyond was yet another fascinating installment to what is becoming another favorite horror movie franchises of mine, if nothing else than to see the different kinds of stories that comes with them and how they tie together by the theme, and while the franchise has had some segments featuring aliens and similar concepts throughout having one solely dedicated to it was nice. Although, aside from like two segments, almost the segments and footage were done in a digital kind of way similar to that of V/H/S: Viral, which I can see can make the name of the installment pointless, and it's why I was kind of taken out from the frame narrative. But that's just a aesthetic preference, otherwise I really enjoyed the movie a whole lot. My favorite stories were "Dream Girl" and "Stowaway".
As stated previously, V/H/S has quickly become a favorite horror movie franchise. I'm also curious about some other horror franchises that I haven't seen yet and have been interested in for some time, one of them being Paranormal Activity, which oddly enough can actually fit into the V/H/S universe.
Frame Narrative: "Abduction/Adduction"
The frame narrative is done in a documentary style, something similar to what you'd see on Netflix, which focuses on the topic of an unnamed man who had mysteriously disappeared after recording evidence of what he claimed were strange things happening to him in the middle of the night, and those videotapes were found and uploaded digitally for those being interviewed to decipher the validity of these claims. Now, I'll be honest, I wasn't entirely sold on this particular frame narrative because the modern documentary-style did unfortunately lose the immersion just a bit, however I understood what they were going for and how it all ties into the themes of the rest of the segments, and I did like them delving into the fictitious history of this man and also the real world history of the fascination of aliens, the claims of encounters and the continuous searching for proof that supposedly exists out there. Still, in comparison to the previous frame narratives of the franchise this isn't my favorite.
"Stork"
The first segment focuses on a police investigation task force that is tracking the mysterious disappearances of children, leading them to a supposedly abandoned house where they encounter zombie-like creatures which then leads them to a gigantic stork-like alien creature in the attic where it has been sucking out the brains of people (turning them into these zombie-like beings) and feeding it to the stolen babies (which were taken by these zombie-like followers) and turning these babies into some kind of mutated monstrosities.
What I liked about this segment was how gruesome it was, along with how creative it was, both the design of how the zombified people were to the stork-alien itself. Plus there was a lot of things left purposefully unexplained, as is the case with the majority of V/H/S stories, but that makes it even more lived-in and of the moment and interesting. The task force reminded me of the frame narrative from V/H/S/94, especially with the over-the-top tough-ass attitude of some of the members, however it's revealed that this task force is made specifically for being monster hunters. The little Easter eggs in their little investigation board features things from previous installments, which is a nice little bonus for fans but because we know all of this takes place in the same universe it demonstrates that there are forces being organized to take down some of the strange shit that is going on. It's a great way to start off the movie by having such an action-packed, bloody, and intriguing story, and one that had a happier ending than most of them.
"Dream Girl"
The second segment follows two paparazzo in India as they are instructed by their boss to get exclusive footage of Bollywood's newest star, Tara, who seemingly rose to popularity overnight which spawned some online rumors about her being involved with witchcraft. However, after one of the paparazzi members consoles her after her manager berates her in her dressing room, she is revealed to actually be a robot who takes the advice given to her to heart and breaks free from the chains of her abusive manager who created her, making her go on a murderous rampage.
Although this one isn't about aliens necessarily, it seems that Tara isn't your regular robot since she excessively pukes out some kind of acidic liquid onto her manager that kills him instantly, so there could be some kind of otherworldly elements by creating her. Nevertheless, I really liked this one as well since I'm quite a sucker for robots, and seeing how mistreated and feeling trapped in the role that her manager created her for (quite literally), I was immediately rooting for her even when she went on her murder spree. No, especially when she went on her murder spree. I really liked how she used her music as her empowering element in the end when she was killing everyone.
Also? The song itself, "Goddess", is quite a bop.
"Live And Let Dive"
A group of people are on a plane ready to go skydiving in honor of their friend Zach's birthday, but before they could they all suddenly see a visible spaceship blinking in and out of existence, however this causes the plane to malfunction and the spaceship appears before it causes the plane to crash, having everyone falling and needing to deploy their parachutes immediately. Zach, who is in possession of the camera on his person, miraculously survives the fall as did some of the others, however it doesn't last long as an aliens are pursuing them, taking them out one by one.
I felt very bad for Zach because this is a guy who was terrified of heights, who clearly didn't want to go skydiving for his birthday but felt pressured by his friends, only for the worst possible thing to happen and the trauma just kept on coming. The irony being that even when he tries to make his escape after everything, he is still being transported up into the alien spaceship. What happened to him afterwards is a mystery, leaving his fate unknown because we see that he is being ambushed by the aliens from aboard the ship, but the camera and the white blaring light makes it unclear of what is happening. Was he abducted? Did they kill him? If the latter, why do it on their ship and not on the ground like they did with everyone else? It also gives us questions as to whether these aliens were there to be violent and attack humanity, or if they were just there appearing and felt like they were under attack and that the small plane was the same as the military jets going after their spaceship and therefore deemed the skydivers as threats? Again, we'll most likely not get answers, but it's still fun to speculate all the possibilities.
"Fur Babies"
An animals activist group sends two of their own to investigate a woman who runs a doggy daycare center and believes she is performing taxidermy on dogs that she kills, however things quickly start going south when she gives the pair a tour of her home where she reveals her true colors of kidnapping and psychologically torturing people who she deems are "naughty" for asking too many personal questions and is physically turning them into her dead dogs.
Looking at who wrote and directed this segment, it's very clear as to why this seems familiar since Justin Long starred in Tusk which features quite similar elements. This segment also reminded me a bit of an episode of Night Visions with a story called, "The Doghouse". So while this doesn't feature aliens, it does have the fucked up abduction and experimentation angle of "taking humans and turning them into something they're not", with the juxtaposition of the woman's bubbly personality and demeanor making it very unnerving. Of course, the victims aren't entirely blameless either since their amateurish way of approaching this investigation was not smart or subtle at all. So, this was very uncomfortable and unnerving, but knowing wrote this makes it click into place as to why from the visuals and tone of the story itself.
"Stowaway"
The final segment has a young woman named Halley who traveled to the Mojave Desert to document findings of possible extraterrestrial encounters that she had heard about in the area. She sees several lights hovering in the night sky, with one of them falling away from the others and she goes searching to where it had gone. She finds a spacecraft and goes to investigate its interior, which is where she is in awe with its structure, but ultimately her distractions and inexperience becomes her biggest downfall.
I adored this story because it's the only one featured where the extraterrestrial beings are actually benevolent, they don't seem to want to cause harm at all. Rather, they are mere explorer and scientists taking small animals from Earth before disappearing (and possibly reappearing to return them back). It's a quite different and refreshing approach to the typical malevolent aliens angle that we're used to seeing, especially in this franchise. It's also a good exploration of the concept of human curiosity, that even with good intentions it can distract us from being smart and ultimately lead us astray. It's implied that Halley abandoned her husband and daughter to pursue this personal investigation of hers, which seems almost like an obsession from the way she talks. It's clear that she needs this to be a success in order to justify her leaving her family behind, so when she finally sees the spacecrafts and finds the one that lands to investigate this enthusiasm blinds her from acting smart. She touches things without knowing what they are or do, she rambles on and on when she needs to put the camera down and just get out, even after she is trapped in the spacecraft she doesn't take proper cover knowing that there are razor sharp strings all around her that she's cut herself on twice.
But what fascinated me the most were the nanites, the advanced alien technology that healed Halley from her wounds, and how it wasn't healing her from her own DNA since it doesn't know human biology but rather from the DNA from the living creatures aboard the ship itself, so the more she was being healed her DNA was being morphed and merged with animal DNA, making her look less and less human. With her literally being sliced from foolishly not taking cover when the ship went into light speed travel, she literally became an unrecognizable blob that just kept on regenerating as something else. That is the true horror, the worst than death kind of fate. To be trapped on an unknown spacecraft, headed out into space to who knows where, and be revived over and over again unable to die as not yourself.
This is the kind of scifi horror that I dig a whole lot, because there is no actual enemy. The alien from the craft wasn't much of a presence, and from observation was more of a scientist than a being looking to do harm. The nanites weren't doing anything wrong, they're doing as they are designed and programmed to do, it's just that they had no prior reference to what Halley was so they worked with what they had. Halley, while still alive, unfortunately suffers from being repeatedly painfully resurrected and continually to be horribly disfigured each time. In the end that is the price she pays for her own arrogance and ignorance.
Also, this segment was written by Mike Flanagan and directed by Kate Siegel, which looking back is not quite surprising at all knowing the kinds of stories that Flanagan himself likes telling.
Final Thoughts: V/H/S/Beyond was yet another fascinating installment to what is becoming another favorite horror movie franchises of mine, if nothing else than to see the different kinds of stories that comes with them and how they tie together by the theme, and while the franchise has had some segments featuring aliens and similar concepts throughout having one solely dedicated to it was nice. Although, aside from like two segments, almost the segments and footage were done in a digital kind of way similar to that of V/H/S: Viral, which I can see can make the name of the installment pointless, and it's why I was kind of taken out from the frame narrative. But that's just a aesthetic preference, otherwise I really enjoyed the movie a whole lot. My favorite stories were "Dream Girl" and "Stowaway".
As stated previously, V/H/S has quickly become a favorite horror movie franchise. I'm also curious about some other horror franchises that I haven't seen yet and have been interested in for some time, one of them being Paranormal Activity, which oddly enough can actually fit into the V/H/S universe.
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Date: 2025-06-13 07:36 pm (UTC)But we started watching this franchise cause you talked about it, and we watched I think 5 of them...and we both enjoy it a lot!
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Date: 2025-06-16 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-06-17 08:28 pm (UTC)