THE STORY – Six bloodcurdling tapes unleash horror in a sci-fi-inspired hellscape, pushing the boundaries of fear and suspense.
THE CAST – Dane DiLiegro, Alanah Pearce & Mitch Horowitz
THE TEAM – Jordan Downey, Christian Long, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Virat Pal, Kate Siegel & Jay Cheel (Directors/Writers), Kevin Stewart, Ben Turner, Evan Dickson & Mike Flanagan (Writers)
THE RUNNING TIME – 114 Minutes
The seventh installment of any franchise is going to have its work cut out for it, you know? It’s not easy to keep reinventing the wheel and keep things as fresh as they felt when the franchise took off in the first place. Lightning doesn’t usually strike in the same place twice, and most longstanding series have a difficult time keeping their audience invested the longer the films or shows endure. And then there’s “V/H/S/BEYOND,” busting in to show us how it’s done. The seventh installment in the gritty analog world of “V/H/S” takes absolutely zero prisoners and proves that it is, in fact, possible for an established series to find the heights necessary to take audiences to the next level.
It’s hard to understate just how hard this film goes. The gore, the VFX, the practical effects, and the design of the movie’s monsters really come together in such harmonious chaos that everything feels perfectly in sync with the “V/H/S” style we’ve come to expect while also pushing the franchise to places bolder than ever. The science fiction theme is the icing on the cake, adding a whole new tilt to a raucous ride to Hell we’ve been on six times before. Instead of plummeting us into the depths of darkness, this movie shoots us toward the stratosphere, shocking and suffocating us on our way to deep space.
Take Justin Martinez, for example. The series vet directs one segment with a genuinely terrifying alien species at the center of the mayhem. But that isn’t even the best part of the horrific birthday bash he shows us. It’s the fact that the story focuses on a group of friends going skydiving—and that’s precisely where things go horribly wrong. Martinez revealed at Fantastic Fest that parts of that skydiving scene were shot by a real skydiver who went up around eight times to get the shots they needed. That’s what we’re dealing with here with “V/H/S/BEYOND,” a film that is unafraid to take real risks, both in the story and the execution.
That simple fact is a significant part of what makes this the most consistent and cohesive “V/H/S” experience since the franchise’s early days. Each segment is committed to enticing the viewer into the most high-octane nightmares possible. Everything these filmmakers—Martinez, Kate Siegel, Jay Cheel, Virat Pal, Justin & Christopher Long, and Jordan Downey—have at their disposal and what they do with it visually is entirely in service of that goal. Even the wraparound segment, a notoriously difficult component to nail, manages to create a dreadful sense of momentum in its buildup. It leads to a bold and intense finale that illustrates something else this film does exceptionally well: giving its audience a worthy payoff.
When you have six segments that put the pedal to the metal as much as they can, sticking the landing is just as important as setting up something worth watching. With this sci-fi stack of tapes, there’s no need to worry about that. Each story builds to something worthy of what it took to get there and cuts out, quite literally, on an electric charge of action that leaves us wanting more. None of these segments is a letdown, from start to finish. It may seem hyperbolic, but it isn’t. Though they are equal in their verve, it feels as though the sections get more and more morbidly satisfying as they plow along and leave bodies and blood in their wake. The last segment, Kate Siegel’s “Stowaway,” demonstrates this perfectly, with a harrowing conclusion that nevertheless feels gratifying to the viewer in spite of the horrific consequences the protagonist is forced to face.
Each of these segments is impeccably written and directed, but so much of why they land in the end lies in the solid performances at the core of them all. Siegel’s segment owes so much to Alanah Pearce, the lead of “Stowaway,” who portrays a UFO-obsessed young woman who will stop at nothing to discover the truths behind alien life. Pearce is fierce in pushing the envelope; Her character Halley forces herself to satisfy her own curiosities no matter the costs, and Pearce pushes herself to those extremes with a savage strength rooted in her desperation for answers.
Pearce isn’t the only badass woman in the film, though. It feels utterly necessary to also highlight the zany and downright sinister Becky, the taxidermist and doggy daycare owner from Justin and Christian Long’s segment “Fur Babies.” This character, expertly played by Libby Letlow, is another nod to the sheer magnitude of the performances in this crazy horrorshow of a movie. Becky is a special kind of unhinged, the kind reserved for some of our most famous psychopaths in the zeitgeist. Letlow’s approach to the deceptive role is so deranged and cruel but with a quirky edge, feeling eerily akin to Kathy Bates’ Annie Wilkes in “Misery,” but if she was a millennial. Sounds bizarre, and it is, but it works wonders at giving the segment genuine stakes.
Every element of “V/H/S/BEYOND” hinges on one another. But as the best films have shown us, movies become magic—or, in this case, science fiction—when all the moving parts fit together like a puzzle. It’s wonderful that the seventh installment of such a beloved franchise is as good as it is. Still, it’s a whole other beast when you consider that each part of the process had to be the best it’s ever been in order to produce something this extraordinary. “V/H/S/BEYOND” is a towering achievement for a seasoned franchise that continues to up the ante with each installment. It’s easily the best film of the bunch, and that truly is owed to the alchemical concoction of artists working on these stories. It’s electrifying, unadulterated, and unafraid to raise hell as high as it will go. “V/H/S/BEYOND” is everything anyone could possibly want in a horror anthology, and it might just be lightyears before anything lives up to it.