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V/H/S/Beyond is a 2024 found footage horror anthology film produced by Bloody Disgusting. The sequel to V/H/S/85 (2023), it is the seventh installment in the V/H/S franchise and features five found footage segments linked together by a sixth frame narrative written and directed by Jay Cheel, Jordan Downey, Virat Pal, Justin Martinez, Christian and Justin Long, and Kate Siegel.
The film premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 20, 2024, and was released as a Shudder Original Film through the streaming service Shudder in the United States on October 4, 2024. A sequel, V/H/S/8, is scheduled to be released in 2025.
The film is presented as an anthology of five short horror films, built into a frame narrative which acts as a documentary, with interviews from ufologists. Each short is linked together with the concept of found footage as each segment is from VHS tapes.
The frame narrative focuses on a pair of video cassettes that were bought by an anonymous Redditor from a flea market, the tapes supposedly containing evidence of an alien encounter. Director Jay Cheel received an anonymous email with the footage from both tapes in digitized form.
The footage follows the story of the "Farrington House", a building that is topic of an urban legend in Canada. In the 2000s, a paranormal group led by Mitch Horowitz collected anecdotal evidence of a "gray form"; Horowitz explains that "if we do find proof of extraterrestrial life, then everything we thought we knew would come into question".
Police unit W.A.R.D.E.N. stumble upon a dilapitated house amidst a string of baby disappearances. Its newest member Segura is tasked to film the entire mission while another member, E.T., is revealed to be the father of a missing baby.
The unit spot what appears to be a shambling zombie-like person—dubbed as a "Brooder"—wielding a chainsaw and follow him inside the house. E.T. accidentally hits a wire with several glass bottles dangling from it and the noise attracts several other Brooders, whom the unit shoot dead. After E.T. hears a baby's cries, he charges off on his own.
On the second floor, the unit find a cracked-open meteor that crashed through the roof and determine it is the cause of the incident. Segura puts the camera inside a hole in the wall, where he hears E.T. screaming in pain until a human-like creature peeks out. The unit head to the third floor, but their passage is blocked by a barricade. When they use a chainsaw to carve their way through, the Brooders come back to life.
Upon killing the Brooders again, the unit gain access to the third floor and find a tall creature singing a lullaby while holding a baby. The creature goes to the attic, where the unit discover several cradles containing the missing babies. Nearby, a large alien stork-like creature is feasting on E.T.'s corpse before regurgitating his brains into the mouth of the closest newborn. The unit shoot the stork, but Segura is attacked by E.T., now turned into a Brooder, and is then pierced by the stork.
The unit kill both E.T. and the stork and help an injured Segura to evacuate. It is revealed that W.A.R.D.E.N. have dealt with similar threats in the past and they decide it is better not to explain what happened. Before leaving, Segura notices the stork is still breathing and stomps on its head, killing it. The unit then take a picture with the stork's dead body as the footage ends.
Back in the frame narrative, it is revealed that a family of Chinese immigrants arrived in Toronto in the 1950s. They were well off, and purchased a house that was built in the late Victorian era. In the 1980s, the parents died, leaving the house to their eldest son, who put it up for sale around a decade later and disappeared shortly thereafter.
During his time in the house, the son experienced night terrors and thought that the house was either haunted or had mysterious strangers—never saying it was aliens—, something that is related to how people in the past discovered strange occurrences. To prove that he is not crazy, he sets up two cameras to record what happened.
Mumbai native paparazzi Arnab and Sonu are tasked to get footage of the latest Bollywood sensation Tara. They sneak into a filming session of her next film, which ends abruptly when Tara's manager gets infuriated at the amount of takes the director is using, and demands Tara goes on break. Arnab then leaves the set, sneaks into Tara's trailer, and hides in the closet.
Tara enters the trailer with her manager, who berates her. When the manager leaves, Arnab accidentally reveals himself after he discovers what appears to be Tara's face in a bowl. Meanwhile, Sonu, who is outside, overhears a conversation Tara's manager is having over the phone. Arnab is empathetic to Tara and tells her that she does not need to be pushed around. Tara, emboldened by his words, reveals herself as an android and rips her face off, saying that she will take Arnab's face and rule as a commoner.
As Arnab is chased outside, Tara spits acid on her manager's face, which melts off, and chases everyone into the studio. Tara then rips the director's guts out and slaughters the rest of the film's cast and crew by firing bolts of red electricity from her hands. She finds and kills Sonu by gouging his eyes out, and then tackles Arnab. Tara proceeds to rip Arnab's arms off, and then rips his face, placing it on her own face. She walks outside the studio to journalists whom she also attacks as the footage ends.
Horowitz explains that alien concepts traces back to Whitley Strieber's 1987 book Communion , as it popularized the idea of grey aliens. He explains that it led us to think that maybe we are not alone, and that "maybe our company does not wish us well".
Numerous acquaintances are celebrating Zach's 30th birthday with his wife Jess and his best friend Logan via skydiving. Just before they are ready to jump out, the group spot a large unidentified flying object and several fighter jets.
An alien jumps onto the plane before it collides with the ship, sending everyone falling towards an orange grove, some being injured or dying from the collison. Zach opens his parachute and survives the fall, but learns that Logan, who was strapped onto him, was decapitated when the parachute opened. Zach quickly finds other survivors as he tries to look for Jess, but an alien suddenly attacks the group. The aliens brutally kill Zach's friends before he finds Jess' corpse, having been killed by an alien earlier.
Zach escapes from the grove and jumps into a farmer's truck, whom he demands to leave. The farmer threatens him with a gun, but an alien kills him; the gun is fired and blows two of Zach's fingers on his right hand off. He attempts to drive away, but the truck is pulled into the air inside the ship by its tractor beam; the aliens suddenly attack Zach as the footage ends.
Horowitz explains his interest in alien sightings, but says that he does not have the expertise to analyze them. The segment then cuts into Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski of the YouTube channel Corridor Digital, known for analyzing digital effects. They explain that if an alien footage relies on the viewer not being able to clearly see it, then it loses credibility, but they do express their interest.
An animal rights activist group—Stuart, Angela, Miles, Pat, and Christina—decide to investigate the house of a woman named Becky, who runs a supposed dog daycare center and keeps taxidermies of her past dogs. Stuart and Angela are sent to Becky's house and she explains that the reason she keeps taxidermies is because she does not have the heart to bury her dogs.
Stuart and Angela then meet Becky's brother Bo, who takes them to the basement where Becky reveals that other people have come asking her questions. She then captures Stuart and Angela to surgically turn them into half-human, half-dog hybrids. Miles, Pat, and Christina break into the house but are caught by Becky, who has successfully brainwashed Stuart and Angela to maul them to death. Later, a porch pirate attempts to steal packages from Becky's home, only to be killed by one of the hybrids as the footage ends.
Horowitz explains that, during the Cold War, the public saw aliens as "invaders" due to the popularity of Orson Welles' radio drama The War of the Worlds , which caused mass hysteria. Pueringer and Gorski then talk about their Boston Dynamics parody videos, which featured robots being abused by humans.
These videos were so convincing that people sent death threats to Boston Dynamics, thinking that it was real. Horowitz talks about how, even when something is debunked, some believers will not be dissuaded.
A woman named Halley, who is implied to have left her husband and child behind, documents her findings of possible extraterrestrial encounters in the Mojave Desert. As night falls, she witnesses a light fall from the sky and goes to investigate it.
She finds an alien spaceship and enters to examinate its interior; when she accidentally cuts herself, small nanites come out and heal her, though Halley quickly learns that it causes minor mutations due to the ship keeping animals in stasis and copying their DNA. After she hides from an alien, Halley realizes that she has no escape. The nanites appear again and heal her injuries as the ship accelerates to light speed, throwing her around and injuring her again.
Healed once more by the nanites, Halley begins to suffer more and more gruesome mutations to her body due to the cycles of injury and repair as the footage ends.
Horowitz, Pueringer, and Gorski reunite with Brian Baker of the YouTube channel The Superstitious Times. The experts then watch the footage from the cameras to give their reactions and describe what is happening.
After they give their thought on it, the footage is shown and presented without comment; the experts cannot verify or vouch for its authenticity. The footage shows the eldest son asleep in bed as an alien creature enters his bedroom, removes what appears to be alien eggs from his body, then takes the camera and shoves it down his throat.
In October 2023 at the New York Comic Con, it was announced that a seventh V/H/S was in development. Each of the anthology segments are sci-fi oriented in the vein of other horror franchise sequels set in outer space such as Jason X , Leprechaun 4: In Space , Hellraiser: Bloodline , Dracula 3000 , and Amityville in Space , for a Shudder exclusive release. Josh Goldbloom, Brad Miska, and James Harris served as producers. The project is a joint-venture production between Shudder Original Films, Bloody Disgusting, Cinepocalypse, and Studio71. [2]
In July 2024, Bloody Disgusting announced the film's directors as Jordan Downey, Christian and Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Virat Pal and Kate Siegel, with Michael Schreiber as an additional producer. [3] Kate Siegel initially planned to do a segment that would have been a musical. After this was shot down, she suggested a short involving the Muppets and even wanted to get Brian Henson involved, but this idea was turned down too. She eventually spoke with Mike Flanagan and settled on the final version seen in the film. [4]
V/H/S/Beyond premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 20, 2024, followed by an exclusive release on Shudder on October 4, 2024. [5] [6]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 89% of 56 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.9/10.The website's consensus reads: "The V/H/S series shows no signs of the tape wearing out with this terrifying entry, boasting an assortment of shorts that'll sate the appetite of horror and sci-fi aficionados alike." [7] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 65 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews. [8]
Ryan Scott of /Film gave the film a 9/10 rating, writing "pound for pound, segment for segment, death for death, this is everything we could possibly want from a horror anthology." [9] The Fort Worth Report described the series as "out-of-this-world fun," noting that "[e]ach of the six short films is exceptional," [10] and The A.V. Club remarked that, "While other V/H/S installments have sometimes been scattershot, united by format and time period more than anything else, V/H/S/Beyond holds together almost perfectly as a thematic exploration of the things lurking just beyond our understanding." [11]
Screen Rant noted that the series "has found quite a bit of success, and it's partly thanks to the huge number of talented actors who contributed to the project." [12] Brian Tellerico of RogerEbert.com gave the film a neutral review, awarding 2.5 stars out of 4. [13]
At New York Comic Con 2024, an eighth film in the franchise was announced, titled V/H/S/8 , targetting a 2025 release. [14]
Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a 1956 American science-fiction horror film produced by Walter Wanger, directed by Don Siegel, and starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. The black-and-white film was shot in 2.00:1 Superscope and in the film noir style. Daniel Mainwaring adapted the screenplay from Jack Finney's 1954 science-fiction novel The Body Snatchers. The film was released by Allied Artists Pictures as a double feature with the British science-fiction film The Atomic Man.
Creepshow is a 1982 American horror comedy anthology film directed by George A. Romero and written by Stephen King, making this film his screenwriting debut. The film's ensemble cast includes Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E. G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors, Ted Danson and Ed Harris, as well as King himself. The film was primarily shot on location in Pittsburgh and its suburbs, including Monroeville, where Romero leased an old boys' academy to build extensive sets for the film.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin is an American director, writer, actor, and musician. He is a founding member of the punk band Link 80 and co-creator of the filmmaking collectives Chad, Matt & Rob and Radio Silence. He is best known for his work in horror films, including V/H/S, Southbound, Ready or Not, Scream, Scream VI and Abigail.
Justin Jacob Long is an American actor and comedian. He is known for his film roles, particularly in comedy and horror films, notably appearing in Galaxy Quest (1999), Jeepers Creepers (2001), Dodgeball (2004), Herbie: Fully Loaded (2005), Accepted (2006), Idiocracy (2006), Dreamland (2006), Live Free or Die Hard (2007), Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), Drag Me to Hell (2009), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), Alpha and Omega (2010), Best Man Down (2013), The Wave (2019), and Barbarian (2022), as well as voicing Alvin Seville in the live-action Alvin and the Chipmunks film series. He is also known for his television appearances as Warren Cheswick in the NBC comedy-drama series Ed (2000–2004) and Kevin Murphy in the Netflix original animated sitcom F Is for Family (2015–2021). He appeared with John Hodgman in TV commercials for Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign (2006–2009), and as himself in Intel's "Go PC" campaign.
Mitch Horowitz is an American author, publisher, speaker, podcaster, and television host specializing in occult and esoteric themes. A frequent writer and speaker on religion and metaphysics in print and on television, radio, and online, Horowitz’s writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Time, and CNN.com, and he has appeared on NPR, CBS News, NBC News, and Vice News. In 2024, Horowitz began hosting the UFO-themed Discovery/HBO Max TV series, Alien Encounters: Fact or Fiction, and he also joined Elijah Wood's podcast network, SpectreVision Radio, where he hosts a historical podcast, Extraordinary Evidence: ESP Is Real, which explores the background and data of extrasensory perception (ESP) research. Horowitz plays himself as a historian and commentator in V/H/S/Beyond, the seventh entry in the horror anthology series on Shudder, which a reviewer for RogerEbert.com described as "one of the better V/H/S anthologies of late."
Found footage is a cinematic technique in which all or a substantial part of the work is presented as if it were film or video recordings recorded by characters in the story, and later "found" and presented to the audience. The events on screen are typically seen through the camera of one or more of the characters involved, often accompanied by their real-time, off-camera commentary. For added realism, the cinematography may be done by the actors themselves as they perform, and shaky camera work and naturalistic acting are routinely employed. The footage may be presented as if it were "raw" and complete or as if it had been edited into a narrative by those who "found" it.
Event Horizon is a 1997 science fiction horror film directed by Paul W. S. Anderson and written by Philip Eisner. It stars Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlan and Joely Richardson. Set in 2047, it follows a crew of astronauts sent on a rescue mission after a missing spaceship, the Event Horizon, spontaneously appears in orbit around Neptune, only to discover that a sinister force has come back with it.
Radio Silence Productions is an American film and television production company, founded in 2011 by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, Justin Martinez and Chad Villella. The group is known for the horror films Ready or Not, Scream and Scream VI, as well as their previous work together as Chad, Matt & Rob.
V/H/S is a 2012 American found footage horror anthology film and the first installment in the V/H/S franchise created by Brad Miska and Bloody Disgusting, and produced by Miska and Roxanne Benjamin. It features a series of six found footage shorts written and directed by Adam Wingard, David Bruckner, Ti West, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg, and the filmmaking collective Radio Silence.
V/H/S/2 is a 2013 found footage horror anthology film produced by Bloody Disgusting and Roxanne Benjamin. The sequel to V/H/S (2012) and the second installment in the V/H/S franchise, it comprises four found footage segments linked together by a fifth frame narrative. The film features a largely different group of directors: Jason Eisener, Gareth Wuw Evans, Timo Tjahjanto, Eduardo Sánchez, and Gregg Hale, and franchise returnees Simon Barrett and Adam Wingard.
Devil's Due is a 2014 American psychological supernatural horror film directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, and written by Lindsay Devlin. The film stars Allison Miller, Zach Gilford, and Sam Anderson. The film was released on January 17, 2014.
Jay Cheel is a Canadian documentary filmmaker, editor and podcaster.
Mike Flanagan is an American filmmaker, best known for his horror work. Flanagan wrote, directed, produced, and edited the horror films Absentia (2011), Oculus (2013), Hush, Before I Wake, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald's Game (2017), and Doctor Sleep (2019). He created, wrote, produced, and served as showrunner on the Netflix horror series The Haunting of Hill House (2018), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Midnight Mass (2021), The Midnight Club (2022), and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), also directing and editing some episodes of each.
Justin Martinez is an American film director, cinematographer, visual effects artist, writer and producer. He is a co-creator of Radio Silence, known for their work on the films V/H/S, Devil's Due, and Southbound.
Kate Gordon Siegelbaum, known professionally as Kate Siegel, is an American actress and writer. Dubbed a scream queen for her extensive work in the horror genre, Siegel is known for her collaborations with her husband, Mike Flanagan. She has starred in the films Oculus (2013), Hush which she co-wrote, Ouija: Origin of Evil, Gerald's Game (2017), and The Life of Chuck (2024), and the television series The Haunting of Hill House (2018), The Haunting of Bly Manor (2020), Midnight Mass (2021), and The Fall of the House of Usher (2023).
V/H/S/94 is a 2021 American found footage horror anthology film written by David Bruckner, and Brad Miska. The sequel to V/H/S: Viral (2014), it is the fourth installment in the V/H/S franchise. Set in 1994, the film acts both as a soft reboot and a prequel to the first three installments and comprises four found footage segments linked together by a fifth frame narrative directed by franchise returnees Simon Barrett and Timo Tjahjanto, in addition to newcomers Jennifer Reeder, Ryan Prows and Chloe Okuno. It is the first film in the franchise not to be distributed by Magnolia Pictures' Magnet Releasing label.
V/H/S is an American horror anthology franchise that includes seven found footage films, two spin-off films, and one miniseries. Created from an original story idea by Brad Miska, the plot centers around a number of disturbing VHS tapes that are discovered by innocent viewers and the possessive influence of the videos over those who see them. Realized by a collaboration of various filmmakers and different casts, the installments are mostly standalone in nature, though recurring elements indicate the same fictional villain as the source for all of its videos.
V/H/S/99 is a 2022 American found footage horror anthology film produced by Studio71 and Bloody Disgusting. The sequel to V/H/S/94 (2021), it is the fifth installment in the V/H/S franchise. Set in 1999, the film features five found footage segments written and directed by Maggie Levin, Johannes Roberts, Flying Lotus, Tyler MacIntyre, and Vanessa and Joseph Winter.
Kids vs. Aliens is a 2022 American science fiction horror film directed by Jason Eisener and written by John Davies and Eisener. It is the second spin-off film in the V/H/S franchise and a feature-length adaptation of "Slumber Party Alien Abduction", the filmmaker's segment from the 2013 anthology horror film V/H/S/2.
V/H/S/85 is a 2023 found footage horror anthology film produced by Studio71 and Bloody Disgusting. The sequel to V/H/S/99 (2022), it is the sixth installment in the V/H/S franchise. Set in 1985, the film comprises five found footage segments linked together by a sixth frame narrative directed by Mike P. Nelson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, Scott Derrickson, and David Bruckner.