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This is the first V/H/S movie I'm ever seeing, so my review is within the context of a newcomer. This movie is a found footage horror anthology where the sort of connective tissue between each segment is the nature of extraterrestrial threats. There are also wraparound and interstitial sections filmed in a documentary style where experts weigh in on a specific story. Overall, it has a haunted house style feel to it with a lot of focus being on kills and monster designs. Like any anthology, it is uneven, with the first section being strong enough to get me to commit to the movie before it starts to waver. That first section feels a lot like a video game. I also thought the 3rd segment involving a group of skydivers was solid, and the 4th segment involving a dog care facility was decent as well. The 2nd segment was forgettable, and unfortunately Alanah Pearce's segment was my least favorite and a poor showcase of her acting. The wraparound footage was completely pointless in my opinion because the story it told was the least interesting of the bunch. I don't really have more to say because there are no characters or plot here, just people trying to survive against monsters. I did think they were able to shift up the visual style enough between the segments even though they are all found footage style, and the monster designs and effects were good.
Really enjoyed this film! I think this is the horror film where I didn’t get annoyed with the characters. And also, it’s not that scary. It leans more on the sci-fi side. There are just a lot of jump scares, but in terms of the horror factor, there’s not much. My rating for the following shorts:
Beautiful franchise! Can’t wait to watch the others!
V/H/S/Beyond - :heart:4
Ugh! I really need to stop watching these V/H/S movies. They just keep getting worse.
Do not bother - unless you're a hardcore V/H/S fan.
How I rate:
1-3 :heart: = seriously! don't waste your time
4-6 :heart: = you may or may not enjoy this
7-8 :heart: = I expect you will like this too
9-10 :heart: = movies and TV shows I really love!
Not for a lack of trying, VHS Beyond is another entry in this constantly floundering anthology series that so desperately needs a shot of creativity to recapture the precedent its original entry set. Many a miss for me this time round, with nearly all entries starting out strong just to crumble under the restriction of their budget, or the stretch of their lofty ambition. Respectable, but nothing here warrants the 114 minute runtime VHS Beyond asks of you. Stork and Live and Let Dive are probably the better entries if you want to be efficient and skip the rest, but even those come with some serious caveats and asterisks.
Three stories have their good moments with one standout amongst them. Two stories have nothing to do with the overall theme. Additionally, the wraparound story is terribly done and ruins the found VHS footage vibes with its jarring mockumentary style.
Abduction/Adduction ★ (1)
Stork ★★★★★★ (6)
Dream Girl ★ (1)
Live and Let Dive ★★★★★★★ (7)
Fur Babies ★ (1)
Stowaway ★★★★★★★★ (8)
Most of the segments were fun, but I kinda feel like the VHS people just gave up on the concept of making it all feel cool and "one story" - there's absolutely nothing binding these stories together, they just have one baseline "documentary" style story which just gets interrupted with random segments.
(As a future Funhaus fan it was amazing seeing Alanah show up, had no idea she was doing this.)
This movie isn't that great. The first segment is nice because it reminds me of Resident Evil. The other short, Dream Girl, set in India, had a great premise, but all the cool scenes aren't shown and covered up by on-screen effects. Everything else is forgettable despite the talent brought on to help write the segments
Review by AcoucalanchaVIP 4BlockedParentSpoilers2024-10-06T03:42:13Z
1- Abduction/Adduction⠀4/10
So this is the documentary that plays in parts in between each segment. By the time we got the next piece of it I had slightly forgotten what I saw before making it pointless. I wish they just removed this from the movie honestly. Didn't like the evidence tape at the end.
2- Stork⠀8/10
"E.T. are you up there?"
Bloody fun! Evil Dead meets Doom. The first five minutes weren't very interesting but after that it went crazy. Basically a SWAT team killing off zombie aliens (how freakin cool is that!) in video game style. The makeup and practical effects are cool and I dig the design with the white eyes. Action packed and those final few minutes had my jaw on the ground from all the crazyness it was one cool thing after the other.
3- Dream Girl⠀6/10
What if... Alpha from The Walking Dead was a Terminator? This was Bollywood gone terribly wrong. They broke the found footage rule by adding footage from so many cameras and it also removed some of the scare factor in the process. The closet scene with the face still creeped me out though and it has a bloody and comedic satisfying finale.
4- Live and Let Dive⠀7/10
Pretty unique actually, didn't see the initial twist coming and as soon as the alien showed up it was edge-of-your-seat stuff. On the ground it was more funny than anything else but that's a positive. Poor Logan. The clementine(?) trees are an odd location but it adds humor especially when he threw a fruit at that alien. The design is so weird it's what a kid would probably come up with if you asked them to draw a cool alien. Too much CGI for my liking but it looked ok and there's also some neat practical effects.
5- Fur Babies⠀8/10
"Boop."
Bark-tastic! This one was directed and written by Christian and Justin Long and ironically it's kinda similar to Tusk. I think it's my favorite segment. Both hilarious and twisted. The highlight is the over-the-top performance by Libby Letlow who drives this thing from beginning to end, her character Becky is what I can only describe as Annie Wilkes meets Norman Bates. Great twist that I kinda saw coming a few seconds before but totally worth it. Creepy taxidermy workshop. Nice prosthetics and costumes. Bloody satisfying fight sequence and funny ending with the mailman.
6- Stowaway⠀7/10
Directed by Kate Siegel and written by Mike Flanagan. Contact meets The Fly. For a short I kinda liked the character she kept her shit together most of the time and constantly said smart stuff. This was quite the adventure, the pod was so fascinating I didn't want the exploring to end. The set for it looked amazing. Makes you think by the end, it seemed to me like life support horror? It kept healing her infinitely but with alien DNA. Also, why were they fascinated by eight legged freaks? Always knew spiders and octopus were up to something.
Average Score: 6.6/10
Overall this is the best V/H/S entry sinse the first two (which I haven't seen in so long) i'm a sucker for sci-fi so I really enjoyed this.