Cast Josh Brolin, Julia Garner, Alden Ehrenreich, Austin Abrams, Cary Christopher, Benedict Wong, Amy Madigan, plus supporting roles
Synopsis When all but one child from the same class mysteriously vanish on the same night at exactly the same time, a community is left questioning who or what is behind their disappearance.
Review: I have been a big Zachary Cregger fan for a long time. It started with Whitest Kids U Know, then I followed him and the late great Trevor Moore to Miss March, a funny comedy with Craig Robbinson. I watched him in Wrecked, the TBS parody of Lost. And then I watched the breakout hit Barbarian and have been following his horror journey ever since.
I have been looking forward to Weapons for a few years now. It’s gone through some major delays, but it is finally here. And I know this sounds like a first world problem, but I was on vacation and I had to wait four days to see it. I know. And I avoided all spoilers.
The movie has a slower build up to a wild third act. Like Barbarian. The jump scares throughout are pretty terrifying.
The third act goes pretty nuts in this movie. It is not a predictable movie by any means. There is talk about a possible preque, which I would be onboard for.
Austin Abrams is one of my favorite newer actors and he crushes it in this movie. He stuck with Cregger throughout the whole production and is now starring in his next movie, Resident Evil!
Review: These movies play a big part in my love for horror. I saw the first one when it premiered at the Independent Film Festival Boston in 2012. My friend used to work for a film rental company, and we would get free passes to the festival. I remember how much I loved the first V/H/S movie. Some people found it too disturbing, and some found it to be too much of a shaky cam, found-footage movie.
Since the release of the first film in the franchise, there have been seven anthology films, two spinoffs, and a miniseries:
1. V/H/S (2012)
2. V/H/S/2 (2013)
3. V/H/S: Viral (2014)
4. SiREN (2016) – Spinoff film
5. V/H/S: Video Horror Shorts (2018) – Miniseries
6. V/H/S/94 (2021)
7. V/H/S/99 (2022)
8. Kids vs. Aliens (2023) – Spinoff film
9. V/H/S/85 (2023)
10. V/H/S/Beyond (2024)
The only film I didn’t like in the franchise was V/H/S: Viral. I felt it tried too hard to be a political statement, and it didn’t really have any scare factors. SiREN was also decent, but I feel it worked better as a short.
Anyway, V/H/S/Beyond is a great installment. It is a little different, as they went more in the direction of sci-fi versus horror. But that doesn’t mean the movie isn’t filled with disturbing and terrifying things. Just like the ones before it, it features a bunch of new concepts and stories by new creators in the V/H/S franchise.
I didn’t know what score to give this movie. I don’t like when people compare and contrast things and give the follow-up an unfair chance. A lot of people, including myself, didn’t like Us as much as Get Out. Was that because it wasn’t as good, or because we were challenging Peele to make the same type of movie and avoid a sophomore slump? The first time I watched Us, I said, “It wasn’t Get Out.” And it wasn’t—it was its own movie. The second time I watched Us, I loved it. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I didn’t love V/H/S/Beyond as much as the first movie, but that’s fine. It’s its own movie—its own series of shorts made by completely different people. While this one focused more on sci-fi vs. horror, I still really enjoyed it. All horror fans love sci-fi, right?
I went into V/H/S/Beyond without watching a trailer. I didn’t want to know anything going in. However, right before watching, I did read that Justin Long, Mike Flanagan, and Katie Siegel were behind a few of the shorts, and that got me pumped.
Without giving away spoilers, Justin Long and his brother co-wrote and co-directed one of the shorts, and it is very reminiscent of a previous Long movie. This shouldn’t give anything away, as the scream king has a long list of horror films he’s been in.
The last short in the film is the one that will stick with me. It was pretty interesting throughout, but the ending was absolute chaos, leaving the protagonist in the worst-case scenario. It was pure terror.
