Genre: Live-action/adult animated psychological horror-thriller film
What It Reminds Me Of:
Writer: Robert Morgan, Robin King
Director: Robert Morgan
Premise: A stop-motion animator struggles to control her demons after the loss of her overbearing mother.
My Premise: An artist’s work starts to come to life. Is it to help cope with her trauma from her abusive mother or is everything truly coming alive?
Cast: Aisling Franciosi
Review: I put off watching this movie because of how creepy it looked. And wow, was it creepy. It feels like every movie I’ve reviewed lately is about someone’s ‘descent into madness,’ and this one fits right in.
This film would have been plenty scary without the stop motion, but adding that element makes it downright chilling.
The art design is incredibly impressive, and the way it feels like you’re watching two movies in one adds a unique twist. It starts a bit slow, but really picks up, and the third act is wild.
I won’t spoil anything—just go watch it with the lights on, and be prepared to lose some sleep.
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.
