VHS: Beyond is One of the Best Films in the Franchise

The V/H/S horror franchise has now gone to space, going down the sci — fi train of terror through the use of found footage. This film has now become one of my favorite films in the franchise!

There are a total of six stories.

Here is my personal ranking of the stories:

6. Abduction/Abduction

The story segment that takes place throughout the entirety of the film was nicely done when it came to the use of the found footage genre.

Through the use of a documentary that consists of experts in the paranormal/alien world. The story focuses on a man who began to experience strange things in his own home.

He decides to film what he goes through, and captures insane footage of an alien going inside of his bedroom, removing eggs from his body. Then the alien proceeds to shove the camera down his throat.

Pretty gnarly, right?

5. Fur Babies

Fur Babies is one of the sickest short stories I have ever watched in the horror genre. The story follows a group of dumb kids who discover a woman who owns a doggy day care.

The group wants to take her down once they discover she owns a collection of taxidermy dogs. The group decides to send two of their members, as a decoy couple.

They question the owner, and after a bit of too much obvious probing into the woman’s personal life, the two kids instantly get their karma.

The woman is revealed to be absolutely insane, and with the help of her brother, they capture the two kids. Then the film reveals that the woman is creating human dog creatures that kill people under her command.

Great. What a horrible fate for anyone who crosses her path.

The rest of the group eventually shows up to save their friends, and decide to not call the cops because they don’t like police officers, people that could have saved them.

How stupid…

Sure enough, the rest of the group is killed by the woman’s human dog creatures. I got to be honest here, I didn’t really feel bad for any of them. These kids were so dumb, and they asked for this to happen.

They could have avoided their own fates, but they chose to be dumbasses.

4. Stowaway

This was probably the most authentic found footage short in this movie. The story follows a woman named Halley, who wants to follow her dream of chasing aliens in the sky in the Mojave Desert.

It is also implied that she abandoned her husband and daughter for this adventure. Footage of her daughter is shown, and she even mentions that it doesn’t matter, because there will be more birthdays to come.

Once this was said by her character, I struggled to root for Halley after this. It’s pretty damn mean to do something like that to your family, but oh well.

Follow your dreams, am I right, folks?

During Halley’s documentary, she finally gets her dream to become a reality when she sees a UFO land on the ground. She instantly heads toward that direction, and finds the spaceship.

She enters the ship, and while exploring the strange ship that is quite squishy, she decides to mess around with stuff inside, only to injure herself. Then she is shocked when something inside of the ship heals her wounds…only…it’s not just healing her.

Halley comes to the realization that the ship’s healing abilities are slowly mutating her with the DNA of all of the other animals on the ship that have been captured by the aliens.

Toward the end of the film, Halley is seen to now be a grotesque monster, combined with multiple body parts of animals.

Now that is a horrible fate.

3. Live and Let Dive

This segment in the film probably has the best start in the entire film. The story follows a man named Zach, and people who appear to be his friends and family that are celebrating his 30th birthday.

The group discovers that there is a UFO outside of their plane, and they get pretty excited at first, and then realize that they are caught in the middle of an actual war between humans and aliens.

The plane ends up crashing into the UFO, that results in the plane getting completely destroyed. Some group members die, and some survive the fall by activating their parachutes.

The story centers on Zach throughout his entire journey, struggling to avoid and survive from the aliens that are going around murdering the rest of his friends and family. Zach even loses his wife, a loss that breaks him.

He then finds a way out, through a truck driving by. He attempts to escape, but then he is gets abducted, the camera cutting off.

This one really bothered me, because you will genuinely feel bad for the characters in this one. They were all so likable, I couldn’t stand how they all died.

Talk about a terrible birthday.

2. Dream Girl

This short was one of my absolute favorites in the V/H/S franchise. The story follows two men that are desperate to capture footage of the famous Tara, a woman who became an instant celebrity.

The two men want to interview Tara, and once they come across her, one of them witnesses her getting scolded by her manager.

She is convinced by one of the men that she shouldn’t let anyone else define her, she is her own person, a goddess.

She takes these encouraging words seriously, and reveals herself to be a robot, that was hinted to have been built by the manager. She kills him, and then proceeds to murder everyone else that crosses her path.

The two men that the story follows are brutally killed, one gets fingers plunged into his eyes, and the other one loses both his arms and his face.

Damn.

This is what happens when you decide to have the Terminator work in the pop star industry.

1. Stork

Stork is best far the best one in V/H/S Beyond.

The story centers around police officers who secretly fight monsters to protect the community.

They are assigned to take down a bird like alien creature who turns people into zombies to take down anyone that gets in their way. The alien stork kidnaps human babies and turns them into a new set of zombies later on.

This film was freaking fun and was quite the gore fest. I was so entertained watching the cops fight the zombies with a chainsaw, and all kinds of weaponry.

The designs of all the monsters were incredible, the practical effects and CGI were on point! It was like watching a videogame almost, the camera angles were perfection, and the gore was fantastic!

I literally died of laughter with the ending of this one. It was so unexpected!

This is now my new favorite film in the franchise!

Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn