V/H/S/Beyond (2024)

My rating - 6.5/10

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Five new stories are framed by a documentary about a redditor who claims to have brought two VHS tapes that proves the existance of aliens. between each story we get "interviews" with experts who discuss whether the footage is authentic or not. As with most framing stories it's fine for what it is but it doesn't really add much to the movie overall.

Story one "Stork" is about a special unit of police officers that are investigating a series of missing infants. Their investigation leads them to a seemingly abandoned house where they're attacked by zombies. They also discover a cracked open meteor and it becomes clear that there's something far worse than zombies in the house. As they reach the attic they discover an alien stork like creature that's been sucking the brains out of the human zombies and vomiting it back up into the mouths of the missing babies which is causing them to mutate into more stork creatures. A really good story featuring lots of graphic gore, some genuinely creepy moments and a good looking creature. Definitely worth a look.

Story two "Dream Girl" involves a couple of Paparazzi photographers who attempt to get footage of a famous Bollywood star named Tara that's filming a new movie in their town. They manage to sneak in and watch as a dance number is being filmed, but when the director gets mad at how it's going the production takes a break. One of them sneaks into Tara's trailer and catches the director berating her. He's discovered after the director leaves but learns that Tara isn't all she seems and is revealed to be a cyborg who goes on a killing spree on the movie set. An okay story but I could have done without a Bollywood dance number that goes on for too long. It's also let down by the massacre at the end which should have been brutal and gory but instead it's all hidden behind flashing lights, the overuse of shakey camerawork and most of it filmed in the dark. Such a shame and I'll never understand why they do this. I'd sooner see some crappy looking CG gore than not see virtually anything. A waste of a good idea.

Story three "Live And Let Dive" is about a group of people on a plane who are celebrating their friends 30th birthday by going skydiving. They see several jet fighters zooming by and then spot what looks to be a UFO in the distance. Their plane is attacked by an alien and they decide to jump out and parachute to safety but as they do the plane explodes causing most of them to plummet to the ground. Some of the survivors find each other on the ground but are attacked by aliens. Despite the people on the plane all being pretty annoying and obnoxious this is still a fun story. It has some good gore and the aliens themselves are great looking and quite terrifying.

Story four "Fur Babies" involves a woman named Becky who runs a doggy dream house. She also keeps taxidermies of the dogs she's lost over the years. An animal rights activist group take offense to this and decide to send a couple of their members into the house to investigate. Once in the house they start asking questions and Becky quickly realizes who they are. They're led to the basement where an horrific surprise awaits them. When the rest of the group arrive to find out what's happened to their friends they discover Becky's shocking secret. Another story that I really enjoyed. There's some good gore and even though the "twist" isn't hard to figure out it's still quite tense in places. Strangely I was rooting for Becky in this one and not the activists, as I'm sure a lot of you will be too.

Finally, story five "Stowaway" is about a young woman who spends her time in the Mojave desert looking for signs of alien activites. One night she sees a strange light fall to earth and goes to check it out. She finds what appears to be a space ship and goes inside to investigate. The ship takes off with her trapped inside and she realizes there's no escape. As she's thrown around she gets injured and tiny nanites appear and heal her wounds. as she suffers more injuries she keeps getting healed only each time she suffers more and more mutations. For me this is easily the weakest of the stories. It's too short and most of what happens in the spaceship is filmed in such a way that you just can't see shit. Like the ending to Dream Gril this just annoyed me more than anything. It's a story that I'd easily skip over in repeated viewings.

Overall this is a good entry in the franchise, not the best and not the worst. Two really good stories, two decent ones and one just okay makes for a good time. The first and third stories are by far my favourites and would be near the top of my list if I were to do a ranking of all the stories from all the movies in the franchise.

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