Movie Review: V/H/S/MIXTAPE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 9th, 2026 / 01:40 AM

V/H/S/MIXTAPE movie poster | ©2026 Shudder

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: “Interstitial,” GWAR; “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” Barbara Crampton, Josh Willis, Erin Griff, George Goby, voices: Raymond Carr, Daniel Garza, Amanda Maddock, Sarah Berman; “Heartbeat,” Julie Clergerie, Elie Kaempfen; “The Music of Mr. Sze,” Jihad Brent, Alex Hsu; “Premature Burial,” Repugnant, Nour El Refai, Gustaf Hammarsten; “Death Tone,” Neela Jolene, Understanding Diggs
Writers: Zoe Cooper, David Moreau, Ernest Dickerson, RZA & Matt Landsman
Directors: Renee Zahn, Flying Lotus, Ernest Dickerson, Tobias Forge, RZA
Distributor: Shudder
Release Date: October 9, 2026

The poster tagline for V/H/S/MIXTAPE is “low fidelity, high body count.” This is truth in advertising. The latest installment of the V/H/S horror anthology franchise, which launched in 2012, is loosely centered around music, or at least sound (although one segment has nothing discernible to do with audio).

The basic ethos of the V/H/S series is that all segments look like they’re shot on videotape, preferably in found-content format. V/H/S/MIXTAPE adheres to the videotape look, although two installments don’t adhere to the “found” aesthetic.

Some of the V/H/S movies have interstitial sections connecting the shorts in some way. Here, there’s no narrative binding at all. Instead, we get the band GWAR in full monster makeup and costume. For those unfamiliar with GWAR, they are large, deliberately gross and relentlessly juvenile in their humor. As hosts for material that is super-gory, they absolutely fit. For those not into GWAR’s particular style, a little goes a long way, and there’s more than a little here.

The opener, “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” directed by Renee Zhan with a screenplay by Zoe Cooper from Zhan’s story, could be taking place a few blocks from wherever BUDDY occurs. We see a children’s show, “The Curious Chorus,” with a quartet of cheery but odd hand puppets – made by the Jim Henson Creature Shop, no less – plus one child volunteer, George (George Goby), from the audience.

Decades later, George (Josh Willis) is now custodian of the puppets, keeping them in what seems like a combination puppet manufacturing facility and old-school video editing suite. When some representatives from the studio that owns the rights to “The Curious Chorus” show up and demand to make scans of the puppets for a 3D “reimagining” of “The Curious Chorus,” George is offended, and he’s not the only one.

In the stop-motion animated “Another Cabin,” directed by Flying Lotus (no writing credit is given), we are at a cabin in the woods, where a little boy and his very mean grandmother are menaced by a shapeshifting giant.

In “Heartbeat,” written and directed by David Moreau, a pair of vloggers (Julie Clergerie and Elie Kaempfen) explore a mysterious abandoned Bulgarian military facility.

In “The Music of Mr. Sze,” written and directed by Ernest Dickerson, a chipper college student (Jihad Brent), making a documentary for his film class, is drawn to the music he hears being performed by his upstairs neighbor (Alex Hsu).

“Premature Burial” is a straight-up music video by the band Repugnant, directed by Tobias Forge, from their “Epitome of Darkness” album. The metal group’s performance is interspersed with a narrative involving the title premise. To be absurdly nitpicky in discussing the inherent logic (or lack thereof) of a music video, wouldn’t removing someone’s organs during an autopsy pre-burial pretty much guarantee that there’s nothing premature about the interment?

The final offering, “Death Tone,” directed by RZA and written by RZA & Matt Landsman, introduces us to Lydia Van Horn (Neela Jolene), grieving the death of her father. The senior Van Horn was a top-tier music producer. When Lydia finds a cassette tape Dad recorded for her with instructions on how she should create a hit track, she comes up with a singular interpretation of his advice and proceeds to implement it.

For completists, there’s a quick post-credits scene.

The pick of the lot is arguably “Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance,” starting with the fact that it’s got Jim Henson puppets. It also captures the unnerving undertone of insistently upbeat live-action kids’ shows. As a bonus, it pokes fun at IP holders (Barbara Crampton plays the chief one here) who seek to develop their property without the faintest understanding of what it is.

There’s nothing wrong with “Another Cabin” – it’s quick, it’s disquieting, it’s well-executed – except that it doesn’t seem to have a sonic or video format relationship to the anthology’s ostensible theme.

“Heartbeat” does have a sonic theme, and it’s well-acted, but we have to take the characters’ word for it that what they’re hearing is crazy-making, since we barely detect it at all. Granted, it would be difficult (and probably undesirable) to produce a sound that destructive, but a hint would be helpful.

“The Music of Mr. Sze” feels like a short story H.P. Lovecraft might have written if he had any facility with character. Brent is excellent as the wide-eyed enthusiast who doesn’t understand boundaries. Again, though, he’s hearing music coming through his ceiling. Especially since there is nothing immediately alarming about the music (that comes later), shouldn’t we hear it, too?

“Death Tone” is relatively predictable, but sticks the landing on its overall concept, with an intriguing beat at the end. It also features good performances from Jolene as the driven creator and Understanding Diggs as a detective who winds up at her door.

Because there’s only a tenuous link between some of the shorts and the anthology, and because there seems to be not even a token attempt to connect the interstitials to any of the segments, V/H/S/MIXTAPE comes off as one of the less curated of the V/H/S films. There’s worthwhile content here, but as it comes and goes, it could be described as slash-and-miss.

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