Gaming Needs More Anthologies Like The V/H/S Series

V/H/S/Beyond, the recently released seventh entry in the V/H/S series, takes the prolific horror anthology in a new direction with a heavy emphasis on sci-fi. The newest collection brings together six shorts from seven filmmakers and nine writers. In an industry that is currently undergoing a post-strikes, post-Covid slow period, this kind of project seems like a great way to keep people working, from the bottom of the pyramid to the top of the call sheet.

The Enduring Appeal Of An Anthology

What I love about the V/H/S series is what it represents for the film industry in general, and horror more specifically. Making movies is expensive. Sure, you can make a film on your own, shoot it on your phone, and spend practically nothing on it, but if you want to make something that looks and sounds good, you need to shell out for a good camera, editing software, and equipment like lenses, a tripod, and microphones. Moreover, you need to find people who are willing to act in it, who are usually more willing if you give them money. There are great completely independent filmmakers creating and uploading shorts and features on YouTube, but the projects tend to be limited in scope because budgets scale quickly with ambition.

The V/H/S series, and anthologies like it, provide filmmakers who couldn’t secure a Hollywood budget on their own the opportunity to make films in a fairly low stakes environment. Kate Siegel, the actress best known for her work across husband Mike Flanagan’s various Netflix projects like Midnight Mass and The Haunting of Hill House, is making her directorial debut with a segment in V/H/S/Beyond. Justin Long, who has one feature directorial credit to his name before this, is honing his skills with a segment called Fur Babies. A bunch of filmmakers you haven’t heard of, with little seen credits, have gotten the chance to have their work noticed by a wider audience by participating in V/H/S.

Also of note for game fans: Santa Monica Studios writer, former journalist, and content creator Alanah Pearce is the star of Siegel’s segment.

Anthologies Like Dread X Collection And UFO 50 Offer Players A Tasting Menu

For fans who aren’t all that interested in how the sausage gets made, this kind of collaboration presents an opportunity for a horror tasting menu. If you don’t like one segment, don’t worry too much, another one will be coming along in 15 minutes that you might vibe more with.

There’s a place for this approach in gaming, too. Most recently, mossmouth’s UFO 50 successfully tackled the anthology approach, offering 50 games for the price of one, with the conceit that all of them were made by a fictional developer, UFO Soft, over the course of seven years in the ’80s. It’s a fantastic idea for a game and, though I haven’t played it yet, this is basically what I have in mind. My only issue is that the 50 games in the collection were developed by six people and sticking to the spirit of V/H/S would mean that each of the 50 was made by someone new.

In that way, indie horror anthologies like Dread X Collection and the Haunted PS1 Series are much closer to what I have in mind. In both cases, the games were made by different developers, then assembled together into one product you can buy on Steam or itch.io. It’s a cool model that, ideally, encourages players to be more willing to take a risk than they would otherwise be. If one game isn’t to your taste, well, hey, there are a bunch of other ones you might love. And if players buy it because of one developer they love, the collection model is an opportunity to be exposed to another studio they might like just as much.

If anything, this approach might be more appealing in games than in film. When audiences find out that a movie (like The French Dispatch of Kinds of Kindness) is an anthology, they’re often less interested because it suggests a lack of cohesion and the stop-and-go feeling that necessarily results from watching multiple shorts instead of one feature. But, in games, an anthology is an opportunity for players to get more games for the price of one. UFO 50 is priced, astoundingly, at $24.99 on Steam. That’s a borderline ludicrous value proposition, and we players should be embracing it. And asking for more.