V/H/S/85 directors on the supernatural, found footage, and what was acceptable in the '80s

One of the most popular found footage horror franchises has just gotten even bigger with the release of V/H/S/85, the sixth installment of the V/H/S anthology series. This latest chapter acts as a collection of home movies, news broadcasts, police tapes, and a recorded off-the-television documentary, all set in, you guessed it, the 1980s. 

The film features segments from V/H/S veteran director David Bruckner, Sinister's Scott Derrickson, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Natasha Kermani, and Mike P. Nelson. The shorts detail violent crimes and disasters caught on shaky retro cameras, that have all in some way been influenced by an other-worldly alien force. In an exclusive interview with GamesRadar+, Bruckner, Derrickson, and Nelson sat down to discuss the making of V/H/S/85, all things the supernatural, and how this overarching theme was unintentional.

Different approaches

Differing from past V/H/S movies, all of these segments have supernatural themes. Bruckner's short – or rather what he labels the 'wraparound' – Total Copy, is presented as a made-for-TV documentary following a group of scientists studying an unusual slime-covered entity named Rory. This chapter acts as the glue holding the whole movie together, with small clips playing in between the other shorts. The storyline was dreamed up by Bruckner and writer Evan Dickson whilst binging '80s horror movies in a cabin in the woods. The pair watched Joseph Ruben's Dreamscape, Stuart Gordan's From Beyond, and David Cronenberg's Videodrome for inspiration, then as Bruckner explains "jammed on some ideas until we landed on something that was alien but also, whether we wanted to or not, AI".

Meanwhile Doctor Strange director Derrickson's short, Dreamkill, is not overtly sci-fi but in a Sixth Sense fashion uses the supernatural to guide the story. Dreamkill follows a teenager named Gunther, played by Derrickson's son, Dashiell, as he starts to dream up horrific murders that tape themselves onto a VCR, then later coming true. Mixing gore with the paranormal is common practice for Derrickson, who tells GamesRadar+ that his V/H/S short was inspired by his recent movie The Black Phone, and even takes place in the same timeline.

Nelson, director of the 2021 reboot Wrong Turn , took a slightly different approach to making his short, that is actually split into two separate parts. Nelson's two-for-one starts with a group of teens heading to the lake, but it's not Jason they meet at the camp, but a seemingly harmless assailant. Due to unnatural forces, the murders don't go to plan and in the second act, Ambrosia, the victims seek revenge. As the filmmaker told GamesRadar+, he felt he had permission to go wild with this final act:  "The supernatural element was something that I wanted to incorporate already. For the most part with all the directors, we're usually working in a bubble - we pitch a story, we write a script, and then we get handed the keys to go nuts."

In sync

To this end, it's pretty creepy that each filmmaker had no idea that their counterparts were also working with alien and/or paranormal themes.Nelson adds: "It's funny because we've all been asked very similar questions like – 'how did you guys sync up your ideas so well?' We didn't! Our minds just went to certain places when we were told '85' and there was something in the air." 

According to Nelson, one reason why the separate shorts fit so well together comes down to the freedom given when making these films which only had to be tied to two factors: it has to be found footage and it had to be set in the 1980s. He recalls fellow director Brucker telling him: "This is your 'fuck you' movie, you get to do whatever you want, and don't be scared to push it further than you think". Derrickson echoes this, saying "the producers don't put any restrictions on you," which is exactly what filmmakers find so appealing about low-budget passion projects like this.

The most obviously alien-like short has to be Bruckner's, featuring a strange extraterrestrial entity named Rory. You would think that piece had to influence all the other directors, but actually, Bruckner's film was made after all of the other shorts, which may be the reason why the movie flows so well. "Evan Dickson, who wrote the piece, and I conceptualized something that borrowed bits from all of the other shorts tonally," Bruckner says. "So, there's a bit of body horror, there are some sci-fi elements, and professional characters."

It is quite extraordinary that none of the filmmakers, apart from Bruckner, had seen or heard anything about the other shorts, or even spoke to the other directors, but still managed to produce films that share the same theme. V/H/S/85 is a welcomed change to the franchise providing audiences with a fun yet horrific blast from the past detailing what was and what definitely wasn't acceptable in the '80s.

Moving on from V/H/S/85, Bruckner feels many directors will be jumping at the chance to be included in the next installment as "there's a certain freedom and a kind of frictionless environment to have fun with the genre". Derrickson agrees: "I like the idea of being able to go real hard, without any worries about ratings."

And to conclude, Nelson hits the nail on the head: "I guess I can just sum it up with – it's a lot and it's crazy, but it's so much fun."

V/H/S/85 is available to stream now with a Shudder subscription on Amazon Prime. For more scares caught on camera, check out our list of the 10 best found footage horror movies.