V/H/S/Mixtape (2026) Review – A New Series Low

Welcome to Knockout Horror. It’s day 11 of our 31 Days of Halloween 2026 marathon and it’s time to break up the classic reviews with something a lot more recent. So recent, in fact, that it has only been on Shudder a couple of days. We are checking out the latest installment in the V/H/S horror anthology franchise – V/H/S/Mixtape (2026). I’m going to suggest that if this one gets chewed up in a dusty old cassette player, you don’t bother trying to fix it. Let’s take a look.

Horror’s Most Enduring Anthology

It’s something of a surprise that the world is currently devoid of any big name annual horror movie releases. Going back through a bunch of sequels and threequels from well known franchises, it stood out to me that certain series would throw out a sequel practically every year. Many of which would release in October.

“It’s actually quite impressive how the series has managed to endure, even beyond the brief anthology craze back in the 2010s.”

Whether it was Friday the 13th, Saw, Hellraiser, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Paranormal Activity, the annual horror sequel was a pretty ubiquitous thing. Fast forward to the 2020s and horror is a more dependable genre than it has been in decades, but most of the big franchises have evaporated.

The one series we can pretty much depend on for something new every October is the horror anthology V/H/S. In fact, since the first movie’s release in 2012, we have seen another eight mainline entries, two spinoffs, and a web series.

It’s actually quite impressive how it has managed to endure, even beyond the brief anthology craze back in the 2010s. Series creator Brad Miska’s ability to still attract industry leading talent over a decade later deserves some praise.

A series that has lost its way

The above point about attracting industry leading talent does speak to my disillusionment with this series, however.

While V/H/S perhaps started as an earnest attempt to promote lesser known directors, it is now far more concerned with giving already established talent a platform to experiment.

The first V/H/S movie offered a stage to upcoming directors like David Bruckner (The Ritual), Radio Silence (Ready or Not), Ti West (X), and Adam Wingard (Godzilla vs. Kong).

These were all talents who were working in the independent horror industry but weren’t all that well known. The Bloody Disgusting backed and promoted anthology format offered them an opportunity to showcase their abilities to a wider audience. An audience who would then seek them out later when they released enormously important genre films.

The latest entry, V/H/S/Mixtape, is a stark example of how the series has completely lost its way.

The segments here are directed by Ernest Dickerson (who directed the brilliant Tupac Shakur movie Juice back in 1992), Flying Lotus (of Ash and previous V/H/S films fame), Swedish metal singer Tobias Forge, French director David Moreau (Ils and MadS), and legendary rapper, producer, and filmmaker RZA from Wu-Tang Clan.

The only relatively unknown talent here is Renee Zhan. Hell, the connecting segments even feature the ancient metal band GWAR. Nobody involved in this project needed a platform and, as such, there’s a distinct feeling that most of them phoned this in big time.

The worst entry in the series by a long way

V/H/S/Mixtape represents a significant step down from even the worst entries in the series.

In a bit of a departure from the norm, we have four stories here, two interludes, and a wraparound segment. The wraparound segment features metal band GWAR dressed in their trademark full pantomime getup, basically acting like a group of 13 year olds trying to be edgy. It’s practically unbearable and easily the worst wraparound segment in the entire V/H/S series.

The first story is Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance directed by Renee Zhan. It follows a studio exec heading to a studio to digitise some vintage puppets to use in a soulless CGI show, but getting much more than she bargained for.

There’s a fun Barbara Crampton appearance here and some interesting puppets actually made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. I feel like this has come at a bit of a bad time, however, as the story plays out like a very low-rent version of Buddy.

It really doesn’t offer much excitement, the acting is fairly poor, and the gore isn’t all that satisfying, outside of one fantastic head splitting moment later on. It feels a bit unimaginative and a bit boring, to be honest.

The second segment is Heartbeat by David Moreau. This is your classic found footage urban exploration gone wrong as a couple find themselves trapped in a soundproof room that quickly sends them mad.

Moreau is a fantastic director but this segment drags horrendously. The idea is interesting, but it needed to be about five minutes long instead of nearly twenty. It’s fairly nasty in parts but wears out its welcome very quickly by rehashing the same idea over and over.

Halfway through

The third story is a little more interesting. The Music of Mr. Sze, directed by Ernest Dickerson, sees a documentary film student attempting to discover the secret behind the captivating music he hears from the man living above him. Little realising that he is about to invite in something truly otherworldly.

“V/H/S/Mixtape represents a significant step down from even the worst entries in the series.”

This has the DNA of a fairly interesting story, I’m just not sure about the execution. Acting is extremely suspect and there’s a lot of pointless build to what is, essentially, just a Lovecraftian, cosmic-horror payoff that feels far more compelling than what preceded it. It’s enjoyable, though, and stands out for being not terrible.

The fourth segment is Death Tone by RZA. As a huge fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, I was genuinely relieved that this segment was actually pretty strong. Especially after the RZA produced dreck that was Nyctophobia.

It sees a young woman (Neela Jolene) attempting to record the perfect beat to honour her late father, even if it means turning to serial murder to achieve it. This is quite a lot of fun. Neela Jolene is obviously having a great time playing a complete lunatic, the concept is pretty interesting, and it’s actually quite nasty in parts.

There’s also two interludes dotted towards the middle and end of these segments. One is a genuinely boring stop motion called Another Cabin, directed by Flying Lotus. The music is forgettable, the animation isn’t all that noteworthy, and it is just generally pretty poor.

The other is an absolutely horrendous music video called Premature Burial directed by Tobias Forge. It’s like something you would accidentally stumble on while flicking through music channels and immediately turn off to save both your eyes and your ear drums… And I say this as someone who was a big fan of metal music

It lacks cohesion

I was nowhere near as big of a fan of V/H/S/Halloween as a lot of people. Even with that having been said, it definitely had one thing going in its favour and that is cohesion. It felt like every director understood the theme and stuck to it religiously. That is simply not the case with V/H/S/Mixtape.

“These are ideas and little more, all buoyed up with excessive gore, excessive camera movement, and excessive noise.”

This is a horribly messy production and it feels as though almost every director has simply added an insignificant sound based element to an otherwise ordinary horror story.

Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance features a song, that is it. The musical element of The Music of Mr. Sze feels more like a shoehorned in plot device than anything noteworthy. Another Cabin has no requirement for music, or even sound, at all, and the connecting segments are only musical by way of being hosted by a band and looking vaguely like an old MTV studio piece.

Only Moreau with Heartbeat and RZA with Death Tone actually seem to have got the memo and understood it. They are the only segments that feel specifically designed around a musical or sound based theme. Every other segment feels as though it was an afterthought.

Simply not that good

It really doesn’t help that at least half of the segments are of a very low quality. Direction feels either spasmodic, chaotic, or misguided, acting is often incredibly weak, special effects aren’t all that special, and the stories simply aren’t interesting.

It’s strange because you can really tell that budget wasn’t a significant hindrance to the development, here. It’s just a lack of care and a lack of competent storytelling. These are ideas and little more, all buoyed up with excessive gore, excessive camera movement, and excessive noise.

Very few segments actually feel like fully developed concepts that know exactly what they want to be. The ones that succeed do so because they have a decently structured narrative. There’s even something of a “but” when it comes to those segments.

Due to how poor the majority of this film is, the decent parts seem far better than they actually are. This is always an issue with anthologies, if we are honest, but it is magnified tremendously, here. The good segments in V/H/S/Mixtape wouldn’t be remotely close to the top of the best V/H/S segments in the series.

People don’t care so they will keep making them

Part of the problem with this franchise is how undemanding its fans are. Go and look at the YouTube comments for any of the trailers. They don’t care about quality, they simply care that a new movie comes out every year; they will watch regardless.

V/H/S isn’t held to any kind of standard and the producers know this. They go into it fully assuming that the audience is gullible.

That’s why they are entirely happy to release crap like this and then rob from small online content creators to make projects like next year’s V/H/S/SCP with no attributed credit or monetary kickback for the people who wrote the stories.

I really think that this series has lost its way. It’s time to reconsider the purpose of V/H/S and start handing the reigns to unknown directors. If you are going to fail, you might as well do it while trying to bring some people up rather than allowing well known talent to simply phone it in. This is an easy skip for anyone other than anthology completists.

Our Scoring Philosophy: A Fair Fight

Horror is a genre that thrives thanks to indie film makers and low budget creators. At Knockout Horror, we firmly believe that every movie that we review deserves a fair fight. That's why we grade on a curve. Our star ratings are all about context, judging a film on what it achieves with the resources it has.

A 4-star rating for a scrappy indie horror made for $10,000 is a testament to its ingenuity and raw power. A 4-star rating for a $100 million blockbuster means it delivered on its epic promises. We don't compare them side-by-side; we celebrate success in every weight class, from the back-alley brawler to the heavyweight champion. Please keep this in mind when considering star ratings.