Kate Siegel is well-known to horror fans for her dynamic array of performances within the genre—often working with her husband and creative partner, Mike Flanagan. Their projects together include (deep breath) Oculus, Hush (which Siegel co-wrote), Ouija: Origin of Evil, and Gerald’s Game, as well as Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, and The Fall of the House of Usher. You can now add V/H/S/Beyond to that list—with a bit of a role reversal, since Flanagan wrote it and Siegel directed, making her debut behind the camera.
Their V/H/S/Beyond segment is titled “The Stowaway;” it’s the last entry in the film other than the conclusion of the frame story. An unsettling blend of first-contact wonderment and body horror, it follows the awkward yet determined Halley (Alanah Pearce) as she roams a lonely pocket of California’s Mojave Desert, intent on capturing proof of UFO activity in the area. We won’t spoil where her journey leads, but in the build-up to its memorably ghastly climax, “Stowaway” creates a nuanced portrait of someone who’s clearly reeling from recent trauma in her life, and who’s hoping to find some new purpose in her extraterrestrial explorations.
Speaking to Variety, Siegel said she’d jump at the chance to expand Halley’s story: “I would love to make this a feature. There is a huge feature-length story in it that I’d love to tell.”
And there’s precedent for that; so far, two feature films have been made that expand on their V/H/S origins: 2016’s SiREN, drawn from “Amateur Night” in 2012’s V/H/S, and 2022’s Kids vs. Aliens, from “Slumber Party Alien Abduction” in 2013’s V/H/S/2.
Though it sounds like she had a blast making “Stowaway,” saying “I find it very exciting to have a new way to tell a story,” Siegel isn’t walking away from acting to pursue directing full-time. “I’m not giving up acting—I’m just being a little more picky now because I have something that takes all of me that I feel like doing,” she told the trade. “I’ll always answer the call for a great story, whether that is as a director or a producer or an actress.”
As for working with Flanagan, beyond the fact that they’re married, she is drawn to his “honesty and respect,” even when he’s telling her something she might not want to hear (or vice versa): “He’ll give me the constructive criticism I need, or I will give him the criticism he needs … when you’re making millions and millions of choices, the stuff that gets through is the most honest and direct.”
You can stream V/H/S/Beyond on Shudder now.
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