V/H/S: SCP Will Bring the Internet’s Biggest Horror Universe to the Found Footage Franchise
Just when you thought it was safe to press play on another unmarked videotape found next to a corpse, the V/H/S franchise has found an entirely new universe of horrible things that should absolutely not be looked at, touched, opened, spoken to, fed after midnight or accidentally released because Gary from the night shift forgot to lock a door.
The next instalment in the long-running found footage anthology franchise will be V/H/S: SCP, a collision between the V/H/S series and the enormous online collaborative fiction universe of the SCP Foundation. Spooky Pictures and Image Nation Studios are producing the project, which will mark the first feature-length addition to the SCP phenomenon. It was announced by Variety.
On paper, it is difficult to imagine two horror properties more naturally suited to each other. The V/H/S franchise has spent more than a decade showing audiences mysterious recordings of monsters, cults, aliens, demons and various other things that make pressing the eject button seem like an increasingly sensible lifestyle choice. The SCP Foundation, meanwhile, is built around documenting, studying and attempting to contain mysterious objects, entities and phenomena that frequently refuse to cooperate.
Essentially, V/H/S has finally found an organisation willing to catalogue all the horrible things on its tapes. Unfortunately, judging by the premise of the new film, containment is not going particularly well.
What Is the SCP Foundation?
For anyone who has somehow avoided one of the internet’s biggest rabbit holes, the SCP Foundation is a collaborative fiction project that grew from online horror writing into a vast shared universe containing thousands of stories, documents and interconnected pieces of mythology.
Rather than having one single author or conventional storyline, the project has been developed collectively by a huge community of writers. Stories are frequently presented as classified documents belonging to a secret organisation known as the SCP Foundation, whose purpose is generally summed up by its famous motto: Secure, Contain, Protect.
The Foundation investigates anomalous objects, creatures, locations and events that operate outside normal scientific understanding. These can range from monstrous entities and impossible architecture to seemingly ordinary objects with horrifying properties. Some SCP stories are frightening, some are tragic, some are darkly funny and others are so conceptually strange that you may find yourself wondering whether the internet should have been contained as well.
The clinical presentation is a major part of the appeal. Many entries read like confidential government reports, complete with containment procedures, experiment logs, incident reports, witness testimony and sections of information hidden behind redactions. Readers are given the sense that they are looking through documents that were never intended for public consumption.
That format has allowed the SCP universe to expand in almost every imaginable direction. It has inspired video games, podcasts, online videos, fan films and countless hours of discussion, while its open collaborative nature has made it one of the most significant examples of internet-born shared storytelling.
Now it is heading into the V/H/S universe, and the approach announced for the film sounds perfectly suited to both properties.
V/H/S: SCP Will Be Recovered Evidence From a Containment Breach
V/H/S: SCP will reportedly be presented as recovered field documentation: video evidence that has been gathered, redacted and archived by the secretive organisation. Individual anthology segments will focus on different objects, entities or incidents within a larger containment-breach narrative.
That framing device immediately opens up enormous possibilities.
One tape could follow a containment team entering a location after contact has been lost. Another could be security footage from inside a supposedly secure facility. A body camera could document an encounter with something that should not exist, while a damaged recording might contain precisely the information the Foundation does not want anybody to see.
The possibilities are practically endless, which has always been one of the great strengths of the SCP universe. There is no need for every segment to feature the same kind of horror. One could be a creature feature, another psychological horror, another cosmic nightmare and another something so completely bizarre that half the audience leaves the cinema convinced they have accidentally inhaled something from the air conditioning.
It is also a clever evolution of the V/H/S formula. The franchise has always relied on a wraparound story to provide a reason for the audience to be watching its collection of terrible recordings. Making those recordings archived evidence from a secret organisation creates a natural structure for the anthology while allowing the filmmakers to explore wildly different corners of the SCP universe.
Fourteen Years of Terrible Tapes
The V/H/S franchise began in 2012 with an anthology that gathered together filmmakers including Adam Wingard, Ti West, David Bruckner, Glenn McQuaid, Joe Swanberg and the filmmaking collective Radio Silence. Its rough, unpredictable approach helped establish a series in which audiences never quite knew what they were going to see when the next tape started playing.
The original film was followed by V/H/S/2 in 2013, which remains a favourite among many fans of the franchise. Its segments included Gareth Evans and Timo Tjahjanto’s Safe Haven, a spectacular descent into cult horror that remains one of the most celebrated stories the series has produced.
V/H/S: Viral followed in 2014 before the franchise went quiet for several years. It returned with V/H/S/94 in 2021 and has barely stopped moving since, with V/H/S/99, V/H/S/85, the science-fiction-themed V/H/S/Beyond and V/H/S/Halloween continuing the anthology series through 2025. The SCP project is the ninth film in the main feature series.
The franchise has also served as a testing ground for filmmakers and concepts that later expanded beyond the anthology format. Two segments have already led to feature-length films: Amateur Night from the original V/H/S became SiREN in 2016, while Slumber Party Alien Abduction from V/H/S/2 was expanded into Kids vs. Aliens in 2022.
That experimental nature is a major reason why the series has survived. Not every segment will work for every viewer, but that is part of the fun. If one story does not grab you, another director will be along shortly with a completely different nightmare.
The films have moved through supernatural horror, body horror, science fiction, apocalyptic stories, creature features and slasher territory without losing the central idea that somebody, somewhere, has recorded something they really should not have.
New Owners, New Nightmares
The announcement comes after Spooky Pictures and Image Nation acquired the rights to the V/H/S franchise from Studio71 earlier in 2026, with the companies planning to jointly produce future entries in the series.
Spooky Pictures is headed by producers Steven Schneider and Roy Lee, two names with substantial histories in modern horror. Schneider’s credits include involvement with major genre successes such as Paranormal Activity and Insidious, while Lee’s extensive producing career includes The Ring, The Grudge, IT, Barbarian and Weapons.
They will be joined on V/H/S: SCP by producers Josh Goldbloom and Michael Schreiber, both of whom already have experience with the franchise. Goldbloom has worked on several recent V/H/S entries, while Schreiber has also been involved with the series during its modern run.
Speaking about the project, Schneider described horror as an important launchpad for emerging filmmakers and pointed to the enormous SCP universe as an incubator for creative talent. He also said the project reflects the producers’ commitment to finding stories in unexpected places and expanding V/H/S with new and frightening ideas.
That philosophy fits comfortably with the history of V/H/S. From its beginning, the franchise has brought together established genre filmmakers and emerging voices, allowing directors to experiment with ideas that might not support a conventional 100-minute feature but can become something unforgettable in a shorter format.
SCP and V/H/S Might Be a Perfect Match
There is always a risk when a huge online phenomenon makes the transition into a traditional film. Part of the appeal of SCP is its sheer size and the freedom readers have to disappear into its mythology, moving between stories and discovering strange connections without being guided through one definitive canon.
Trying to reduce all of that into one conventional narrative would be almost impossible. Fortunately, an anthology is probably the smartest way to approach it.
The SCP universe is already episodic by nature. Its stories are documents, recordings, reports and fragments of a much larger world. V/H/S, meanwhile, is built around discovering footage and allowing different filmmakers to tell self-contained stories within a shared presentation.
The two formats fit together almost suspiciously well.
There is also something particularly appealing about the idea of a containment organisation attempting to make sense of the V/H/S world. After years of watching people find horrifying tapes and immediately press play, perhaps the franchise has finally introduced characters who understand that some things are better left alone.
Although, considering the words containment breach are involved, they apparently understand this approximately five minutes too late.
No directors, cast members or release date have yet been announced for V/H/S: SCP, and it remains to be seen which parts of the enormous SCP universe will influence the individual stories.
What we do know is that the V/H/S franchise has spent 14 years proving that the anthology format can continually reinvent itself, while the SCP Foundation offers a seemingly bottomless collection of strange, disturbing and frequently terrifying ideas.
If the filmmakers get this right, V/H/S: SCP could be one of the most exciting entries in the franchise yet.
