A decades-long murder spree leads two cops into darkness in this smart, gruesome mockumentary.
It’s ironic that cosmic horror tends to work better on a lower budget. When you’re getting Lovecraftian and talking about unknowable cosmic terrors whose very existence shreds the sanity of those who apprehend it, not having the money to even attempt to depict said terrors is a feature, not a bug. Starry Eyes, Color Out Of Space, Banshee Chapter, and a handful of others work their unsettling wonders by alluding to the uncanny more than depicting it. So too does the mockumentary Strange Harvest from writer and director Stuart Ortiz, who uses the language of true crime documentaries to tell this tale of Things Man Was Definitely Not Meant To Know.
We start out in familiar if upsetting territory as two California cops, Joe Kirby (Peter Rizzo) and Lexi Taylor (Terri Apple) relate the decades-long investigation into an Inland Empire serial killer known as Mr. Shiny, a guy who could give Seven‘s John Doe a run for his money in the creative cruelty stakes – even he never subjected anyone to exsanguination by leeches. Before long we’re edging into occult territory, with foreboding symbols daubed in blood, ritualistic murders, ancient prophecies, and the growing suspicion that there’s a fair chance all this isn’t just in the murderer’s head.
Inventively bloody and cleverly plotted, Strange Harvest falters a little if you dwell too much on some of its more shocking developments – he did what to who with what? – but dexterously delivers a growing sense of unease that more than compensates for its more lurid details. Or perhaps it complements them, much as the careful recreation of documentary aesthetics helps sell the more unbelievable elements. This is smart, in-your-face horror that pulls few punches, combining visceral gore and existential terror in an exquisitely disturbing manner.
Strange Harvest is on VOD now.
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