Strange Harvest review
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Strange Harvest
Directed by Stuart Ortiz
Written by Stuart Ortiz
Starring Peter Zizzo and Terry Apple
Strange Harvest Review
I’m going to begin today’s review by stating the obvious. Getting more horror into theaters is a great thing for the genre and its fans. Independent horror is where a large percentage of innovation and experimenting happens. Strange Harvest could easily be categorized as an experiment. The movie is presented as a true crime documentary. The kind you might find on A&E or…wherever true crime shows air. It’s never been my thing. I prefer my horror selections from the fiction shelf. Which, honestly, makes Strange Harvest the perfect alternative. Or at least the perfect compromise.
Today was almost the day we finally launched into a discussion about using a genre as notoriously unsettling as horror to escape the darkness of the real world…but we’re going to put (another) pin in that for a while. I assure you that we will get to it one day. Today we’re going to discuss the appeal of a movie like Strange Harvest…and acknowledge that it might play even better in the future when you can watch it from the comfort of your living room. Like an actual true crime show.
The story presented in Strange Harvest is completely made up. It’s not based on a true story or adapted from an actual true crime. The movie goes to great lengths to portray the events as real…impressively not dropping the bit for a moment. The actors do a fine job of feeling as authentic as they can as they do their talking heads as detectives or family members of its serial killer’s victims. The concept is the experiment here. To try and craft an engaging narrative that you’ll buy as an authentic investigation. It works as well as I’ve ever seen someone do it. Which is both a point in its favor…and an argument that a theatrical release isn’t the best outlet for it. There’s a reason that people don’t flock to theaters to watch documentaries about Ted Bundy.
This is where we need to travel back to the second line of this review. Regardless of whether theaters are the perfect format for Strange Harvest…it’s undeniably good that you can go see it in one. It does, however, feel weird to watch what feels so much like a documentary you’d see on streaming blown up on the big screen. Strange Harvest chooses the right path…committing to what it’s supposed to be makes the finish product better. I wonder if they would have done anything differently had they known they would be receiving a theatrical release. This is the kind of project that could have popped up on Netflix or HBO Max and had a lot of people talking about it as an until now unknown serial killer saga. It’s that impressively done.
It comes with some extremely gnarly crime scene footage too. Strange Harvest doesn’t hold back in that department whatsoever. Well…aside from a blacked out photo of a supposed dead dog. Even fake true crime has its limits. Those limits don’t, however, include the bodies of children drained of blood and posed in ceremonial fashion. It’s disturbing stuff…made more effective by the story’s commitment to how it presents all of it. The story told through grisly crime scenes, talking heads and impressively manufactured footage from different time periods is about a California serial killer calling himself Mr. Shiny. His murders are ritualistic in nature and span over 15 years. We’re watching a documentary made after the fact, so the entire story is represented.
There is another moment where Strange Harvest’s commitment to its concept frustratingly closes another avenue on itself. We’ve seen movies that use similar styles to tell their stories. The Horror in the High Desert movies present themselves in a way that feels like missing episodes of Unsolved Mysteries. It cleverly places found footage segments where the TV show would utilize reenactments. It’s an incredibly effective way of showcasing things. Strange Harvest is far more rigid in its execution. While the Desert films build a narrative to accentuate their found footage segments…Strange Harvest’s goal is to adhere as strictly as possible to its framing device. It’s the entire point.
What’s missing is the moment when Strange Harvest fully cuts itself loose. The effective build leads to a realistic (with a dash of unexplainable phenomena dismissed by skeptics) finish. It could, and maybe should, have been utilized to send the climax off the rails instead. They use bodycam footage of officers searching the woods for the serial killer already…but it ends with a grounded feeling that wastes the potential charge it builds up instead of exploding. Which is, of course, what would happen in a true crime story. So, it’s what happens in Strange Harvest too. A few minutes of bigger, unexplainable terror would have suited the finale better than a procedural with slightly heightened moments. But it wouldn’t have fit with the point of the movie.
Which is the paradox that Strange Harvest has created for itself. A mock true crime documentary that completely adheres to the rules of the format. One that would play perfectly dropped without explanation on a popular streaming service. It will spend most of its existence being exactly that. For the moment, however, it is playing in theaters. A place where we don’t gather to watch the format it’s admirably recreating. A place where the expectations of a big finish outweigh Strange Harvest’s commitment to being something we would never see in theaters.
Scare Value
Strange Harvest uses its chosen format as well as anyone could. It gets great mileage out of its clever crime scenes. Seriously, some of the most creative murders happen here…offscreen due to the commitment to the concept. That kind of tells the story of Strange Harvest by itself. Great ideas limited by the need to fit the presentation. It’s going to make a wonderful streaming experience in the not-too-distant future. While it’s always good for the genre to have more horror in theaters…it may not be the best thing for this specific film’s impact. But…good is good.
3/5
Strange Harvest Link
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