REVIEW: ‘Strange Harvest’ Doesn’t Match Up To Its Potential

Melding the aesthetic of documentary into horror isn’t a new gimmick. Strange Harvest is the latest in a long line of mockumentary horrors, a proud lineage that includes such films as The Blair Witch Project. Stuart Ortiz‘s film, which debuted at the 2024 Fantastic Fest Film Festival, angles for a more modern relevance, assuming the demeanor of a gritty true crime documentary. Strange Harvest is an ambitious work, gliding from procedural to something more cosmic, yet its inconsistent execution leaves something to be desired. 

In the area of Southern California known as “The Inland Empire,” local authorities are rattled by the emergence of a serial killer thought long gone, known as “Mr Shiny.” His murders are ritualistic, often marked with an enigmatic symbol of the occult, and his correspondence by mail with the police suggests a chilling bigger picture. As detectives zero in on a suspect, the case only becomes more complicated, with the case going far beyond what anyone could ever imagine. 

For a project like Strange Harvest to work, audiences have to buy into the faux-documentary style hook, line, and sinker. Writer/director Stuart Ortiz mostly succeeds in tricking the audience into believing that they’re watching something real. The rhythm of the editing by Ortiz is a pitch-perfect recreation of the kind of salacious true crime content found on streaming services like Netflix.

Editing is essential for why Strange Harvest mostly succeeds in convincing the audience of its reality.

Moreover, cinematographer Seth Fuller shoots the “talking head” interviews with law enforcement in a way that’s indistinguishable from the work it’s trying to mimic. Tasteful facsimiles of news reports add to the atmosphere, as does a score by Sarah DeCourcy that keeps the film moving along at a nerve-wracking rhythm.

Perhaps the strongest element of Strange Harvest, at least visually, is the shocking “found footage” segments. One of the earliest scenes of the film shows a grisly crime scene where a family’s bodies are neatly positioned around a dinner table, their dead eyes washed out and their blood draining out into buckets at their feet. Moments like these feel like the audience is being let in on something they’re really not supposed to see.

This feeling gets even worse whenever Mr. Shiny (Jessee J. Clarkson) makes his appearance. Masked or unmasked, he’s a harrowing figure, whose dutiful, decisive actions and connection to something otherworldly feel like we’re witnessing something truly demonic by catching him on camera.

As for Mr. Shiny himself, he represents one of the film’s biggest issues. Now, consistently throughout Strange Harvest, he’s a fairly creepy figure, as enigmatic as he needs to be, with a creepy mask as the cherry on top. The issue is that Strange Harvest‘s script doesn’t really know what they want him to be. At one moment, he’s a methodical serial killer. At the other, he’s a harbinger of a deep cosmic horror. These elements can work well together, but Stuart Ortiz is really inconsistent in how he handles the investigation surrounding Mr. Shiny.

Mr. Shiny lacks an identity, oscillating between something grounded and something surreal.

The story veers all over the place, not establishing the consistent patterns it thinks it does. Of course, it makes sense that a horror movie aping true crime would want to leave some mystery to its big bad. Yet, when the film requires such wild shifts from grisly Zodiac killer-style horror to a more cosmic, Lovecraftian sub-genre, audiences need to be able to have a handle on what’s going on. In this case, it seems like an attempt to confuse the audience to induce immersion backfired. 

It doesn’t help that so much of Strange Harvest is focused on flat talking head sequences with the police officers. Throughout the film, detectives and additional personnel take up much of the screen time without the audience really getting to know them. Other than Peter Zizzo as the lead investigator, the performances are flat and, frankly, unbelievable in a way that threatens to break the spell. 

Strange Harvest is an admirable film that’s often unsuccessful in its goals. The true crime/found footage segueing into cosmic horror idea is a great one that receives a significant boost from an accomplished aesthetic. It’s a real shame, then, that the rest of the film is as undercooked as it is, leaving Strange Harvest a frequently engaging experiment that falls short of its potential.

Strange Harvest is now playing in theaters.