It is no surprise that one of my favorite films of Fantastic Fest 2024 is by Stuart Ortiz, better known as half of the directing team The Vicious Brothers. Both as a fan of found footage and a life-long resident of the Inland Empire, I was primed to be the target audience for Strange Harvest, which invokes films like The Poughkeepsie Tapes and the films of the Horror in the High Desert series.
“Director and writer Stuart Ortiz premiered his newest film, Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire, at this year’s Fantastic Fest. In the style of a faux true-crime documentary, Strange Harvest details a string of serial murders that occurred in San Bernardino, California, through a combination of interviews, home video footage, and other methods to create a truly engaging feature. The perpetrator of these crimes is the masked Mr. Shiny, who stumps local law enforcement through his sporadic victim pool, lack of a solid M.O., and cosmic motivations.”
Read the full review over at Offscreen Central!
xx – Vannah
Siren Death Cult 