Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire is a true crime documentary that mixes the best (worst?) parts of the popular genre. The film follows one of the most overlooked killing sprees to take place in California. Writer-director Stuart Ortiz is not just looking to make a faux true crime doc, however. The Fantastic Fest world premiere is a carefully crafted horror story.
It seems like everything that there is nothing new that can be done in true crime. Grisly murders, the occult, and the supernatural have all been done. The challenge for Ortiz was making a fictional one that was as entertaining as everything that has already been released while also staying true to the genre’s trappings.
Strange Harvest is played straight the entire time. There are no winking nods to the audience or over the top moments that become parody. Ortiz does such a great job of crafting the story that audiences will often find themselves checking their phones to see what is and is not true. (This ends up being one of the biggest nitpicks of the film. One interviewee is so adamant about something being on Google that there is no way it cannot be true.) It is all incredibly creepy.
The movie also succeeds by leaning more into horror. There is plenty of gore and the makeup effects are especially good. Everything plays out like a slasher, with each kill becoming more outrageous and gross. It is so well done that it is hard not to wonder how Strange Harvest would have done as a regular scary movie.
Much like a real true crime documentary, the story takes center stage. The police are bearable at best. They are the type of copy and paste talking heads that always populate these types of films. The weakest moments of Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire are when the blue baddies become a bigger part of the actual story. Still, it is easily one of the most terrifying watches of the year.
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