Strange Harvest - User Reviews

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User review rating: 2 August 16, 2025

At the end it was pretty good, but actors could be a bit better.

User review rating: 4 August 09, 2025

Fourteen years after Grave Encounters jolted the found-footage scene, Stuart Ortiz returns with Strange Harvest, trading ghosts for a ritual-obsessed serial killer and something far stranger beneath the surface. Released in the US on August 8, 2025 after a year of festival buzz, it’s a high-concept horror mockumentary so convincing you could stumble in mid-way and swear you were watching a grim Dateline episode. Ortiz nails the “Netflix-style” true crime aesthetic, talking-head interviews with San Bernardino detectives Joe Kirby (Peter Zizzo) and Alexis Taylor (Terri Apple) cut with fake archival footage, grainy bodycam feeds, news reports, and meticulous crime scene walkthroughs. The opening triple-murder, family bound at the table, feet in blood-filled buckets, a triangular sigil above, lands with a cold procedural thud. Where it really earns its place in the mock-doc canon is in making “Mr. Shiny” feel plausibly real. His simple, industrial mask could be pulled from an evidence locker; his taunting, poetic letters recall Zodiac, while ritualistic mutilations nod to BTK and Lovecraftian dread. Each killing deepens the mythology, leeches, medieval bloodletting, organ removals tied to once-in-800-year astrological transits, grisly yet methodical. Zizzo and Apple keep it grounded, their restraint lending authenticity, while practical effects wizard Josh Russell ensures the horror is disturbingly tangible. The lean 94-minute runtime can still feel long inside the TV-doc structure, especially during cosmic digressions. Yet as high-concept horror craft, it stands with Lake Mungo and The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Ortiz mirrors true crime’s grip more than he critiques it, but his commitment to the bit makes for an unsettling watch, right up to a post-credit stinger that quietly primes you for more. If Grave Encounters kicked down the door, Strange Harvest slips in through the side gate, camera rolling, convincing you the lights are already on.

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