FF24 REVIEW: Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire [2025]

Rating: NR | Runtime: 94 minutes
Release Date: August 8th, 2025 (USA)
Studio: Saban Films / Roadside Attractions
Director(s): Stuart Ortiz
Writer(s): Stuart Ortiz

He’s back.

I will say this about Stuart Ortiz’s Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire: it looks and feels like a real true crime documentary. The production value is high. The attention to detail and use of old recording devices (or filters to mimic them) is on point. And the actors portraying the talking head interviews are excellent—especially Peter Zizzo and Terri Apple as lead detectives Joe Kirby and Lexi Taylor. Ortiz concocted the Mr. Shiny killing spree as if it really happened and measured out the witnesses and case breaks necessary to maintain tension while also progressing towards a plausible conclusion.

As a technical exercise paying homage to the genre, it’s impeccable. Was that his sole point, though? To present a case that touches on the supernatural with a level of authenticity an otherwise fictional narrative couldn’t? I guess accomplishing that goal successfully is a good enough reason, but why bring in the supernatural at all if you’re only going to infer its presence? Ortiz is sacrificing his ability to go big and truly make this a cosmic horror so he can retain aesthetic verisimilitude. Doing so ultimately undercuts what makes its premise cool—that Mr. Shiny (Jessee J. Clarkson) really is communing with an evil entity.

That’s not to say there isn’t still ambiguity. This thing doesn’t work at all if we don’t at least believe some cosmic craziness is plausibly taking effect. Is it paramount that Kirby and Taylor remain skeptical to achieve that ambiguity? No. Having them pursue this case as though Mr. Shiny is deranged and acting out a dark fantasy they must stop before it gets further out of hand is only necessary for aesthetic purposes. If Ortiz wanted, he could have made them Mulder and Scully without losing deniability. This could have been an X-FILES-esque episode shot like a documentary where he wasn’t constrained by the limitations of reality. He chose those limitations.

As a result, the project inevitably ends with a whimper. Not because it isn’t effective, but because it promised so much more. Had this just been Seven in documentary, I’d be a lot more favorable because its progressions would be focused on solving the crime and catching their man. Introducing Kaliban and Azragor while also alluding to witchcraft and demonic rituals sets us up for an intense and otherworldly payoff that never arrives. Ortiz flirts with that result (and even goes far enough for audiences to speculate that he confirmed it) before pressing pause and stepping back into the realm of sanity. He teases the apocalypse, but only provides delusions of grandeur.

It’s still good. Remove the cosmic aspects and you do feel like you’re on this bloody ride of murder as captured by police cams, web cams, and surveillance cams (I love the absurd touch of censoring a dog carcass while presenting unedited homicides). It’s just impossible to do so when the film leans into its “Lovecraftian” appeal so hard that the marketing push uses it as a selling point. So, discovering it’s a bill of false goods can’t help but sting. I felt so cheated that I stayed through the end credits thinking Ortiz might make everything right by supplying the payoff there. Sadly, while an end credit scene does exist, it once again only touches upon its supernatural horror’s potential. Fool me twice and all that.

So, while I’d definitely recommend Strange Harvest on its cinematic merits, you must go in knowing that it won’t capitalize on its promise of being more than a fake true crime documentary. Maybe the decision to hold back was budgetary in scope or maybe Ortiz thought the flavor augments the mystery without consuming it fully. All I can say is that he injected this serial killing spree with enough cosmic inklings to buckle me in for some The Void-like chaos that never manifests. I can only hope you knowing it’s all a smokescreen upon sitting down will make experiencing what the film actually is more enjoyable.