TPA 82 Strange Harvest Review

I've heard people debate about what makes good cosmic horror. There's a thin line that has to be navigated that boarders on belief and disbelief in the story that makes the impossible seem possible. Strange Harvest is one of the genre that gets very close to doing it perfectly. The movie is a documentary/found footage film that I had been dying to see for the past few months. After searching online for a pirating site to provide me with the goods, I bit the bullet and spent seven dollars to watch the film. And my money seems to have been well spent. The mockumentary follows the case of the Mr. Shiny Murders and focuses on the two detectives who profiled the case and how it affected them and the victims. From the opening I was drawn in by the documentary style footage. A lot of out of their luck TV channels will have marathons of dramatized accounts of police tracking down killers, rapists, and every other kind of scum bag. The editors always do a good job of jazzing up the the tension with sharp cuts and intense music cues. It's dumb entertainment for the sake of making entertainment out of someone's death. I'm sure the police and interviewees are given a nice bonus check to their account after their story. I'm not immune to this style of TV, there was a brief period where I wanted to watch this kind of media. My parents put a stop to that when the series became too focused on rape which was for the best. There are some things you shouldn't dwell on. The style reminds me of another film I don't plan to see, The Poughkeepsie Tapes. This other film, follows an investigation attempt into finding a massive serial killer after hundreds of tapes of his victims are found in a house. I won't dive into too many details about the movie as I've never seen it, but Strange Harvest had it's hooks in me. With my DnD day shot down by one of the players having contracted a nasty cold, I decided now would be a good time to watch it. Like I mentioned, the film follows two detectives in a documentary style movie. Right away the strangeness of the killings draws you in. At the crime scenes, there is a symbol painted in blood. It's a triangle with a dot in it with the corners extended and ending in dots. The symbol was a mystery throughout the movie but I had my hunches once they showed the telescope early found in the killer's house. It was an obvious connection to the stars in the sky. The connection to cosmic horror goes further when the letters the killer sends mentions a "shambler." Shambler is a reference to "The Shambler from the Stars" by Robert Bloch. While the story isn't from Lovecraft, it's become popular enough (probably due to being a monster in the Quake game series) that it's become almost an adopted creature for the official Eldritch universe. As the movie moves along, the detectives find victims killed with their blood being drained or parts being removed in ritualistic methods. Their only clue about the man is his name which he signs as Mr. Shiny in the letters that he baits the police with. During one such killing, the screen tears as Mr. Shiny seems to perform a gesture in front of the dead victim. This is the second tip that there is something going on with his actions beyond serial killers. There's even a homeless man who's saved from death because he's not a diabetic. I'm guessing Shiny needed someone with specific blood to perform a ritual. This attribute is never mentioned again but it gives the watcher enough clues to draw their own conclusion. There's also this almost supernatural ability Shiny has to get past police. He's able to kill his victims without them seeing him. Almost as if he's a ghost. The police eventually track down a friend of Mr. Shiny who tells the back story. Mr. Shiny was a recluse who would go rock climbing. He returned one day claiming he found a cave where he had a vision of something that reached out to him. He mentions Kaliban, a character from Shakespear's "Tempest" and something called a "thorn in time" which seems to be a reference to some ritual. The police slowly close in as Mr. Shiny hops from the US to Jerusalem, through the middle east and back to the US. During this time he steals an ancient text called the Scriptures of Valeel. Or maybe it was Vakeel. Sheesh, as I'm writing this, a cat suddenly screetched out. I'm afraid to look outside. This movie as a way of getting under your skin. As if you're expecting something to be waiting for you under the bed. There's this disbelief among the police as to what Shiny is trying to do. It culminates in him performing a ceremony in the woods with a kidnapped infant. Before he can complete the ritual, he's killed by the police. During this time, the stars that he was so in love with align into a triangle, similar to the one he's been painting (it's actually the planets that align every eight hundred years or so.) Mr. Shiny dies as gas from between the stars fluxuates and causes locals seizures and vertigo. The baby is saved and the police are left wondering what Mr. Shiny was trying to do. All we know from the letters and tapes is that he focuses on something he calls "the Great One," another reference to Lovecraft's work. The movie even gave this eldritch monster a name, Azragor. There's these paintings and sculpures of him as a leech god. Overall, the movie wasn't bad but it tripped over the cosmic line. There's plenty of scenes of gore showing the dead victims that looks...fake. There's even a "burn" victim who's face looks like a playdoh mask. I almost laughed at the makeup which didn't do the film any favors. What I do love about this film is the moments where I, as a fan of Lovecraft, could put the pieces together about what was happening. It certainly garnered my attention enough for me to watch the full movie without interuptions. The few scares aren't really jump scares but these disturbing scenes that creep into you. I also enjoyed the "is it or is it not true" aspect of the eldritch horror. The problem is that while they can explain away many aspects of Mr. Shiny's actions as "crazy" there's too much undenialble proof that leads the viewer to believe Shiny was doing something supernatural. I also liked this line they kept on using "You're only died when someone last says your name." It's true because the other serial killers, Gacy, Jack the Ripper, H. H. Holmes, have achieved name immortality. "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die." Overall, a very good attempt to work Lovecraftian horror into the modern age. It was certainly better than The Void. A good movie which suckered me in with the found footage type of film I love so much.