Horror in the High Desert

I was a bit sceptical at first realising it is literally filmed as a documentary, with the story mainly told by interviews with some footage inbetween, but it worked really well and i really enjoyed it! Great job!

Horror in the high desert is a cinematic feat that very few people could pull off. Dutch Marich is the director, writer, cinematographer, producer, and editor of this extraordinary mockumentary horror film based on the true story of Kenny Veach. It's beautifully shot, with acting that is surprisingly impressive for a cast that had relatively no experience in feature films. The dialogue was sharp, and the ending is as tense as it could've possibly been with the budgetary constraints the filmmaker was under. If I was ever going to attempt to get into filmmaking, this is the blueprint I would follow. Marich was able to maintain creative freedom because of the lack of studio interference and the extremely low production costs. Nonetheless, he crafts a stunning film with an abundance of creativity and some palpable suspense and mystique. He deserves all of the credit for this original piece of art that incorporates fright, thrills, and the influence social media has on an individuals ego as it relates to decision making.

If only there was more footage of Gary, rather than interview after interview whose mission is to delay the inevitable, this movie would be better. But is watchable enough and the final 20 minutes are actually creepy and made with plenty of suspenseful talent.

It's the easiest way to make a micro-budget film, do a faux documentary that ends with found footage. You can use a lot of photos instead of actually filming anything, have random location shots where nothing is happening, and you never have to stage scenes with actors, just have people sit and be a talking head. And this one starts off seeming to get everything right. The faux actors are believable, the disappearance at the heart of the plot starts getting mysterious, and then after only about twenty minutes it starts sliding progressively downhill. It don't help when you have all these characters (including an investigative journalist who apparently doesn't know how to investigate anything) talking about how super-intelligent and together the missing character is and when we finally see video of him he talks and acts like he just got out of his "special" class for those of, shall we say, far less than average intelligence. Then we spend the next half hour going nowhere with subplots suddenly abandoned or forgotten about and the mystery becomes rather obvious, and then we conclude with ten minutes of "found footage" which is so poorly shot, directed, and overall underwhelming it kinda makes you angry. Shoulda turned it off when the talking heads kept telling how dramatic one of the missing characters last videos was, and then they just say "that video got accidentally erased"; which I took to mean the actors performance was so horrible they couldn't even use a clip of it. And the climactic found footage is literally as bad as you can get. Unless you get scared staring at the same bush under infrared light. One bush. That's pretty much it. From a solid 8/10 in the first few minutes all the way down to 3/10 says it all.

It would appear that a lot of fake reviews are here. The movie was VERY slow and dull. There was no mystery to the ending. Definitely no sequel is going to happen. But I did give it a 5 because the last 20 minutes actual were pretty creepy. I suggest skimming the first hour in 5 or 10 minutes, and then just watch the last 20.