The lineup for Fantastic Fest 2024 was just as impressive as always. Where does one begin? My experience at this year’s fest started with Stuart Ortiz’s solo directing debut Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire. Ortiz made a name for himself as one-half of The Vicious Brothers, the two filmmakers who created the brilliant found footage film Grave Encounters. Ortiz sets off on his own to bring audiences a truly terrifying true crime mockumentary.
Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire
Strange Harvest is framed as your typical true crime doc. We follow the chronological timeline of detectives Joe Kirby (Peter Zizzo) and Alexis Taylor (Terri Apple) who are on a decades-long hunt to find a serial killer by the name of Mr. Shiny (Jessee J. Clarkson). It becomes clear all too quickly that Mr. Shiny is a force to be reckoned with as he unleashes terror throughout Southern California.
Ortiz shines with a fully realized vision in his solo debut. Rarely can true crime-focused mockumentaries instill true terror into the viewer, but Ortiz finds new and creative ways to scare. Bordering on too realistic for its own good, Strange Harvest sets a new bar for mockumentaries. You can learn more about Strange Harvest and the possible connections to The Vicious Brothers’s Extraterrestrial in our interview here.
Still image from Else
Else
Thibault Emin’s Else hooked me on press photos alone, though the plot also sounded pretty intriguing. Quar-horror is here to stay, and we must accept that. Thankfully, Else ditches the COVID-like pandemic tropes and takes a new route with this world-halting disease. As the credits rolled, I couldn’t help but feel Emin bit off more than he could chew.
Else follows Anx (Matthieu Sampeur), a neurotic and frustrating man who lives in a garishly childish apartment. The film opens with an awkward sexual encounter between Anx and Cass (Edith Proust). Cass, who is childishly self-obsessed, quickly takes a liking to Anx. Cass [basically] forces her way into staying with Anx when their city is put in lockdown. The two quickly fall for each other as the world falls into madness.
Alice Butaud, Thibault Emin, and Emma Sandona’s script might be too smart for its own good. It raises questions and predicaments that never feel fully fleshed out. Emin’s directing, in company with Léo Lefèvre’s cinematography, singlehandedly carries the film to the finish line. Sampeur and Proust give decent performances, but it feels like everyone is holding something back (and not in a way that propels the story). The film hinges on how trippy it becomes, and that’s where the biggest issue lies.
I could not find any information regarding the digital effects in Else, but the amount of visual effect artist credits provides an answer. There are multiple points when the visual effects kick off, that you feel like you’re bombarded with AI imagery. And that will be a huge thorn in the side for many viewers. Whether AI was used or not, it feels almost purposeful how close the effects look to the AI images you see all over Twitter and Facebook. I can’t in good conscience say AI was definitely used, but I can’t say it didn’t affect my overall enjoyment of the film.
Still image from Heavier Trip
Heavier Trip
Ending my first day of film viewing was the rock-solid sequel to 2018s Heavy Trip, Heavier Trip. I hadn’t become aware of Heavy Trip until I heard of Heavier Trip…boy did I miss out. Heavy Trip was an incredibly fun Finnish film about a metal band called Impaled Rektum. The finale of Heavy Trip finds our loveable band members, Turo (Johannes Holopainen), Xytrax (Max Ovaska), Lotvonen (Samuli Jaskio), and Jynkky (Antti Tuomas Heikkinen) (and eventually Oula (Chike Ohanwe)), on the run from the law as they try to make it to a festival to premiere their band. All they want is to premiere their unique sound, which is called symphonic-post-apocalyptic-reindeer-grinding-christ-abusing-extreme-war-pagan-fennoscandic metal.
Heavier Metal follows Impaled Rektum years later as they serve their jail sentence. One day, they are graced with a visitor Maxwell Efraim Fisto (Anatole Taubman), or M. E. Fisto, for short. Get it? Fisto promises the band a spot on stage at a gigantic metal festival in Wacken, Germany. The only problem is, they’re still in jail. When Lotvonen’s father falls ill, Impaled Rektum must question how far they will go to save his life (and farm).
The big issue regarding sequels is matching the tone and feel that makes the first film work so well. Yes, you have to [usually] go bigger, but at what cost? When does a parody film start to feel like a parody of itself? Is that the point? Or is it an unintended outcome? At points, Heavier Trip feels too preachy, with its “Music industry bad,” statement being hammered over your head repeatedly. Not to mention the multiple times they figuratively jump the shark.
But that’s not enough to make me dislike Heavier Trip. While the vibe feels different, and a bit more forced, than its predecessor, Heavier Trip turns the amp up to 11 and doesn’t let go. There’s a heavier emotional undercurrent to this film that unintentionally bogs the pacing down quite a bit, but the cast is just so damn great together, it doesn’t cause much of an issue. Fan service abounds, and Heavier Trip gets the job done–and does it loudly. Oh, and the Baby Metal bit is so damn cute and I’m glad to see metalheads accept and appreciate them!