Strange Harvest is among the best-reviewed horror films of the year, and for good reason. It’s been a strong year for horror across the board. Movies like Weapons, Together, and Sinners have proven the genre can generate compelling character dramas amidst the body horror and monsters, earning critical raves in the process. Debuting at 2024’s Fantastic Fest and finally getting a theatrical release, Strange Harvest deserves to be counted among those critical darlings.
Told in the style of a true crime documentary, Strange Harvest‘s realistic elements make its horror aspects all the more effective. It’s a great use of the medium, especially for horror fans who love found-footage movies like Paranormal Activity or The Blair Witch Project. As of this writing, the film also has a 95% Tomatometer Score on Rotten Tomatoes, and with good reason. Here’s what makes Strange Harvest such a gripping and unsettling horror movie, and why horror fans need to make sure they check it out.
Strange Harvest Fuses Slasher Horror With True Crime Documentaries
The critically hailed Strange Harvest focuses on the murder spree of a serial killer dubbed Mr. Shiny, who steadily targets people across the Inland Empire region of Southern California. The trick is that the film is presented in the form of a fictional true crime documentary, positioning itself as a true series of events that have been chronicled in a new feature-length documentary.
The film never breaks format. Mr. Smiley is never given dedicated focus, instead serving as the mysterious killer that the “documentary” is focused on figuring out and catching. The movie never shifts into a more cinematic state or drops the facade of being a real documentary.
This commitment to the meta-concept is reminiscent of how movies like The Blair Witch Project and other subsequent found-footage films are so effective with their scares. With the separation between the real world and the fictional one blurred by the realistic documentary style, Strange Harvest makes Mr. Smiley an especially terrifying creation.
Making A Monster: The Mr. Shiny Story
Strange Harvest does something deeply simple with its central villain, and it’s a very effective means of making the killer so frightening. Mr. Smiley is a largely grounded threat for the entire film, and that makes his unstoppable qualities all the scarier. His full motivations are deciphered throughout the film, but the character largely remains a mysterious but brutally effective killer.
However, this isn’t in some random suburb or a fiction riff on a famous city. The true crime approach means that Mr. Smiley’s actions are depicted in the bluntest, most realistic terms possible. The footage isn’t bolstered by sudden strings. There’s no jumpy kills. The scares come naturally as the killer works his way through the very realistically presented setting.
It’s so realistic, it becomes unnerving in new ways hours after you see the film — and wonder if you should double-check that you locked the door. This grounded approach helps make Mr. Smiley feel real (and more dangerous) than any horror movie slasher killer has in a while. It makes his gruesome murders all the more horrifying.
Strange Harvest is a very compelling pseudo-documentary that only becomes more intriguing (and scary) as it goes on. Mr. Smiley is a contender for the best modern slasher villain, especially in his more brutal moments. Strange Harvest is an impressive experiment that uses its format to make an inherently scary story one of the most effective horror movies of the year.
