Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
As Julian noted last week, his Cinapse journey began in 2014 with a piece on Noroi: the Curse. A decade later, his debut audio commentary is included on Noroi’s first Western release as part of the J-Horror Rising box set from Arrow Films. To celebrate, Ed invited him to curate this month’s Two Cents, focusing on personal recommendations for found footage horror. This week, we tackle our second faux documentary, this one done in convincing true crime doc fashion. While I’m sure director Dutch Marich would surely find our previous faux doc entry – Lake Mungo – to be influential, it’s clear that Marich draws most of his inspiration from true crime films and television shows. In fact, he notes (below) just how influential the true crime shows of his youth were to the format and content of the Horror in the High Desert franchise. So without further ado, I present this week’s selection…
The Pick: Horror in the High Desert (2021)
As a special treat, this week’s film introduction comes from the filmmaker himself, the great Dutch Marich. After you trek out to the desert with us, we invite you to continue your travels with Horror in the High Desert 2: Minerva on Tubi and Horror in the High Desert 3: Firewatch on Amazon Prime Video. Special thanks to Dutch for sharing his inspiration for one of the best faux documentary horror films any of us will get to experience.
I have always been a huge fan of true crime TV shows. They were always on in the background while I was growing up. My Mom always had on Unsolved Mysteries, Untold Stories of the ER, and Dateline. When true crime exploded in recent years I became fascinated with a show called Disappeared. Every episode chronicles someone who has vanished under bizarre circumstances. Every time I watched an episode of any of these shows I always thought to myself, “how frightening would it be if we saw from their perspective what happened to them in the end?” And that is how Horror in the High Desert was conceived.
The format of a true crime show is such an interesting and unique way to tell a story as a filmmaker. There must always be justification for why the camera is rolling and why we are seeing what we are seeing. I think it is that framework and really committing to the specific style of storytelling that lures people in and has them at full attention by the time Gary’s footage from his last night alive starts rolling on screen.
Just want to say thank you to everyone who’s been along on the Horror in the High Desert journey and that I can’t wait to share the rest of the series with you all! Always remember: Just because you can’t see them doesn’t mean they can’t see you.
Featured Guests
Horror in the High Desert, for me, is honestly the jumping off point for my own career. It means more to me than any other found footage film out there, simply because Dutch took the time to talk to a budding director and walk me through the trials and tribulations of indie film. He shared a screener for this film with me before it came out to the public and I’m sitting there at the end, during that final 20 minutes, and I’m covering my face, peeking through my fingers, and just struck with visceral fear.
My eyes are scanning the screen for anything he’s got hidden in the frame… I was legitimately terrified and I remember thinking: I haven’t felt this way for a big budget horror film since I was a child, and here’s this guy, this regular guy who was chatting with me online about indie film, making the scariest fucking movie I’ve seen in a decade. I was also almost completely convinced that the film was real at first, because the initial 30 minutes felt straight from a gripping documentary I’d have normally found on the Discovery Channel or A&E, etc. The characters speak naturally, they don’t feel scripted or forced, and they feel like real, homegrown people. This is what a small town feels like and he absolutely nailed it.
Being a Nevada boy myself and living here in the High Desert, this one also hit me especially hard, as I’ve gone hiking and hunting and fishing in places just like Gary Hinge trekked through, and so I’d say HITHD kind of did for the desert what Jaws did for the water: I will forever think twice about going out there alone. This is a standout film in the world of found footage and I couldn’t be more thrilled to say I have befriended Dutch over the years and get to regularly talk with him. His brain works on a different level when it comes to creating terror and suspense and I cannot wait to watch him continue leading us down this horrifying path he’s set us out on. If I can one day make something half as scary as what Dutch did, I’ll consider myself a complete success.
One of the greatest contributions that found footage gave to cinema is that it opened an entirely different way to make movies. Once reserved for studios and backlots, and, even at its barest, a crew of people and a mountain of equipment, the arrival of found footage meant that any joe shmoe with a camcorder picked up at Best Buy could not only create a film, but a film that people would actively seek out to watch.
As such, there’s been a swell of found footage features flooding the market for over 25 years now, which has led to a lot of shot-over-the-weekend-with-pocket-change cinema out there. Enough that a horror fan can get lost, and honestly, bored real quick trying to find the diamonds in the rough. So, a found footage film really needs to bring something special to the table.
Enter 2021’s Horror In The High Desert. Made for pennies, featuring actors that range from local theater to “may have just been pulled in off the street”, there is a certain charm to the pure DIY nature on display. We follow along with a group of talking heads as they explain the disappearance of survivalist Gary Hinge in the Nevada Desert. And, hoo boy, do they explain, and explain, and explain. You’re going to hear the same information relayed more than a few times, as the film spins its wheels as hard as it can to make it to the 3rd act reveal.
For those willing to brave more than a few “some people thought it was aliens” or “he would never park his truck like that”, though, you’ll be rewarded, as the film shifts into Gary’s final night in the desert. Seen entirely in infrared, we watch as Gary is stalked by a deformed man through sage brush and boulders. It is a genuinely terrifying 20 minutes, as we are dipped into darkness and silence, only a grainy silhouette, or the warped recording of a woman singing, or the sounds of shifting gravel to tell us where his pursuer may be. A jarring, and welcomed, shift that ends the movie on a terrifying bang.
For many, these type of microbudget found footage films might seem like an exercise in patience, but for those who are willing to meet these films on their wavelength, there is a whole world of underseen gems like this.
The Team
I chose Horror in the High Desert for this series because much like the lo-fi, high-concept later work of Koji Shiraishi, Dutch Marich’s trilogy (especially this first film) nails the scrappy, cobbled-together tone of modern citizen journalism or streaming investigative docs.
This first entry, pieced together during the peak of COVID, uses its sparse resources to its advantage, pitting its isolated talking-head entries against one another as relatives and friends blame each other for the disappearance of hiker Gary Hinge. For the most part, it’s an earnest exploration of an obscure local disappearance–and High Desert’s strongest moments aren’t rooted in the “horror” of its title, but the instinct in these cases to lash out at others in severe moments of grief and uncertainty. Reflecting on my own professional true crime research experiences, it rings uncomfortably true how sometimes these cases are hindered by those who most want to solve them.
It’s fascinating how Marich and his cast create such a strong composite character in Gary. While he’s never able to give his own talking head thoughts, his brief appearances via his YouTube uploads and the conflicting anecdotes given about him give him an energy akin to Twin Peaks’ Laura Palmer or Rebecca of Hitchcock/Du Maurier fame. As the film progresses, we double back on our initial impressions of Gary, allowing Marich to explore challenging themes of bullying and the closeted Queer experience in the digital age.
These are brief but vital moments in High Desert. In one, a stray lead in the central investigator’s efforts reveals that Gary began a romantic relationship with another man after connecting on Facebook Marketplace, which was as hidden from Gary’s close relatives and friends as his hiking YouTube page. In the other, the digital antagonism towards Gary on his page by strangers fuels his drive to head back into the dangers of the desert to document the mysterious shed, leading to his alluded demise. Both plot elements provide a mature evolution of major found footage tropes–the justification of filming amid peril, and what documenters choose to leave out of their narratives–both also inseparable from the construction of High Desert’s digital form.
It’s fitting, then, that the scariest things in High Desert are beings totally antithetical to the digital world, scrapping together shelters in crumbling ghost towns away from electricity (let alone technology), and still able to tap into some primeval spookiness that the modern era has long forgotten. Like Gary, they exist only as digital ghosts–but remind us that there are still ancient, unknowable things to fear for all the progress we’ve made.
While not as immediately gripping and rich as my experience watching Lake Mungo for this series, I enjoyed and appreciated several elements of Horror in the High Desert. For one thing, I ended up watching the movie on my phone, on a plane, and it still managed to pull me in and even by the end it managed to frighten me. No small feat under the unfortunate conditions under which I took it in. I also felt this must have been a killer idea for a covid-era feature in which the setting of the film was able to be something pretty unconventional, and which never even really required two actors to be on screen together at the same time. I’ve read nothing about the movie and know very little about it, but it felt like something that came out of that severely limited time in all of our lives but also turned that into a challenge to rise to, managing to engross even against those odds. It’s clever, if slight, and I’d at least be open to checking out the sequels.
I’ve been a found footage junkie for sometime, but a few years ago I began to discover a new crop of incredible young directors doing a variety of POV style films, Dutch Marich among them. Along with the aid of the yearly UFF lineups, following folks like Dutch, Dillon Brown (who contributed his thoughts above), and several others really opened me up to a whole new world of these filmmakers making awesome work on nearly nonexistent budgets. The DIY punk in me was naturally inclined to root these folks one, but – more than that – I genuinely love a ton of the films from this new crop of found footage acolytes.
The Horror in the High Desert series is one I point to for many folks who claim they don’t really like the style… especially if I know these folks to be true crime fans. Not only is the story compelling, but Dutch directs the shit out of this faux documentary. Netflix should hire him to helm some of their upcoming true crime docs, as far as I’m concerned. Then again, I want him to keep pumping these films out, so I’m happy if they don’t snatch him up quite yet.
This is a can’t miss entry, so do yourself a favor and make sure you watch if you haven’t.
OCTOBER: Found Footage Horror Curated by Julian Singleton
Next week, we wrap up with the inspiration for this month’s theme… join us in celebrating one of Julian’s favorites and celebrating Julian’s first commentary! And those who aren’t interested in sharing their thoguhts, we thank you for following along and hope you’re able to watch in anticipation of our final entry for spooky season…
October 28 – Noroi: the Curse (Shudder – 1 hour 55 minutes)
