Horror in the High Desert (2021)
Premise: the movie tells the story of our boy Gary, this dude who is way too much into SURVIVALISM (red flag) and HIKING FOR THE SAKE OF HIKING (uh oh) and RECORDING HIMSELF IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WILDERNESS SAYING STUFF LIKE “WHOA COOL SHEEP IF ONLY I HAD FRIENDS” (actual dialogue) and who is specially into NOT TELLING ANYONE WHERE HE’S GOING OR SOMETHING.
Surprising no one at all, one day he doesn’t come back and there’s an investigation about his disappearance, followed by this fake documentary telling us the true[citation needed] story about what happened there.
Under 90 minutes? Yes sir.
Do they say the title? No they don’t, the cowards.
One sentence review: as usual with the genre the scariest bit was how nothing happens for 75% percent of the runtime and them boom.
Rating: The other day I found out about this movie in one of those “the scariest films you’ve never heard about!” kind of lists and uh well let’s say it’s passable at best and does literally nothing new. I mean sure it’s a quick watch so if you’re dumb about this microgenre you can go for it but other than that spooooooky music here and there it’s got very little going for it, unfortunately.
A simple way to improve it: I am not sure why the movie keeps bringing up that Gary is a bit train obsessed (train pilled?), maybe they’re trying to winkwink at the audience instead of saying “so uh he’s autistic”, but even if that was the case I’m not sure what they’d be trying to add. So instead I suggest we use the train as a foreshadowing thing and by the end of the movie when it’s all quiet and tense suddenly it’s choo choo time, motherfucker.
Trivia about the IMDb trivia:
Due to being filmed safely and socially distant at the height of the COVID 19 Pandemic, no two characters ever appear on screen at the same time and one interview was conducted over Zoom.
Fun fact: I only realized this was the case when I read this, so I guess that bit kind worked - or at least didn’t make you go all Cinemasins “no two characters share a scene hur hur” on this at all.
