In the 1990s, a sadistic killer who went by Mr. Shiny terrorized Southern California with a series of grisly ritualistic murders that left victims decapitated and drained of blood.
Fifteen years later, the killer struck again, slaughtering a family of three in their home in a horrific tableau: Police found them seated at a table with their hands folded as in prayer, their feet stuffed into buckets that collected their blood as it dripped. The maniac left his calling card — a triangular symbol — painted in blood on the ceiling.
That’s the case that drives this faux true-crime documentary from the writer-director Stuart Ortiz. As he did in “Grave Encounters,” a 2011 supernatural found footage film he directed with Colin Minihan (as the Vicious Brothers), Ortiz mostly nails a realistic documentary style, constructing an unsettling story out of talking-head interviews and found footage elements that could pass for a “Dateline” episode, only more stomach-churning.
The film doesn’t offer surprises akin to those in the best make-believe horror docs like “The Poughkeepsie Tapes” and “Noroi: The Curse.” Things get too nutty in the final stretch with a turn toward occultism, something to do with Etruscan pottery and a serpent bearer constellation.
But the film is naturalistic enough to be convincing and sick enough to be disturbing, even if the acting falls scattershot on the persuasiveness scale. Good luck shaking the interview with a victim whose face Mr. Shiny burned off.
“I’m already dead, man,” the disfigured unfortunate says to the camera, blood trickling down his forehead. “I’m just not in the ground.”
Strange Harvest
Rated R for depraved violence and slow bloodletting. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters.
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