Saban Films and Roadside Attractions have just released the trailer for the chilling new found footage horror film Strange Harvest. The movie comes from writer-director Stuart Ortiz, who is known for Grave Encounters. Strange Harvest is a hauntingly grounded thriller that introduces “Mr. Shiny,” a serial killer at the center of a terrifying and otherworldly mystery. The movie uses various methods of voyeuristic point-of-views in a twist on the usual found footage formula as we see the action through webcams, news outlets and body cams.
The official synopsis for Strange Harvest from Saban and Roadside Attractions reads,
“Detectives are thrust into a chilling hunt for “Mr. Shiny”—a sadistic serial killer from the past whose return marks the beginning of a new wave of grotesque, otherworldly crimes tied to a dark cosmic force.” The movie stars Peter Zizzo, Terri Apple, Andy Lauer, Matthew Peschio, Janna Cardia, Travis Wolfe Sr. and Christina Helene Braa.
The producers of the film include writer/director Stuart Ortiz, along with Bruce Guido, Alex Yesilcimen and Michael Karlin.
The film will be released this summer on August 8, although it was already screened at last year’s Fantastic Fest 2024. At the time, the film sported the extended title, STRANGE HARVEST: OCCULT MURDER IN THE INLAND EMPIRE. The line-up of the festival also included big titles, like the Halle Berry film Never Let Go, and Joseph Kahn’s Ick.
Ick also recently premiered its trailer and the film aims to “evoke the timeless creature features of the 1980s with an ambitious arsenal of scares and comedy.” Brandon Routh (Superman Returns) and Mena Suvari (American Beauty) star, with Routh taking on the role of Hank, a high school science teacher who still pines for his childhood sweetheart, played by Suvari. While discovering he may have a teenage daughter, Hank must grapple with a terrifying alien anomaly (the titular “Ick”) invading their small town. The teenager who might be Hank’s daughter is being played by Malina Weissman of Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events.
The synopsis read, “For almost two decades, a viscous vine-like growth known colloquially as ‘The Ick’ has benignly crept into every nook and cranny of American life while the residents of small town Eastbrook remain blasé about its existence. The exceptions are former high school football star-turned-hapless science teacher Hank (Routh) and his sardonically perceptive student Grace (Weissman) who are thrown together by Grace’s mom Staci’s (Suvari) closely-guarded secret and a mutual suspicion that the Ick is about to unleash some monstrous mayhem. A wild ride driven by a power punk spirit, ICK is a dizzyingly fun and hilariously grotesque homage to throwback PG horror flicks, as well as an ode to Millennial nostalgia manifested in soundtrack needle drops by All American Rejects, Paramore, and Blink 182.”
