Dir - Paco Plaza
Overall: GOOD
A collaboration between Spanish filmmakers Paco Plaza and Carlos Vermut, (the latter penning the screenplay here), The Grandmother, (La abuela), is a predictable yet wonderfully atmospheric slow-build that keeps one invested in its supernatural landscape. The opening is jarring enough to hook us for the long haul where Almudena Amor gets called away from her burgeoning modelling career when her grandmother suffers a brain hemorrhage. There are disturbing hints along the way and taboo visuals that are not often seen in movies about creepy elderly people, giving the film a bizarre edge that never becomes overbearing due to Plaza's nuanced approach. Many of the scenes are long and eerily quiet, few if any jump scares are utilized, and unsettling moments pop up in rapid succession of each other which may adhere to the usual practice of otherworldly occurrences having no rhyme or reason to them, but they all seem to inch us towards an inevitable finale that is every bit as ghoulish as we expected/hoped for. Amor is wonderful in the lead, going from practical and loving towards her grandmother of the title, (played challengingly by Vera Valdez as an invalid who clearly still seems to be up to something), before the doom starts to create a hopeless aura that leaves her an emotionally ravished wreck.
Dir - Dutch Marich
Overall: MEH
Shot during the COVID-19 pandemic via Zoom interviews where none of the actors interact on screen with each other, Horror in the High Desert is a limiting yet mostly convincing mockumentary that is inspired from the actual disappearance of YouTuber Kenny Veach. Filmmaker Dutch Marich, (who handles nearly every level of production here), had made a decade's worth of low-budget indie movies at this point and the meager presentation is fitting for the true crime documentary that he is going for. The unassuming cast do good work in the talking heads department, (none of them have distracting movie star looks or come off as melodramatic), yet some of their dialog is repetitive and Marich could be accused of drawing-out the first half too much. Several other details are stretched as far as plausibility is concerned, (a midway revelation that the missing survivalist hiker had a blog with fifty-thousand followers that nobody knew about is silly), and it is unfortunate that Marich cannot resist the urge to add a scary ambient soundtrack to the found footage finale that finally shows the last known moments of our protagonist. Still, the story stays gripping and it ends with a cliffhanger and sequel promise that was ultimately delivered in 2023 as Horror In The High Desert 2: Minerva.
Dir - Russell Owen
Overall: MEH
Anyone with tinnitus may want to think twice before taking on writer/director Russell Owen's Shepherd; an obnoxious psychological horror film with an aggressive sound design for the books. Before we even get the movie's title flashed on the screen, Owen indulges in several volume swells that built up to dead silence, either in reverse jump scare psycho-out form or in that hackneyed method that all too many contemporary works in the genre utilize in their intros. This tactic eventually settles down but never goes away and the wailing wind and "scary" audio decoration refuses to be subtle, instead creating an anti-ambiance that is distracting in place of being properly mood-setting. Elsewhere, it is the usual scenario of a character reeling from severe trauma who finds himself unable to wake up from a living nightmare, this time with Tom Hughes seemingly trapped on an island of his own making, (or something). The dialog is minimal and when it does not revolve around Hughes calling out for his dog, it arrives in the form of cryptic nonsense from Kate Dickie and to a lesser extent Greta Scacchi who pummel our protagonist with everything in their verbal power to intensify his guilt. It is an exhausting experience with a whole lot of mind-fuckery on display, (and some terrible CGI), that does not seem to have any rhyme or reason to it besides just being about an already sad guy going more crazy.
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