User reviews

If only there was more footage of Gary, rather than interview after interview whose mission is to delay the inevitable, this movie would be better. But is watchable enough and the final 20 minutes are actually creepy and made with plenty of suspenseful talent.

I was a bit sceptical at first realising it is literally filmed as a documentary, with the story mainly told by interviews with some footage inbetween, but it worked really well and i really enjoyed it! Great job!

I understand that Found Footage movies are typically about building up to the big ending, and that's fine, but I do prefer it when the meat of the film has a little more going on that just interviewing 5 or so people and chopping between them intermittently. It's only 82 minutes long the film luckily, but the first 67 minutes are basically just this. It can test your patience a little. The final 15 minutes though was a very well done sequence for the most part.

When we finally get to the action 'Horror in the high Desert' does have something to offer. The camera angles, the noise (what was that noise?) and the suspenseful timing were all very well done. The only thing that it forgot is that it's what you don't see that is always scarier than what you do. We saw too much and it ruined it a little for me. That's being a little bit nit-picky though.

If you've got some patience then this one could be for you. It seems to be setting itself up for a sequel too, so look out for that if you enjoy it. 7/10.

It's the easiest way to make a micro-budget film, do a faux documentary that ends with found footage. You can use a lot of photos instead of actually filming anything, have random location shots where nothing is happening, and you never have to stage scenes with actors, just have people sit and be a talking head. And this one starts off seeming to get everything right. The faux actors are believable, the disappearance at the heart of the plot starts getting mysterious, and then after only about twenty minutes it starts sliding progressively downhill. It don't help when you have all these characters (including an investigative journalist who apparently doesn't know how to investigate anything) talking about how super-intelligent and together the missing character is and when we finally see video of him he talks and acts like he just got out of his "special" class for those of, shall we say, far less than average intelligence. Then we spend the next half hour going nowhere with subplots suddenly abandoned or forgotten about and the mystery becomes rather obvious, and then we conclude with ten minutes of "found footage" which is so poorly shot, directed, and overall underwhelming it kinda makes you angry. Shoulda turned it off when the talking heads kept telling how dramatic one of the missing characters last videos was, and then they just say "that video got accidentally erased"; which I took to mean the actors performance was so horrible they couldn't even use a clip of it. And the climactic found footage is literally as bad as you can get. Unless you get scared staring at the same bush under infrared light. One bush. That's pretty much it. From a solid 8/10 in the first few minutes all the way down to 3/10 says it all.

Don't read anything about the plot. It's not well known, they use actors that not only can act but also look like real people, and it's filmed like a documentary. So let your significant other know you heard about a really good REAL scary documentary. By the end you'll both be watching wide eyed while holding your breath...

It's absolute rubbish. Really, really bad. I read the good reviews here and thought even if it's not that good it must be worth a watch? Wow was I wrong.

It starts off with various people who know the missing guy talking direct to camera explaining a bit about him, what he's like etc interspersed with photos of him in the wilderness to show he's an outdoors guy who likes hiking. It's really boring but I thought ok this will be done in 10-15 minutes and we'll see some found footage and it will start getting creepy. Nope. This continues for almost the whole film, people describing what happened instead of actually seeing any footage and it's incredibly boring.

There's a small amount of footage right at the end but it's so badly done and dragged out that I even felt like fast forwarding that. The whole thing is ultra-low budget and it really shows, no clever camera shots or techniques to make up for the minimal budget either. The whole thing feels totally amateurish and has no scares whatsoever.

Horror in the High Desert does a nice slow burn and then becomes fairly unnerving at the film's conclusion. This is only the second "found footage" film I've ever seen, "The Blair Witch Project" being the other. Genre-novice viewer as I am, all I can say is that this is a well-made (if not vaguely similar to "Blair Witch"), and if you stick with it, suspenseful movie. Toward the end, my own tension was palpable. Some of the other reviews here read as if the reviewer was jaded and weary of similarly envisioned "found footage" films. My own opinion is that this is an effectively executed and well-done movie that fans new to the genre will enjoy.

In a way I could understand the lower ratings this movie/mockumentary gets, that is if you were informed about this being fiction before you started watching it. My wife and I on the other hand thought we were watching a documentary about a mysterious disappearance in Nevada. Until the last fifteen minutes we had no clue at all, so credits to the actors for that. They did a really good job playing the interviewees, it looked very sincere. After that it became obvious this wasn't a true story, but still we had our fun believing it, and there was a good mysterious vibe to it. My wife is from Reno, Nevada so her knowing most of those places gave it a little punch as well. It's only after seeing the end credits that we were 100% sure it was all made up. So for that I score this movie way higher than the rest of the reviewers as we were both entertained and sucked into the story immediately. If you had to recommend this movie to a friend or so I suggest you tell them it's a documentary, it will for sure have a better success. I'm glad we thought it was, the experience was just way better like this.

Horror in the high desert is a cinematic feat that very few people could pull off. Dutch Marich is the director, writer, cinematographer, producer, and editor of this extraordinary mockumentary horror film based on the true story of Kenny Veach. It's beautifully shot, with acting that is surprisingly impressive for a cast that had relatively no experience in feature films. The dialogue was sharp, and the ending is as tense as it could've possibly been with the budgetary constraints the filmmaker was under. If I was ever going to attempt to get into filmmaking, this is the blueprint I would follow. Marich was able to maintain creative freedom because of the lack of studio interference and the extremely low production costs. Nonetheless, he crafts a stunning film with an abundance of creativity and some palpable suspense and mystique. He deserves all of the credit for this original piece of art that incorporates fright, thrills, and the influence social media has on an individuals ego as it relates to decision making.

The lead character sounds like the muppet Fozzy Bear and uses UM almost every 15 seconds whe he speaks. UM I guess I'll UM see if I can UM take a picture UM of the UM cabin. UM So people can UM See UM that I'm not UM lying UM. I turned on the CC so I didn't have to listen anymore or I would have jabbed a pen in my ears to silence the idiotic babble.

Slow and boring as hell! Nothing scary at all happens. The only good reviews are from those that worked on the movie as usual.

They mixed up a lot of movies.

Recipe: 1 full glass of water (see blair witch) 1/2 cup (see the hills have eyes) 1/2 cup (see wrong turn) 1 pinch (see slender man)

Mix well with a whisk in a large bowl. Suspense music is added as a sauce. Ready to serve.

In order to give it a realism, the film is both an interview and one of those movies shot with a handheld camera. We listen to the speech of 3 people for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Always accompanied by conjunctions in the form of "aaaaand".

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Synopsis: Someone named Gery has gone missing. When her sister can't reach it, she informs the police. He has a roommate but he doesn't know about Gery either. They are searching, they are searching, there is no news from the man. Then they find that this is a nature survival type blog owner. In the last videos found there, he found a hut in the wilderness. Followers do not believe. This goes one more time for proof. This is the last video.

--- 'spoilers' ---

A mind-blowing movie that can't even be considered mediocre.

I'd originally heard about this film on Twitter through the horror community and the general consensus was that it was worth a watch. Like I do with all indie movies, I checked my expectations and baggage at the door and met the movie on its own terms. I was rewarded with an interesting, creepy and entertaining experience. After I discover an indie gem, I like to hop online to see what other people thought and, funny enough, a lot of people on different platforms were wondering aloud if the movie was real. The last time I saw talk like that was when Blair With Project was released. This in and of itself is an achievement. Another thing is that I'm very familiar with the Nevada wilderness. I've lived in Nevada since I was 18 months old, I enjoy camping and have traveled from one end of the State to the other. I've been in some creepy places and watching this film was subtle nightmare fuel for me. I've seen some complaints that there were too many talking head segments but that didn't bother me at all. I was happily following the story which I found to be intriguing. Typically, my least favorite part of found footage is the ultra-shaky camera work. For example, as much as I love Hell House, LLC, I had to look away a few times as the motion sickness factor is real for me. That wasn't a problem with Horror in the High Desert at all. Overall, it was a creepy viewing experience- what more could I ask for?

It would appear that a lot of fake reviews are here. The movie was VERY slow and dull. There was no mystery to the ending. Definitely no sequel is going to happen. But I did give it a 5 because the last 20 minutes actual were pretty creepy. I suggest skimming the first hour in 5 or 10 minutes, and then just watch the last 20.