A faux true-crime documentary about two detectives pursuit of an infamous serial killer named Mr. Shiny, who terrorized Southern California for almost two decades.
Grimmfest Says: The latest film from sometime “Vicious Brother” Stuart Ortiz (GRAVE ENCOUNTERS) sees “The Call of Cthulhu” recast as a catchpenny True Crime documentary chronicling the hunt for a terrifyingly capable serial killer with a uniquely bizarre and terrifying agenda. A brilliantly realised, all-too-chillingly plausible pastiche, pitch perfect in style and tone, the film never overplays its hand, allowing the narrative to unfold through the police investigation, the gradual accumulation of information; nuts and bolts details of forensic evidence and interviews and crime scene photographs; a cop’s eye view of something unspeakable.
The Lovecraftian elements are kept largely in the background, but the more we hear from the nonplussed detectives about the killer’s beliefs, what he hopes to achieve through the series of ritual killings, the more the fear grows that there is something out there, waiting to break through into our world, and the more suffocatingly tense the film becomes; all the more so because the faux documentary framework never slips for a second, relying on the viewer’s imagination and genre literacy to fill in the gaps and grasp the full horror of the situation.
Part of our IN CAMERA strand.