Savageland

Savageland (2015)

Runtime: 81 minutes

Directed by: Phil Guidry/Simon Herbert/David Whelan

Starring: This is a faux documentary

From: The Massive Film Company

Here is an obscurity actually worth tracking down, which thankfully is an easy task to accomplish: 

As occasionally happens, I hear a movie get recommended on a messageboard and beforehand it was unknown to me but the praise attracts my attention. Well, a few months ago someone praised this faux documentary and while they were vague, what was said did pique my interest. Last night I finally got around to seeing this (at least for the past few months it's been available on Amazon Instant, and if you're a Prime member the film is free) and I am glad I did. Even in horror circles this is obscure so I am happy to shine some light on it.

For something that had to be microbudget, this manages to be pretty haunting and that was done through a simple device. The plot: the tiny town of Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ), Arizona has all its citizens die or vanish one night except for one guy: Francisco Salazar, who is accused of killing everyone. Blaming solely him sounds preposterous but as the movie makes crystal clear, the town is not far from the Mexican border and as the entire state is full of prejudiced people and it's by a mostly white town and Sangre de Cristo is mainly comprised of Hispanics, anti-Mexican fever is blazing hot so it is easy to make him a scapegoat, albeit one who has an unwavering story, even if it sounds totally illogical. But suddenly there are photos discovered that this budding photography buff took and... I dare not spoil what the photos show, except the pictures are worth many thousands of words as they make you imagine the horrors that happen.

As a random aside, I'll mention now that the cast is full of unknowns... except Len Wein. Yes, comic book fans, the guy who passed away only about a month ago and was involved with the creation of such characters as Wolverine, Storm, Swamp Thing, Nightcrawler, Lucius Fox, and I am sure many others. He plays a famous photographer who only appears a few times but does explain why Salazar would keep on using his camera and the explanation does make sense.

There were a few moments where I went “wait a minute” after something happened and the very ending seems like something someone erroneously stated the film “needed”; I took that all into consideration and I can still give this movie a nice rating. With not a lot of money, they used the clever idea of letting a roll of three dozen black and white photographs show what happened and it managed to be pretty impactful; it also allowed for some harsh story beats to be presented and lessening the likelihood of those beats being a turn-off.

Such things were issues when this film was made a few years ago-despite what it says on Letterboxd, it only was released this year; filming took place a long while ago-but I presume the filmmakers had no idea that in late 2017, both the border between the United States and Mexico & the treatment of minorities by the police would be even more significant issues. Anyhow, factoring in the rough around the edges moments (like realizing that the filmmakers aren't as familiar with the legal system as they perhaps should be), the film is still worthy enough for horror fans to give it a shot.