Week 13 (Sept 13 – 19) – Cult Movies: Oh, you thought I meant the other kind of cult movies? Sacrifices to the gods of entertainment must be made, so hop up on the altar!
I just saw This House Is Totally Haunted, a movie that is kind of, sort of a sequel to this. That movie is more effective if you don’t know that one of the characters is the villain, since he’s the bad guy here.
This low-budget, indie found-footage flick about an Egyptian-inspired cult was also directed by Sean Nichols Lynch. It follows a documentary filmmaker named Keith (John Laird). Seven years after his girlfriend Maddy skipped town to join a Northern California commune called the Osiris Collective, Keith gets an invite from the cult’s young, eccentric new leader, Anubis (Chad Westbrook Hinds). Naturally, Keith hops in the car, camera rolling, ready to uncover some dark secrets and find out what happened to his ex. What he finds instead is a whole lot of empty space, some birds and Anubis wandering around in a tank top, spouting tech-bro pseudo-spiritual nonsense while getting way too excited about mushrooms.
The movie wears its influences on its sleeve, channeling a heavy dose of Mark Duplass’s Creep as Keith gets sucked into a very uncomfortable, high-tension game of cat-and-mouse. As someone who loves Egyptian-influenced horror like mummy movies and Blood Feast—and as someone who wanted to know more about the aforementioned This House Is Totally Haunted—I had a blast watching this. And I hate found footage!
You can watch this on Tubi.
