★★★ out of ★★★★★
The Room co-star Greg Sestero makes his directorial debut with this Seventies-styled killer cult film. Butter up the popcorn and invite some pals over for some head-scratching, limb-hacking enjoyable with this one.
Directed by Greg Sestero
As a result of Miracle Valley is patterned after Seventies horror films about cults, I’ll describe a number of the movie’s goings-on in drive-in film poster fashion: “SEE! Younger ladies kidnapped by a killer cult for his or her uncommon blood kind!” “SEE! Bizarre experiments in a mad scientist’s desert laboratory!” “SEE! A shirtless maniac run wild!”
As you would possibly guess from my taglines, Miracle Valley is the kind of fare you would possibly select when you find yourself within the temper for a enjoyable time watching a horror film. Written and directed by Greg Sestero, co-star of The Room and final yr’s Cyst, and writer of The Catastrophe Artist, the movie follows photographer David (Sestero) and his girlfriend Sarah (Angela Mariano) as they argue their approach on a street journey to the desert, to spend time with David’s fellow metropolis pals when Sarah thought it was a “simply us two” tour.
David is obsessive about taking a photograph of a uncommon hawk that may make him immediately rich, and confides to a buddy that he’s able to dump Sarah in pursuit of different ladies as soon as she will get extra centered about her ailing mom. They cross paths with Father Jake (Rick Edwards), a cult chief who they take up on his invitation to come back to his subsequent cult assembly. It seems that Sarah, who is definitely lured in by the charismatic Father Jake, has a uncommon blood kind that Jake and the mad scientist on workers — who’ve a missing-persons poster of a lady kidnapped within the movie’s chilly open of their straight-out-of-the1950’s mad-scientist laboratory — covet.
I’ll cease there with the plot for the sake of phrase depend and to keep away from spoiling all the different nuttiness occurring in Miracle Valley. Sure, there’s lots occurring within the movie, most likely an excessive amount of for one film, but it surely’s all directed, acted, and made earnestly fairly than going for deliberate camp. The manufacturing values are stable, and the gore-splattered third act is fairly gonzo. Miracle Valley is entertaining all through, typically for the explanations Sestero meant and typically not.
Miracle Valley screened as a part of Arrow Video FrightFest Halloween Version, which ran in London, U.Okay. on October 29 and 30, 2021.
Evaluation by Joseph Perry
