‘Grave Encounters’ Director’s Faux True Crime Doc ‘Strange Harvest’ Acquired by Saban

Saban Films has acquired the North American rights to Strange Harvest, the faux-true crime documentary from Grave Encounters writer-director Stuart Ortiz.

Variety broke the news, noting that a summer release is planned.

The film premiered at Fantastic Fest in September under the title Strange Harvest: Occult Murder in the Inland Empire.

A routine welfare check in the San Bernardino suburbs leads to a gruesome discovery — a family of three has been bound, bled, and posed below a strange symbol written in blood on the ceiling. Detective Joe Kirby and Lexi Taylor recognize the symbol as the calling card of a killer from 15 years earlier calling himself Mr. Shiny, who has seemingly returned to continue his murder spree.

Peter Zizzo, Terri Apple, Andy Lauer, Matthew Peschio, Janna Cardia, Thomas Wolfe Jr, Tim Shelburne, Christina Helene Bra, LA Williams star.

“Strange Harvest is like nothing you’ve ever seen,” Saban Films co-presidents Jonathan Saba and Shanan Becker said in a joint statement. “Stuart has crafted the perfect film for horror and true crime fans. You have to experience this wild ride on the big screen.”

Ortiz added, “It is my hope with Strange Harvest to take the audience on a hair-raising rollercoaster ride unlike any they’ve been on before — one that starts with a huge drop and has dozens of twists and turns they’ll never see coming.”

Meagan Navarro wrote in her review, “Strange Harvest brings the creep factor, an impressively gruesome display of crime scenes, and a skin-crawling villain with cosmic machinations in mind. Ortiz pushes the subgenre forward with a heady and unsettling immersion into the realm of true crime, with a distinctly horror twist.”