HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 4: MAJESTY (2025)

<New On Demand from Luminol Entertainment!
Directed/Written by Dutch Marich.
Check out the trailer here!!

Continuing the mockumentary series exploring mysterious phenomena occurring in the deserts of Nevada, HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 4: MAJESTY centers on a box found in the basement of a ranch called Majesty after a fire overcame the home. The contents of the box were intact and contained video tape, audio recordings, and a timeline written by a man named Beau Hayden (John Davis Walker), the owner of the ranch who eventually went insane according to interviews with his daughter Dolly (Laurie Felix Bass). These tapes help piece together some of the mystery that has lead to this ranch as well as supply tidbits of information connecting this film to previous entries in the HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT series. Investigative reporters Gal Roberts (Suziey Block) and Bill Salerno (David Morales) present this evidence in order according to this timeline, inching us closer, yet further from any answers as to what exactly this high desert horror really is.

The HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT series has been a maddening experience of late. It started out strong with the original with it’s ominous mystery about a missing hiker and footage that was found depicting what seems to be his last moments alive as he sets out to find a mysterious cabin in the desert occupied by a strange, deformed fellow. The experience was palpably terrifying as the footage truly took advantage of the strange environment and added just enough creepy imagery to make your spine tingle. The sequel, subtitled MINERVA, also had some effective moments of creep as it followed a woman who went missing in a trailer in the desert and provided some gripping footage of monsters looming in the dark. FIREWATCH, the third installment is where the wheels began spinning. Much like the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY series which provided some effective scares leading to a climax that scoots the narrative forward only by a skosh, FIREWATCH proved to be the first entry of the series that felt unnecessary—as if filmmaker Dutch Marich was stretching things out to a tedious lengths. The footage shown wasn’t frightening, lacked real atmosphere, and ultimately ended with some kind of tree attacking the viewer in the last seconds. What a letdown.

Marich promised more developments in this fourth installment and there is a more relatable story, about a rancher named Beau who is thought to have given into pressure and gone nuts when his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. The setup is compelling, as it literally provides a mystery box with the promise that all the contents will be revealed to the viewer. And the film starts out ominously enough with the retelling of a strange man lurking along the border of Beau’s land—a man Beau called the Odd Man.

Unfortunately, like FIREWATCH, MAJESTY feels like a whole lot of nothing by the end. I don’t know what happened to this series. Either Marich has stretched out the narrative to such a length that any progress seems at a bare minimum or he simply lost sight of that element that made the first two installments, as well as Marich’s early film REAPTOWN, so effective. And that element is the use of deep darkness and exuding the feeling of dread as to what exactly is out there lurking in that dark.

There are multiple scenes where Beau is wandering around his ranch in the dark. He pans around the desolate landscape filled with sparce trees, bushes, and boulders, and occasionally some creepy audible is sounded out or something vaguely human-shaped is seen moving in the background. This happens over and over again, but this film lacks the suspenseful lead in that made the very similar footage from the original so effective. In MAJESTY, we do get to see two “things” in the darkness. One is a man in a Gilly suit, who is said to have been sent by the property next door who is trying to purchase the land from Beau. The other is some kind of fuzzy haired monster in the dark. The latter is semi-effective as you never see the entire shape of the fuzzy haired monster as Beau beats feet once it stands up. Still, none of these handheld scenes work whereas these are the scenes that made the original the classic it was.

On top of all of that, there is an emotional story about the terminal illness of Beau’s wife and Beau’s own death that really never resonates. In the final moments, Dolly reads a note from Beau’s wife, but the actress just doesn’t seem to have the range to sell the emotion here. One of the problems is that we never really see Beau. He is always holding the camera, and though Dolly gives some context and backstory about the man, he really is just an unseen cameraman the whole time. These moments where we are supposed to relate to the story–moments that were in the original film, are simply absent here.

I think all of the problems I had with HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 4: MAJESTY lays in the fact that it feels as if this is underwritten and rushed. It feels like a first draft, where none of the characters are fleshed out to the point of us giving a shit about them. There is a compelling “what’s in the box” question propelling the story, but the payoff just felt hollow.

I get that HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT is one of those series that straddles the line between mockumentary, found footage, and that analog horror the kids are gassed up about these days. Mockumentary and found footage remain one of my favorite subgenres of horror, but analog horror, which relies more on conveying a sense of dread and terror with as little content as possible, is not. MAJESTY leans more towards the less action oriented/feeling based horror of the analog, and for me it just didn’t work. In the end, it all feels like setup for the next film, most likely called HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT 5: MANTIS, as that is the name of the enigmatic property next door to the Majesty ranch. The problem is that for me to care about the next installment, the lead in has to be worth it. This time around, as with FIREWATCH, MAJESTY just didn’t make the lead in count. For a far more effective watch, check out THE ASMA TAPES on Youtube, which deals with some very similar themes and atmosphere to a much creepier effect—one more similar to the original HORROR IN THE HIGH DESERT. I’ll be there for Part 5 because I’m a sucker and always remain hopeful that something of scary substance will happen, but MAJESTY ended up amounting to nothing by the time the credits rolled.