Since 2021, Horror in the High Desert writer/director Dutch Marich has been spinning an increasingly strange found footage saga set in the Nevada high desert. What began as an investigation into the disappearance of an avid outdoorsman has since evolved into a sweeping eldritch mystery centered on otherworldly forces at work in the region.
Horror in the High Desert 4: Majesty, the surprise-release fourth entry, spotlights returning local Dolly Broadbent (Laurie Felix Bass), who brings news that her husband has recently recovered key evidence after a fire on Majesty Ranch, her inherited family property. The sequel is ultimately a tension-laden investigation of Dolly’s family history, curious characters in the region, and the connective evidence presented in the three previous films, now pointing to a high-strangeness conspiracy decades in the making.
Following the cliffhanger ending from the third installment, Firewatch (2024), Majesty kicks off with confirmation that Dolly recovered a box of documents and media belonging to her father, Beau Hayden (John Davis Walker, giving a notably endearing vocal performance). With the help of the returning High Desert documentary team — including reporter Gal Roberts (Suziey Block), private eye Bill Salerno (David Morales), and filmmaker Daniel Prince (Marich) — Dolly shares the discovered evidence in an attempt to make sense of the years of inexplicable occurrences on her family homestead. Via eerie childhood photos, transcripts of covert communications, and analog footage of Beau progressively growing more obsessed with the area’s strange entities, Majesty ultimately tells a story of a family that never had a choice but to accept the presence of terrifying and unknown forces in their lives.
Structurally, Marich maintains the horror mockumentary format in Majesty, with talking head interviews intercut with recovered footage from Beau’s evidence archive. Despite being the fourth trip to the high desert, Marich continues to serve up well-crafted scares that play with viewer expectations and found footage tropes in ways that still feel fresh. To this end, the focus on Beau’s vintage film footage, seemingly captured around the late ’70s, is especially chilling this go-round.
The grainy, often handheld sequences in which Beau attempts to commune with the phenomenon in and around his vast property are anxiety-inducing and unsettling, recalling some of the scariest sequences in the franchise to date (e.g., the basement sequences in Minerva). As Beau’s footage is set in a time when technology and means of staying connected with others were far more limited, Majesty‘s set pieces are tinged with a heavy air of isolation and paranoia, effectively reflecting Beau’s devolving mental state.
The visual style in some of the found footage sequences in Majesty is at times reminiscent of Scott Derrickson’s grainy home video footage from Sinister (2012) or the cold, isolated tone of more recent liminal horror films, like Kyle Edward Ball’s Skinamarink (2022). Even still, Marich’s style feels unique to him, and he doesn’t rely on just one way to scare his audience. As a found footage director, cinematographer, and editor, Marich continues to adeptly execute multiple nail-biting sequences and surprising scares with a confidence and polish that are often lacking in the broader found footage archive. It’s worth noting that if you didn’t warm up to Marich’s more measured approach to scares and fake-outs in 2024’s Firewatch, you’ll likely find Majesty to be refreshing with its more confronting scare sequences.
Fans will no doubt welcome the return of familiar faces like Block and Morales, who again serve as narrative guides to the film as they attempt to make sense of each new piece introduced in this high-strangeness puzzle. Their presence is certainly welcome as anchors to this series, though at this point, I’d appreciate a chance to see these characters become more directly engaged in the strangeness in the planned finale and not just provide exposition.
Elsewhere, Bass’s turn as the salt-of-the-earth Dolly is a notable highlight. Her performance manages to hit a sweet spot that’s often difficult to access for found footage actors — the space where naturalism and emotional nuance are so in harmony that you forget you’re actually watching a performance. Her tender reading of the final letter her mother wrote to her father is especially moving, further highlighting that this series is most effective when we experience not just the terrifying moments, but also the far-reaching impacts the phenomenon has had on the people caught in its web.
Ultimately, what makes Majesty a successful series entry, and found footage films in general, is its rooting in the Hayden family’s story. In the previous films, High Desert victims like Gary Hinge (Eric Mencis), Minerva Sound (Solveig Helene), and Oscar Mendoza (Marco Antonio Parra) have often been curious investigators or unwitting passers-through seeking new opportunities. They were outsiders drawn to the area, whether by chance or the allure of dark tourism, but the high desert wasn’t their home. Yet in Majesty, the tragic realization is that Dolly’s family has always been inexorably tied to the phenomenon.
As ranch living is often underscored by family pride and a drive to leave something of substance behind for future generations, it’s clear that the Hayden family was always going to be in a double bind when faced with highly strange threats from forces beyond their understanding. Escaping the high desert would likely provide relief from years of conspiratorial or otherworldly attacks, but at what cost? Through this lens, Beau Hayden’s story, and therefore Dolly’s story, is one of generational curses and the fight to salvage one’s legacy and achieve peace after years of inescapable chaos.
Horror in the High Desert 4: Majesty ultimately brings a strong emotional grounding to the overarching series mystery and refreshing scare sequences that will leave viewers on edge. It’s difficult to explicitly discuss the series’s lore at this point without getting into the weeds, which is admittedly a major barrier to entry for new viewers hoping to see what the buzz is about. High strangeness nerds may have some theories about where things are going with Marich’s upcoming finale, but there are still many unanswered questions, and anything seems possible in the Horror in the High Desert world at this point.
Suffice it to say, Majesty won’t make a lot of sense until you’ve done your homework with the first three entries. Still, if you can appreciate an evolving mystery in the vein of high strangeness favorites like “Hellier” (2019-present), Banshee Chapter (2013), or The Mothman Prophecies (2002), Marich’s world is a captivating escape into the unknown, and Majesty is a welcome addition to the High Desert saga.
Horror in the High Desert 4: Majesty is now available to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV.
