Gary Hingle – A Surprising Last Moments Documentary
Gary hinge was an outdoor and survival enthusiast who vanished in the Nevada desert. His mysterious disappearance led to a police investigation. His truck was later found but his body, save for his cleanly-severed hand still clutching his camera, was never discovered. This case inspired the plot of Horror in the High Desert, directed by Dutch Marich.
The Case
Three years ago outdoors and survival enthusiast Gary Hinge disappeared in the Nevada desert. Despite a massive months-long police search, no sign of him ever turned up. Now a documentary crew has caught up with his family and friends in the hope of digging up any new leads. But when they discover Gary’s final moments – from his own camera footage – the revelation is more shocking than anyone could have anticipated. Gary was an amateur videographer who enjoyed recording his adventures in the wilderness using a go-pro camera. He would often travel to remote areas with only the bare essentials and rely on the wilderness to provide him with food, shelter, and water. He had posted several videos of his adventures online, including a video where he discusses a mysterious cabin that he had visited previously.
After he disappears, his housemate and sister report him missing to the police. The police begin to investigate and find a number of clues, including a burnt-out truck with no sign of a fire, and a trail of barefoot footprints that do not match Gary’s shoes. However, they are unable to make any headway due to the lack of matching fingerprints.
In the meantime, Gary’s YouTube followers begin to speculate about his disappearance, with some claiming that aliens, witches, and ghosts are to blame. Eventually, the police discover Gary’s backpack at a campground, along with his cleanly severed hand clutching his camcorder. During this time, Bill Salerno and Gal Roberts have been trying to dig up any clues that may help them find Gary. They soon uncover his online presence and find a promising lead in a video blog that Gary had been posting to under the pseudonym Scorpion Sam.
This is where the film really starts to take off, with shaky camera work and eerie background sounds providing a creepy atmosphere that will send chills down your spine. Eventually, we discover that Gary was attacked by a deformed monstrous stranger who severing his arm and dragging him into the wilderness to be eaten. This is a great movie that makes excellent use of its setting in Nevada, with the combination of shaky footage, burning desert landscapes, and eerie background noises creating the perfect atmosphere for a genuinely unsettling film. While the film does lag at times, the gradual layering of mystery towards its final boo moment is well worth it.
The Plot
Gary Hinge, an outdoorsy survivalist and vlogger, goes missing in the vast desert of Nevada. This indie film uses fictional talking head interviews and beautiful landscapes footage to elicit unbearable anticipation, tapping into the primal fear of not being able to see in the dark. It also features the found footage narrative style popularized by The Blair Witch Project. Initially, Gary’s disappearance seems like a simple case of a man who got lost in the wilderness. However, his family and friends quickly realize that it’s much more sinister than that. His roommate and sister report him as missing, and the police begin a search for him. They narrow their focus to the area where he went hiking by pinging his phone, but they soon find that it’s no longer in his possession. The police also discover that the truck he was driving had numerous fingerprints that don’t match his.
Finally, they shift their focus to a deserted cabin that Gary had visited before. They discover that he had made a video of it, which he didn’t even bother to upload. When the investigators enter the mysterious shack, they are confronted by a deformed monster that severly cuts off Gary’s hand. The video evidence that Gary left behind reveals that he is not alone in the desert. He is accompanied by a bizarre man, possibly the owner of the unsettling cabin that he was recording in. The movie also makes reference to Native American artifacts and closed mine tunnels, suggesting that this disfigured creature may be a ghost guarding a sacred location.
Although the movie doesn’t mention it, it is likely that Gary Hinge is a parody of online personality and vlogger Kenny Veach, who vanished in 2014 while on a hike in the same area. Veach, who was known by his online handle snakebitmgee, had a large following and was pressured by his fans to return to the site of his puzzling discovery. It seems that Horror in the High Desert will continue exploring this mystery, since Marich recently confirmed to Dread Central that he is working on a sequel. He plans to explore the influencer angle further, as well as investigate the possibility of a supernatural presence in the desert.
The Characters
A few years ago outdoors and survival enthusiast Gary Hinge disappeared in the Nevada desert, sparking a months-long search involving local police, his sister and roommate, and his thousands of YouTube followers. Eventually, Gary’s backpack is found at a campground, and inside it, investigators discover his severed hand grasping a camcorder. Now they know that Gary was murdered, but what caused his death remains a mystery until a film crew from Gary’s website returns to the desert to discover his shocking last moments.
The indie horror flick uses fictional talking heads, drone footage of beautiful landscapes and the popular found footage narrative style to set up an unbearable sense of anticipation. However, unlike other films that use this technique, two characters are never onscreen at the same time, illustrating the isolation that the Covid-19 pandemic forced many people to feel. Gary’s reclusive lifestyle and varied interests indicate a sense of social rejection and detachment, and his YouTube vlog provides an escape from that loneliness. During one of his hikes, Gary stumbles upon a little cabin in the middle of nowhere and is compelled to share it on his online blog for his subscribers. A swarm of hostile comments follow, and Gary decides to go back into the desert to prove that the cabin is real.
As he approaches the little house, Gary is distracted by an ominous figure on the horizon and begins to lose consciousness. When he wakes up, he hears a strange chanting sound in the distance and tries to leave. He is stopped, however, when a strange creature with horrific physical deformities attacks him.
After the attack, the camera shuts off, and a police officer arrives to investigate. Initially, she suspects that Gary was killed by a human who resented his intrusion into the sacred space, but when they review the video, they find evidence of something much more sinister. The police call in Gary’s sister and his roommate, and both insist that he would not have walked into such a remote area. They also point out that the location where the screams came from is a graveyard for Native American artifacts.
The Finale
Three years ago outdoor adventure blogger and survival enthusiast Gary Hinge disappeared in the desert. After a lengthy police search, no sign of him was ever found. Now a documentary crew is following the case in hopes of shedding some light on what happened to him. The film is shot in a pseudo-documentary style, with interviews from those close to the case (Gary’s sister and roommate, Simon Rodgers) interspersed with various short videos taken by Gary himself. This combination of real-life footage and found footage adds to the realism of the movie and provides the viewer with an authentic feel.
As the documentary continues, it becomes clear that there is much more to the story than meets the eye. The police are able to identify Gary’s truck by the unique marks on its steering wheel and they also discover that a trail of barefoot footprints was left behind. However, the one thing that stands out to investigators is a set of fingerprints found on the truck that don’t match Gary’s and there are no matches in any database. This is a major red flag and Gary’s disappearance was most likely foul play.
Eventually, Gal Roberts and Bill Salerno begin digging into Gary’s social media and find that he had been posting about his hiking and survival adventures on YouTube under the name of Scorpion Sam. Gary had become a sort of online celebrity after all and had a number of followers who were very interested in his exploits. This information leads them to believe that Gary was killed and his body dumped into the desert so that he couldn’t be found by the police.
Conclusion
The last piece of evidence that the police have is the video footage Gary had taken of a strange cabin in the middle of nowhere. In it, you can see a deformed monster hacking off Gary’s hand and dragging him away into the desert. This is a huge clue as the investigators now know that the creature was Gary’s killer and that he drove his truck far from the original site of the cabin so that it would be more difficult for the police to locate his remains.
