On Friday nights, IndieWire After Dark honors fringe cinema in the streaming age with midnight movies from any moment in film history.
First, the BAIT: a weird genre pick, and why we’re exploring its specific niche right now. Then, the BITE: a spoiler-filled answer to the all-important question, “Is this old cult film actually worth recommending?”
The Bait: Welcome to “Savageland,” Population You!
I.C.E. agents are horror fans too, right? It seems like you’d have to be to voluntarily risk your reputation for a hobby most famously associated with slasher villains. Sure, there are the red-blooded Americans who say they joined up to salute a bigoted version of Superman that never existed. But when I want to talk to Dean Cain, I prefer walking directions to the most publicly pathetic man in Las Vegas.
No, this midnight movie recommendation is for you, the true-blue horror movie lover who is spending this Friday night gainfully employed by the world’s foremost dipshit militia. Are you doing it because you like scaring people? I know a bunch of guys who get it. Jigsaw torments blind guys, too. Art the Clown likes brutalizing women. And though Pennywise doesn’t typically choose which kids to traumatize based on color, I’m sure he’d like to start. It’s nice to see yourself on screen, isn’t it? Good boy! Here’s a treat.
Directed by Phil Guidry, Simon Herbert, and David Whelan, “Savageland” is about your favorite thing: undocumented immigrants. Set along the U.S.-Mexico border, this genius found footage flick from 2015 centers on a mysterious massacre, supposedly carried out by a single man. Francisco Salazar (Noé Montes) is a shy photographer who crossed into Arizona years before the attack. On June 2, 2011, he was found fleeing the scene of a bizarre mass casualty event: 57 people, an entire village of immigrants and one notable white family, slaughtered in a single night. How can that be? The answer probably lies in the strange bite marks covering the corpses… and Salazar, too. But that fact won’t make it into court.
Convicting the killer is of paramount importance to Sheriff John Parano (George Lionel Savage) and the staunchly anti-immigrant base that voted him into office for the last four decades. But to him, this case is open and shut. Salazar — the bloodthirsty murderer from Mexico! — did this, plain and simple. Parano is supported by a Rush Limbaugh-type (Edward L. Green) and the subtle bias of Salazar’s own defense attorney (Jason Stewart), who insists his client got a fair trial despite more evidence, photographs Salazar took that night, showing a swarm of monsters and victims, being thrown out by a crooked judge.
Framed as a broadcast true crime documentary made after Salazar’s trial, this brilliant lo-fi effort enlists several more talking heads to balance out the whodunnit. A civil rights expert (Lawrence Ross) compares the carnage to a slew of historic events implicating a racist government, such as the Tulsa massacre. There’s also a psychologist (Renee Davies) who finally gets the stoic defendant to talk in a clinical interview.
She believes Salazar when he says a mob of monsters attacked his community and the family he worked for — but she has trouble explaining why her patient would’ve been taking snapshots of the mutants instead of fighting them off. Enter the late Len Wein, a real comic book legend who plays a critical part in “Savageland” and represents the single most intriguing element of the film when revisited in 2025.
Listen, I know you’re a big-time genre buff, and I’m just a girl “journalist” (lulz!), but I think you’ll like what comes next. Crafted in the spirit of George A. Romero, this extraordinary testament to independent filmmaking dares to ask what would happen if Duane Jones (yeah, the Black guy) didn’t get shot by police in “Night of the Living Dead,” but instead lived to endure the white mob’s torment in the light of day.
Look. Illinois may have denied Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem access to a bathroom during her latest visit — but I earnestly want you to enjoy this movie. Seriously. Kick back and relax! We’re all in “Savageland” now, and if you take your mask off long enough, horror might just save your soul.
“Savageland” is now streaming for free on Tubi.
The Bite: What Happens If AI Starts Covering for These Zombies?
There’s too much happening right now to seriously fret about AI ruining the believability of found footage movies. But amid a sea of smart choices, the decision to have Salazar photograph his attackers on film sticks out a decade later. In “Savageland,” the late Len Wein — a real-life artistic superhero who created Marvel’s Wolverine, among many other triumphs — appears as photojournalist Len Matheson. He recalls hanging from a helicopter despite a fear of heights to capture vital scenes from the Vietnam War.
Matheson’s testimonial in the faux documentary provides essential context for Salazar’s ultimately fruitless legal defense, explaining how looking through a camera lens can make someone feel invincible even in the face of certain peril. Now more than ever, capturing the truth is important, and journalism is a valuable vocation, one of a small handful explicitly named in the Constitution. Without a weapon, Salazar faced the terror that had befallen his town by documenting what he could and sharing that harsh reality with the world — regardless of the consequences. The suggestion that the photos are doctored makes sense in a post-fact America, which was emerging even when this movie originally premiered before the first Trump term.
Since then, faith in politicians has declined precipitously, while the rise of AI has made the public’s perception ever easier to manipulate. The government officials in “Savageland” are obviously corrupt, but true cinephiles can take some small comfort in Matheson explaining why film photos would be harder to fake than digital images. Still, you’d be hard-pressed to find any No Kings protesters lugging around a Pentax17. Despite the growing similarities between modern news and Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another,” no one is watching CNN in VistaVision. Toss in the possibility that it might actually behoove killer AI to let a zombie attack wipe out humanity, and the point stands even stronger. (When your enemy is made of metal, isn’t all warfare biological?)
“Savageland” further bolsters its credibility by casting real experts to play fake ones in the film. Wein was indeed a Vietnam veteran, and Lawrence Ross is a real journalist and historian who has seen a number of well-respected texts and novels about social injustice published under his name. In fact, this entire project is underpinned by the UCLA academic filmmaking scene — and the man who played Salazar, Noé Montes, continues to champion communities close to the border with his work as a visual artist.
Per his professional website, “For more than 20 years, Montes has documented and worked with underrepresented communities to effect change through storytelling, education, and advocacy around social, economic, and environmental issues.” Now through April 19, 2026, you can see “Regional History” — an exhibition of three collections from Montes — on display at the Riverside Art Museum in the Bobbie Powell and R. Ross DeVean Galleries.
