This City Has Bigger Problems

MOVIE REVIEW
Bunker Heights
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Genre: Horror, Comedy, Crime
Year: 2026
Runtime: 1h 46m
Director: Drew Fortier
Writers: Drew Fortier, Joe Placzkowski
Cast: Drew Fortier, Hannah Fierman, Chaney Morrow, Paul T. Taylor, Floyd Ewing Jr., Douglas Esper, James L. Edwards, L.C. Holt, Violent J, Vinnie Dombroski, David Ellefson
Where to Watch: available October 13, 2026. Pre-order your copy here: www.mvdshop.com or www.amazon.com

RAVING REVIEW: I love production stuff, especially when it means we get a $30,000 film that acts like nobody bothered to tell it that $30,000 isn’t a lot of money in filmmaking. BUNKER HEIGHTS doesn’t seem interested in staying within the little independent-horror box tjat ot was assigned. Drew Fortier throws cops, criminals, corrupt politicians, a botched robbery, an assassination, gloomy comedy, practical monster effects, and an entire decaying city into the same story, then lets everything run into everything else.

That willingness to go big gives the movie personality, even when its resources can’t always keep up with its ideas. Bunker Heights is introduced as the sort of place where things have already gone terribly wrong before anything supernatural enters the picture. Crime has become routine, corruption has dug into the city's foundations, and homicide detective Derek Tucker is so exhausted that another investigation initially feels like one more miserable day at work. Things get considerably worse from there.

Fortier plays Tucker, putting him at the center of a movie he also wrote, directed, and edited. That much creative control can sometimes make an independent production feel overly protective of its lead. Still, BUNKER HEIGHTS is too busy spreading chaos around to make Tucker an untouchable hero. He's another worn-down piece of a barely functioning city, and approaching him that way works better than trying to turn him into an invincible action cop.

The crime material also helps distinguish the movie before the creatures arrive in force. Fortier clearly loves horror, but he's just as interested in the crooked personalities wandering through this place and the escalating mess connecting them. Much of it has an intentionally exaggerated quality, somewhere between a grimy cop movie and the kind of late-night genre picture where everyone seems slightly dangerous even before somebody starts getting eaten.

That combination won't be equally smooth at every turn. BUNKER HEIGHTS has a lot of characters to introduce and several pieces moving at once, which occasionally makes the story feel busier than it needs to be. At 106 minutes, the Director's Cut has room to bounce between its various players, but not every detour carries the same weight. A tighter movie probably exists inside it, especially before the larger horror elements begin pulling everything together.

On the other hand, cleaning it up too much might defeat part of the purpose. This isn't a production chasing sleek studio horror. Its roughness belongs to the same world as the characters, locations, and practical effects. Fortier has cited movies such as C.H.U.D., THE RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD, and TREMORS as influences, and those references make sense without reducing BUNKER HEIGHTS to a collection of borrowed pieces. There's also enough buddy-cop and crime-movie DNA floating around that the whole thing sometimes feels like someone changed channels halfway through a police thriller and discovered both programs had somehow merged.

The practical creature effects are especially important because they give the actors something physical to confront. Deryk Wehrley's effects give the horror a handmade quality that fits a movie on this scale far better than glossy digital monsters would. You can see the limitations, but you can also see people finding ways around them, and that resourcefulness becomes part of the entertainment.

The physical locations do a lot of work for Fortier too, particularly because BUNKER HEIGHTS needs to feel larger than its budget allows. The filmmakers shot portions of the movie at the Old Historic Harriman Hospital in Tennessee. That kind of worn, imposing space gives the production texture that would've been difficult to manufacture on a soundstage. Fortier uses those environments to make the city feel neglected and slightly hostile even before the story fully reveals what's hiding underneath it. That matters because the horror doesn't feel dropped into the movie from somewhere else; it grows naturally out of a place that's already rotting from the inside. The damaged buildings, dim corridors, and rough edges around the production all reinforce the idea that Bunker Heights has been falling apart for years, and the creatures are simply the newest problem nobody is prepared to deal with.

Hannah Fierman, Chaney Morrow, Paul T. Taylor, Floyd Ewing Jr., Douglas Esper, and James L. Edwards give Fortier a cast that understands the strange little corner of genre filmmaking they're occupying. Nobody needs to pretend this is deadly serious prestige crime drama, but the movie also doesn't turn every scene into a joke. That balance matters because relentless winking would've worn thin long before the creatures showed up.

The collection of musicians scattered through the cast adds another layer of oddball energy. Violent J, Sponge frontman Vinnie Dombroski, and former Megadeth bassist David Ellefson aren't presented as some enormous stunt that takes over the movie. They're simply part of an already unusual ensemble, which is probably the smartest way to use recognizable faces from outside traditional acting circles.

BUNKER HEIGHTS is strongest when its limitations become part of its identity rather than something it tries to hide. Shooting a creature-heavy crime comedy across multiple states for around $30,000 is ridiculous on paper, and the seams inevitably show. Yet the movie's ambition is also far more interesting than watching another small horror production reduce itself to three actors standing around a house because that's what the budget can comfortably support.

Ambition can become clutter, though, and Fortier comes close to crossing that line more than once. Characters, jokes, violence, conspiracies, and genre shifts keep arriving, occasionally faster than the movie can give them room to breathe. Anyone looking for a carefully controlled descent into horror may find its restless nature frustrating. BUNKER HEIGHTS would rather kick another door open and see what's behind it.

That approach ultimately tells you exactly what kind of movie this wants to be. It isn't ashamed of its budget, its influences, or its attraction to grubby old creature features that valued imagination over polish. The whole production has the energy of filmmakers getting away with something they probably shouldn't have pulled off for the money they had.

BUNKER HEIGHTS may be messy, but bland would have been a much worse outcome. Fortier aims for crime, comedy, monsters, practical gore, and enough strange characters to populate an entire corrupt city, then somehow squeezes it all into one independent production. Not everything survives the collision intact, but the movie has the increasingly rare quality of feeling made because somebody desperately wanted this exact weird thing to exist.

Bonus Materials:
DISC 1: DIRECTOR'S CUT
The definitive version of the film
Optional English, Spanish, and French subtitles

DISC 2: EXTENDED CUT
Exclusive to this 2-disc special edition, the 121-minute Extended Cut features additional story, character, and creature material not seen in the Director's Cut
Amateur Hacks: Making Bunker Heights - an 80-minute feature-length documentary chronicling the production from conception through post-production with nearly 30 cast and crew interviews
Reversible cover artwork featuring original poster art and new artwork by Alex Sarabia
Limited Edition Slipcover

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[photo courtesy of BELLINI INDUSTRIES, MVD ENTERTAINMENT]

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