{Fantastic Fest 2022} Mister Organ Review- Bonkers, Mesmerizing, And Deeply Disturbing

One of the must-sees of Fantastic Fest 2022 is David Farrier’s, Mister Organ. My favorite selfless journalist is back with yet another dive into the seedy deep end of surreal weirdness and gaslighting narcissists. His latest documentary is a study in psychosis, vulnerability, and societal failings. Anyone who saw Tickled or Dark Tourist knows the kind of odd places David Farrier finds himself. What starts as a simple piece on a busy body and her relationship with a mad wheel clamper outside an antique shop becomes the most bizarre fall down the darkest rabbit hole. I’m all in on Farrier. He has zero fear and finds himself in the most precarious and bizarre circumstances, all for our pleasure.

When Farrier hears about the antics of Jillian Bashford, an antique store owner in his hometown that has hired a man to guard her parking spots, he is interested. When she claims not to know the man, he is intrigued, and when he starts getting eyewitness testimony of the behavior of the wheel clamper’s intimidation tactics, he is hooked. Bashford and Organ are serious about their parking spots. But, he doesn’t just guard the spots. Instead, he terrorizes those silly enough to park there accidentally.

The more Farrier learns about the man named Michael Organ, the stranger things get. He learns Organ is a convicted boat thief who once claimed to be royalty. As he begins looking into Organ’s past, he finds a man who has insinuated himself into so many lives. Before too long, he discovers Organ has set his sights on him.

Mister Organ looks like a soft, beta troll, yet his magnetic power is unsettling and utterly convincing. He isn’t just an expert gaslighter, he is the flame itself, and you’re the moth. He’s a predator with an undefined malignant agenda. He diminishes everyone he comes into contact with. He doesn’t just manipulate people; he gets inside their minds, and Farrier becomes convinced he is wiggling into his. That might be because after first suing Farrier and then weirdly befriending him, he tells him to be careful because he has a key to his house. Most of us would hear that warning and dip. Not Farrier. He doggedly pushes on even after determining Organ’s threat was real. Thank God he doesn’t cut and run like almost everyone else would because things get even wilder from there.

Mister Organ continues to talk, and talk, and talk. He is erratic and unpredictable, swinging wildly between threatening Farrier and claiming he is trying to save him from a mystery man who is the real person who stole the boat and took Farrier’s house key. Farrier never knows if he will get a charming if pompous storyteller or a carefully coded trickster who once drove someone to suicide. Maybe it’s both or neither one. The man is so slippery and says such insane things you can’t get a handle on him. When Farrier finally gets a few answers, you won’t be surprised where but you will be freaked out.

Why is Mister Organ a compelling documentary? This story is so bizarre, so bonkers, it is hard to believe, and that is saying something, considering we were last invited into an underground world of tickling competitors, which was a front for a sex trafficking cult. David Farrier is known for this kind of fascinating story. Somehow, someway he always finds himself in the middle of trouble. I half think he’s a magnet for risk. In the Netflix series Dark Tourist, Farrier willingly goes to the places where true evil lives. He visited Medellin, where drug legend Pablo Escobar still controls the area even after his death, and the macabre lucrative world of Jeffrey Dahmer murder tourism. There he interviewed fans and women who defended the killer in court. It’s chilling stuff.

What is it about Farrier that, even when he thinks he’s investigating a testy shop owner, is really exposing himself to a potentially deranged and unstable stalker? You can’t make things like this up. He throws himself with abandon into the sometimes tedious and occasionally dangerous world of a delusional man and the people he has and continues to terrorize. Mister Organ is terrifying because even as I wrote this review, I found myself looking over my shoulder. Waiting for Mister Organ to begin contacting me, or worse yet, show up at my house half a world away.

Since the filming of this documentary, Farrier has cut off all ties with Michael Organ and moved to an undisclosed location. The unspoken inference is he did that for his own protection. Terrifying stuff, indeed. It’s enough to make you realize true horror isn’t filmed in a studio with actors and fake blood but behind the lenses of a journalist telling a real-life story. Mister Organ premiered at Fantastic Fest 2022 and is awaiting release. Find all our Fantastic Fest coverage here.