‘Mister Organ’ Review: David Farrier’s Newest Documentary Is His Scariest Yet
Mary Beth McAndrews
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The scariest horror movies are about the horrors of humanity. Sorry Satan, Dracula, and the Wolf-Man, but nothing beats what an everyday person is capable of with enough motivation. The Strangers, Henry: Portrait Of A Serial Killer, Hounds Of Love, and hell, even Saw, are terrifying examples of such films, horror films that tap into the depravity of normal people. And somehow, David Farrier’s latest documentary Mister Organ taps into that fear as the journalist paints a portrait of a real-life narcissist willing to inflict what appears to be emotional terrorism upon anyone unlucky enough to stray into his path. No, the titular Mister Organ is not a serial killer, but boy does he sure act like one.
Farrier’s story starts with a New Zealand antique shop known for unfairly clamping car tires in a shared parking lot with another business. Yes, it is that kind of hyper-specific local drama read about on Nextdoor or the local newspaper. But, as Farrier began digging into the story, he quickly discovered that the man at the center of it all, one Michael Organ, was more than just a scam artist. He was a full-blown narcissist.
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Mister Organ chronicles the twists and turns Farrier experiences the more he gets to know Organ and spends time with him. Farrier’s own morbid fascination with this strange man backfires and he himself becomes tangled in Organ’s web. And it’s all over clamping tires and screaming at women to pay him exorbitant fees to get the clamps removed. It sounds like a fever dream, and honestly, Farrier sure makes it feel like one. What started as a local news piece evolved into a multi-year saga that eventually led Farrier to leave New Zealand and relocate to the United States to avoid further contact with Michael.
Farrier is known for telling stories that are real-life horror stories about the dark side of humanity and that’s perhaps on display more than ever with his latest documentary. While his previous works Tickled and the Netflix series Dark Tourist are sinister, they also make a bit of a spectacle of their subjects because said subjects are sensational. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that as Farrier treats his subjects with respect (within reason). But Mister Organ is the complete opposite. There isn’t a spectacle to be made because Michael Organ is just a man who essentially ran a scam to make some money. There’s nothing that special about him other than his innate ability to ruin the lives of everyone around him. And in being rather boring, he’s all the more terrifying.
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Farrier isn’t just observing Michael and positing about why he is the way he is. He gets Michael on camera, both in talking head interviews and in chronicling Michael’s everyday life. Farrier embeds himself with the subject, which is always a dangerous route to take when dealing with someone very smart and manipulative. We get to watch Farrier fall under Michael’s thrall, which is horrifying but also incredibly important because it shows how any person, no matter how intelligent they are, can be gaslit and manipulated by a narcissist. That right there is terrifying to behold.
We’ve all known someone like Mister Organ. We’ve worked with him, lived with him, hell, maybe we were even in a relationship with him. Regardless, we’ve all been exposed to narcissists and energy vampires of varying degrees who seem to thrive on making everyone within a one-mile radius as miserable as possible. But so often we try not to pay them any attention, how they eventually wear us down. Mister Organ is a rather terrifying document of what it looks like to be manipulated by, for lack of a better word, an abuser. From making copies of Farrier’s house keys to threatening him for hours on end, this documentary is a portrait of a narcissist in its most terrifying form: just a guy who’s looking to feel important and better than everyone else around him.
Summary
David Farrier’s latest documentary Mister Organ is perhaps scarier than any horror movie as it paints a portrait of a real-life narcissist.
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