Banshee Chapter (2013)
Directed by Blair Erickson
Written by Blair Erickson and Daniel J. Healy
Image from http://www.movieinsider.com/m9385/the-banshee-chapter/
Banshee Chapter is a film about a young female journalist looking for her missing best friend who has got himself caught up in a horrific CIA experiment.
After college, best friends Anne and James sadly drifted apart. Anne went on her journey to become a journalist, while James began research on a book about MKUltra. He had received a sample of the drug from his friends in Colorado, and decided to partake in it on tape. Another friend of James' recorded his trip. Unfortunately James wasn't hallucinating what was happening to him. After ingesting the drug, the radio tuned into a strange station playing was sounded like ice cream truck music overlaid with a young girl talking gibberish. Then a silhouette appeared in the window and something happened...
When James' friend comes around he notices James is missing. He runs about the property frantically looking for his friend and eventually finds him out back. But it's not really James. A look-alike with dark eyes and some red liquid escaping its mouth confronts the friend. Next thing the friend knows he's being pinned for James' disappearance, but shortly after his interrogation he disappears himself.
Anne see's this as an opportunity for an amazing story and to find James. Her first research is reviewing the friend's tape. She then tracks down a man who may be able to identify what that weird radio broadcast is. An older gentleman at an electronic repair shop says yes, he has heard this before. And Anne's best bet of hearing it again is out at a particular lonely stretch of highway late at night. But when she goes there and hears what she's been searching for, something beyond the comfort of her car prompts her to make a quick getaway.
At the officer her boss, Olivia, has another tape for Anne. It's a tape from the MKUltra experiments showing living subjects being injected with liquid extracted from the brain of a dead patient. The tape then goes blank for the last half. It is sent away to see of what was originally recorded in that black space can be extracted, and in the mean time Anne sets out to find author Thomas Blackburn.
She got the tip to see Blackburn after she told a coworker James had got the drug from his 'friends in Colorado', and a coworker remarked "Like the book title?"
The book Friends in Colorado is then presented to Anne. It is written by Thomas Blackburn so Anne believes he is actually the one who supplied James with the substance.
Blackburn, not talking with journalists anymore, is greeted in a bar by Anne, under the alias of Sarah, a big Blackburn fan. Blackburn invites her back to his place, where she meets Callie. Callie is mixing up some MKUltra for them to enjoy, and Blackburn gives some to Sarah in a shot glass, before going to his liquor cabinet to get them another drink. While his back is turned Sarah chucks the MKUltra, then gladly takes the new drink from Blackburn. Slyly he confronts her about her true identity saying he knew it from the get-go. And that he actually put the drug in her drink, not in the shot she threw away...
Angered, Anne retreats to the bedroom upstairs where Callie is sitting. Callie is looking wide-eyes out the window claiming something is coming for them, something is close, something can see her and she doesn't like it. Weirded out Anne goes back downstairs to hear that ice cream truck recording and something banging on the door to get in. Blackburn, Callie and Anne hole up in the bedroom while the thing tries to break through the bedroom door. The place goes dark and the door opens. Blackburn and Anne are knocked out, and when they come to Callie is gone. The two of them get the hell out of there.
When they stop to regain composure the radio tunes into that noise again, and Blackburn starts to convulse. His eyes roll back and his orifices bleed. Anne guns it out of their until they're out of reach of the signa;.
With their nerves returning Anne insists they go to Callie's house to make sure she's ok. Perhaps they all just hallucinated all of this.
Blackburn directs her to the house she had been squatting in. He waits in the car, still a mess from the earlier incident, but gives Anne a walkie talkie to stay in touch.
As Anne approaches the front door of the house, it looks like someone's been here... She heads to the basement where Blackburn says she makes her concoctions, and he finds formulas for the MKUltra, as well as security camera feeds from around Callie's house. She sees Callie's form enter between the time at Blackburn's and now. Then the figure goes to the basement, and walks into a shadowed corner just minutes before Anne arrives. And she never sees her leave... Paranoid, Anne approaches the stairs by the corner slowly, having grabbed what papers she could. Halfway up the stairs a hand grabs her, and in a panic Anne flees back to the car. The the two drive.
Blackburn explains that the MKUltra drug isn't really for a regular trip. He theorizes it's a chemical catalyst that makes your mind a receiver for something. And that something hones into your location once you've ingested the drug. Your can tell it's near from the radio, and when it gets you, you're gone, but your body remains. It wears you.
Fearing for them, Anne points out to where she thinks it all originated from based on the papers from Callie's house, and suggests they burn it to hell. Blackburn tells her she doesn't have to. She can just walk away. Because he didn't actually give her the drug.
He had lied to her like she lied to him. But this doesn't make Anne feel safer, because James' friend went missing too. They finally resolve to go the origin and destroy it.
They arrive at what looks like a bunker with a broadcast antenna on top. Inside the rooms that were in the experiment tape are all around them. Finally they find one room with a tank and some sort of giant computer hooked up to it that's still running. The tank has one window. Anne crouches to peer inside and pale face presses against it. Then the radio signal begins. Blackburn begins to fit, and before he is taken by the signal, he shoots himself. Anne flees down the hall in fright, to be confronted by a strange humanoid figure. Wearing James' clothes.
She runs back to the room, locks the door and douses the place in gasoline from the car. The thing is coming for her at the door but she manages to set the gas alight before she's taken too.
Soon afterwards Anne finds herself at a police station. It looks similar to the one James' friend was held at for interrogation at the beginning. Her boss arrives and is glad she's safe, but advises against her story. They'll call her crazy. But Anne doesn't know what else to say. Olivia mentions to her that the company was able to extract the buried footage on the tape, but says the content isn't important right now. She wants to know is Anne is sure she didn't have any of the drug. She says yes, but then the intercom starts plating the ominous ice cream truck music again. Frantically Anne screams for the police to let her out of the investigation room, and when she turns around she finds Olivia at her neck, black eyes and bleeding from the mouth like James from the tape.
Image from http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-latest/the-banshee-chapter/5059526.article
So this movie really freaked me out. Yes is is low budget, but the film handled that well. It felt like the crew said "We only have this much money and time, so let's make a top notch film on a tiny budget by really focusing the money where is needs to go."
Within the first ten minutes I jumped around twice. I don't usually get phased by horror movies, but this one did it.
I don't understand why ratings aren't higher for this film on IMDB. I'd recommend to a horror fan who also likes to think a little. To top it off, it's one of those films based on other stories, like how Devil's Pass is based on the real hikers who went missing in the same area so long ago.
I didn't know this going in, but the MKUltra experiments were a real thing and may very well still be. Like it says in the movie, the experiments were intended to figure out a recipe for mind control. Tons of people, an unknown number, were used as test subjects without knowing. Perhaps it's still happening now too. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist, but we've seen what the US government does to it's own citizens and the rest of the world with or without their knowing and/or approval, so I really unfortunately don't see this film as far fetched.
It is disheartening to know there are people within high ranks of the government that can literally go whatever kind of experiments they want on knowing or unknowing test subjects and get away with whatever the consequences to the subjects are. And that taxes go to fund things like this...
We can hope this isn't continuing in the USA, but...
Anyway, good thinking film. I'd also like to add I've only watched through this once so far, but the interrogation room from the beginning with James' friend and the one from the end with Anne looked similar to me. This prompts me to believe that the police knew on some level what was going on, and perhaps they were being controlled themselves by some successful version of MKUltra, so they purposefully stuck Anne in a room with a receiver in order to take care of their problem.
Also worthy of note, this isn't a typically blockbuster with love stories and such going on. Yes, Anne considers the possibility that maybe her and James should have been something. But they don't live happily ever after. There's no sex, or nudity to keep attention. Just a good story without those stupid movie crutches.
And finally, the end of the credits don't play some catch pop song. Instead the last thing you hear is the broadcast. And it is eerie...
Directed by Blair Erickson
Written by Blair Erickson and Daniel J. Healy
Banshee Chapter is a film about a young female journalist looking for her missing best friend who has got himself caught up in a horrific CIA experiment.
After college, best friends Anne and James sadly drifted apart. Anne went on her journey to become a journalist, while James began research on a book about MKUltra. He had received a sample of the drug from his friends in Colorado, and decided to partake in it on tape. Another friend of James' recorded his trip. Unfortunately James wasn't hallucinating what was happening to him. After ingesting the drug, the radio tuned into a strange station playing was sounded like ice cream truck music overlaid with a young girl talking gibberish. Then a silhouette appeared in the window and something happened...
When James' friend comes around he notices James is missing. He runs about the property frantically looking for his friend and eventually finds him out back. But it's not really James. A look-alike with dark eyes and some red liquid escaping its mouth confronts the friend. Next thing the friend knows he's being pinned for James' disappearance, but shortly after his interrogation he disappears himself.
Anne see's this as an opportunity for an amazing story and to find James. Her first research is reviewing the friend's tape. She then tracks down a man who may be able to identify what that weird radio broadcast is. An older gentleman at an electronic repair shop says yes, he has heard this before. And Anne's best bet of hearing it again is out at a particular lonely stretch of highway late at night. But when she goes there and hears what she's been searching for, something beyond the comfort of her car prompts her to make a quick getaway.
At the officer her boss, Olivia, has another tape for Anne. It's a tape from the MKUltra experiments showing living subjects being injected with liquid extracted from the brain of a dead patient. The tape then goes blank for the last half. It is sent away to see of what was originally recorded in that black space can be extracted, and in the mean time Anne sets out to find author Thomas Blackburn.
She got the tip to see Blackburn after she told a coworker James had got the drug from his 'friends in Colorado', and a coworker remarked "Like the book title?"
The book Friends in Colorado is then presented to Anne. It is written by Thomas Blackburn so Anne believes he is actually the one who supplied James with the substance.
Blackburn, not talking with journalists anymore, is greeted in a bar by Anne, under the alias of Sarah, a big Blackburn fan. Blackburn invites her back to his place, where she meets Callie. Callie is mixing up some MKUltra for them to enjoy, and Blackburn gives some to Sarah in a shot glass, before going to his liquor cabinet to get them another drink. While his back is turned Sarah chucks the MKUltra, then gladly takes the new drink from Blackburn. Slyly he confronts her about her true identity saying he knew it from the get-go. And that he actually put the drug in her drink, not in the shot she threw away...
Angered, Anne retreats to the bedroom upstairs where Callie is sitting. Callie is looking wide-eyes out the window claiming something is coming for them, something is close, something can see her and she doesn't like it. Weirded out Anne goes back downstairs to hear that ice cream truck recording and something banging on the door to get in. Blackburn, Callie and Anne hole up in the bedroom while the thing tries to break through the bedroom door. The place goes dark and the door opens. Blackburn and Anne are knocked out, and when they come to Callie is gone. The two of them get the hell out of there.
When they stop to regain composure the radio tunes into that noise again, and Blackburn starts to convulse. His eyes roll back and his orifices bleed. Anne guns it out of their until they're out of reach of the signa;.
With their nerves returning Anne insists they go to Callie's house to make sure she's ok. Perhaps they all just hallucinated all of this.
Blackburn directs her to the house she had been squatting in. He waits in the car, still a mess from the earlier incident, but gives Anne a walkie talkie to stay in touch.
As Anne approaches the front door of the house, it looks like someone's been here... She heads to the basement where Blackburn says she makes her concoctions, and he finds formulas for the MKUltra, as well as security camera feeds from around Callie's house. She sees Callie's form enter between the time at Blackburn's and now. Then the figure goes to the basement, and walks into a shadowed corner just minutes before Anne arrives. And she never sees her leave... Paranoid, Anne approaches the stairs by the corner slowly, having grabbed what papers she could. Halfway up the stairs a hand grabs her, and in a panic Anne flees back to the car. The the two drive.
Blackburn explains that the MKUltra drug isn't really for a regular trip. He theorizes it's a chemical catalyst that makes your mind a receiver for something. And that something hones into your location once you've ingested the drug. Your can tell it's near from the radio, and when it gets you, you're gone, but your body remains. It wears you.
Fearing for them, Anne points out to where she thinks it all originated from based on the papers from Callie's house, and suggests they burn it to hell. Blackburn tells her she doesn't have to. She can just walk away. Because he didn't actually give her the drug.
He had lied to her like she lied to him. But this doesn't make Anne feel safer, because James' friend went missing too. They finally resolve to go the origin and destroy it.
They arrive at what looks like a bunker with a broadcast antenna on top. Inside the rooms that were in the experiment tape are all around them. Finally they find one room with a tank and some sort of giant computer hooked up to it that's still running. The tank has one window. Anne crouches to peer inside and pale face presses against it. Then the radio signal begins. Blackburn begins to fit, and before he is taken by the signal, he shoots himself. Anne flees down the hall in fright, to be confronted by a strange humanoid figure. Wearing James' clothes.
She runs back to the room, locks the door and douses the place in gasoline from the car. The thing is coming for her at the door but she manages to set the gas alight before she's taken too.
Soon afterwards Anne finds herself at a police station. It looks similar to the one James' friend was held at for interrogation at the beginning. Her boss arrives and is glad she's safe, but advises against her story. They'll call her crazy. But Anne doesn't know what else to say. Olivia mentions to her that the company was able to extract the buried footage on the tape, but says the content isn't important right now. She wants to know is Anne is sure she didn't have any of the drug. She says yes, but then the intercom starts plating the ominous ice cream truck music again. Frantically Anne screams for the police to let her out of the investigation room, and when she turns around she finds Olivia at her neck, black eyes and bleeding from the mouth like James from the tape.
So this movie really freaked me out. Yes is is low budget, but the film handled that well. It felt like the crew said "We only have this much money and time, so let's make a top notch film on a tiny budget by really focusing the money where is needs to go."
Within the first ten minutes I jumped around twice. I don't usually get phased by horror movies, but this one did it.
I don't understand why ratings aren't higher for this film on IMDB. I'd recommend to a horror fan who also likes to think a little. To top it off, it's one of those films based on other stories, like how Devil's Pass is based on the real hikers who went missing in the same area so long ago.
I didn't know this going in, but the MKUltra experiments were a real thing and may very well still be. Like it says in the movie, the experiments were intended to figure out a recipe for mind control. Tons of people, an unknown number, were used as test subjects without knowing. Perhaps it's still happening now too. I'm not a huge conspiracy theorist, but we've seen what the US government does to it's own citizens and the rest of the world with or without their knowing and/or approval, so I really unfortunately don't see this film as far fetched.
It is disheartening to know there are people within high ranks of the government that can literally go whatever kind of experiments they want on knowing or unknowing test subjects and get away with whatever the consequences to the subjects are. And that taxes go to fund things like this...
We can hope this isn't continuing in the USA, but...
Anyway, good thinking film. I'd also like to add I've only watched through this once so far, but the interrogation room from the beginning with James' friend and the one from the end with Anne looked similar to me. This prompts me to believe that the police knew on some level what was going on, and perhaps they were being controlled themselves by some successful version of MKUltra, so they purposefully stuck Anne in a room with a receiver in order to take care of their problem.
Also worthy of note, this isn't a typically blockbuster with love stories and such going on. Yes, Anne considers the possibility that maybe her and James should have been something. But they don't live happily ever after. There's no sex, or nudity to keep attention. Just a good story without those stupid movie crutches.
And finally, the end of the credits don't play some catch pop song. Instead the last thing you hear is the broadcast. And it is eerie...
