BANSHEE CHAPTER (2013)

Studio:       XLrator Media
Director:    Blair Erickson
Writer:       Blair Erickson, Daniel Healy
Producer:  Stephanie Riggs, Corey Moosa, Christian Arnold-Beutel, Sean Akers
Stars:     Katia Winter, Michael McMillian, Ted Levine, Monique Candelaria, Vivian Nesbitt, Jenny Gabrielle, William Sterchi

Review Score:

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Summary:

When her friend mysteriously disappears, a journalist digs into the conspiracy surrounding MKULTRA mind control experiments.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Archival footage from September 21, 1977 shows CIA director Stansfield Turner testifying about MK-ULTRA, a government-sanctioned mind control experiment that used chemical agents on unsuspecting Americans beginning in 1963. Dr. James Moore, a chemist, discusses the effects of these experiments in separate clips. U.S. President Bill Clinton publically apologizes for the government’s responsibility in MKULTRA testing.

Renny Seegan records his friend, struggling young writer James Hirsch, as James discusses his research on MKULTRA for a book he is writing. James talks about test subjects having hallucinatory experiences in which they encountered strange entities while using the drug.

Renny films James as he ingests 150mg of specially enhanced dimethyltryptamine, also known as DMT-19. James claims to have acquired the drug from “some friends in Colorado.” Shortly after James takes the DMT, he and Renny begin hearing a strange radio broadcast. James has an unexplainable feeling of something coming towards the house before a strange figure suddenly breaks through the window.

September 21, 2009 – The Black Rock County Sheriff’s Department interrogates Renny about James’ disappearance. Renny vanishes 72 hours later, never to be seen again.

Journalist Anne Roland attended Atticus University with James. They had a relationship while in school together and remained friends when they separated after graduation. Anne went to work as a writer for Horizon Journal. After learning of the strange circumstances surrounding James’ disappearance, Anne decides to investigate.

While searching James’ house, Anne finds a videocassette labeled “MKULTRA #29” with a letter that accompanied the DMT vial signed by “your friends in Colorado.” Anne interviews TV repair shop owner Henry Cale to learn about shortwave radio broadcasts. From Henry, Anne learns about numbers stations that broadcast code in female voices. Henry traces the source of the broadcast that James heard to an outpost called “The Lonely Traveler” station. He also cagily dismisses Anne’s questions about his work for the NSA as a codebreaker.

Anne drives to the outpost to capture the broadcast. In the dark, she is frightened by the visage of a strange figure.

Anne mentions “friends in Colorado” while telling editor Olivia Kmiec about her story. Olivia points out that “Friends in Colorado” was a Thomas Blackburn novel published in the late 1970’s. Blackburn became a popular counterculture author with such books as “Saga of the Swine” and “The Great Highway.” Anne tries contacting Thomas, but he hangs up on her when she asks about James Hirsch.

The “MKULTRA #29” tape, recorded in 1973, shows a Dr. Kessel working in a place identified as Chamber 5. Patient 11 is administered DMT and observed from behind a one-way mirror. After the lights are turned off, Patient 11 rants about being able to hear someone before being pulled into the darkness. The footage also shows the doctor extracting dimethyltryptamine directly from the brain of Patient 5. Anne realizes that the CIA was extracting DMT from the pineal gland of dead bodies and injecting it into live test subjects.

At the Wild Horse Mesa Bar in Western Nevada, Anne poses as fan and fellow writer Sara Wyss to gain Thomas Blackburn’s trust. Thomas takes Anne back to his mansion and introduces her to Callie, who manufactures a batch of DMT. Thomas and Anne do shots of the blue liquid, but Anne secretly pours her DMT in a wastebasket. While the two of them drink whiskey, Thomas reveals that he knew Anne was not who she claimed to be and that he put the DMT in her whiskey instead, knowing she would dump out the shot glass.

Anne, Callie, and Thomas begin having hallucinatory experiences where they hear the numbers station broadcast and see strange beings before blacking out. When Anne and Thomas recover, they find Callie missing and flee from the mansion.

Additional “MKULTRA #29” footage shows Dr. Kessel administering the newly formulated DMT-19 into Patient 14. Her experience with the drug is similar to Patient 11’s as she disappears into the shadows of her darkened test chamber. She is then found convulsing in a room with Patient 11. Patient 14 later attacks Dr. Kessel in more “MKULTRA #29” footage.

Anne and Thomas go looking for Callie at her house. Thomas theorizes that what the DMT does is turn the mind into a signal receiver that lets “them” in. Thomas tells Anne about the H.P. Lovecraft short story “From Beyond.” In Callie’s basement, Anne discovers that the DMT formula came from the broadcast signal and not from CIA chemists, confirming Thomas’ theory. Anne is attacked by one of the shadow people as she escapes the cellar.

Thomas reveals that he lied about having given Anne the drug, yet she is seeing the shadow people anyway. Thomas and Anne locate Chamber 5 in an old fallout shelter in the desert. There, they discover the source of the broadcast signal and encounter more shadow people. When he begins convulsing, Thomas shoots and kills himself. Anne uses gasoline and Thomas’ lighter to destroy one of the specimen tanks.

Anne discovers the charred remnants of James’ clothing before leaving the facility. She realizes that the shadow entity was “wearing” James as a host.

Olivia reunites with Anne at the sheriff’s department. Olivia brings the “MKULTRA #29” footage that a forensics lab recovered from what looked like a missing section of the videotape. The broadcast signal begins playing over the intercom. Anne begins panicking as Olivia becomes host to an entity.

The final “MKULTRA #29” clip reveals that Patient 11 was actually Thomas Blackburn. A clip from a National Archives interview conducted by Paul Altmeyer in 1979 on the aftermath of the MKULTRA experiment concludes the film.

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Review:

For horror fans, specifically those of author H.P. Lovecraft, it is impossible to hear the words “pineal gland” without immediately thinking of “From Beyond.”  Ted Levine’s character in “Banshee Chapter” knows this well, which is why he spouts a handy synopsis of Lovecraft’s yarn while he and the heroine live through a similar version of the surreal story.

“Banshee Chapter” shoots for a “based on a true story” angle by weaving in cloudy facts via archival film clips relating to the CIA’s Project MKULTRA.  MKULTRA is well known both by legitimate watchdog groups and by tinfoil hat brigades as one of the crown jewels in the U.S. government’s black-eyed history of covert actions against its own people.  For 20 years between 1953 and 1973, test subjects were administered hallucinogenic acid, hypnotized, brainwashed, and mind-wiped in secret for the benefit of scientific advancement.

Research into the clandestine operation brings a small vial of notorious MKULTRA drug DMT into the hands of struggling young writer James Hirsch.  While his buddy Renny videotapes the experience, James goes on a bad trip that has him hearing weird radio broadcasts and seeing strange figures in shadows.

After James and Renny disappear under mysterious circumstances, former college flame and current investigative journalist Anne Roland picks up the case.  Washed-up and washed-out author Thomas Blackburn acts as Anne’s drug-culture spirit guide as she endeavors to expose the CIA’s organized lies.  What the duo uncovers instead is an ethereal plot from a realm where shadowy entities use the drug to break into this reality.

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        Before experimenting on zombies in "Day of the Dead," Dr. Fisher was MKULTRA's Dr. Kessel.

If the intent of the film’s structure is to make the audience feel as if they themselves are hallucinating, then “Banshee Chapter” succeeds.  Writer/director Blair Erickson blends period news pieces with his fictional premise and adds small dashes of “found footage” presumably to create a sense of authenticity.  However, the inconsistent formatting results in too few “genuine” scenes to sell the realism, and not enough daringness on the fictional side to maintain the entertainment.

Completing the film’s chaotic makeup is a potpourri of elements that can be eerie when used individually for enhancing atmosphere, but lose effectiveness when lumped together haphazardly.  A static-filled radio broadcast plays creepy ice cream truck music.  Mental patients repeat disconnected phrases in drug-addled trances.  Black-eyed creatures open mouths wide and lurch from dark corners.  These all have sensory scare value, but without satisfying story context, they play merely as “things” thrown at the viewer.

As is often the case with drugs, the DMT-19 at this story’s center poses major problems.  When anyone is on it, there exists an intentional question of what is real and what is imagined.  The trouble with this aspect is that it diminishes invested stakes in the characters.  Empathy is hard to come by when it is unclear if the onscreen terror may merely be something they will wake up from in a moment.

DMT’s role in the plot grows muddled as “Banshee Chapter” progresses.  It comes to be revealed that even those who do not take the drug are still susceptible to the shadow people.  The point of this development is to instill a fear that no one is safe, but it reduces the relevancy of the already established backstory.

The nature of the shadow people is also vague to the point of pointlessness.  Thrusting arms out unexpectedly is the only thing they do.  The entities seem to want nothing more than to grab at ankles from underneath darkened staircases.  Seeing them as no more of a threat than an average Halloween maze actor reduces their fright factor to nil.

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     Amidst the conspiracy, one thing known for certain is that Black Rock County cannot spell "sheriff."

Ted Levine satisfies the price of admission with a suitably “gonzo” performance as a brain-fried pop author whose popularity has long faded.  Levine fills his character at all sides while demonstrating enough restraint to keep the animated personality from turning into over-the-top satire.

Had the script reserved some of that vibrant development for co-lead Katia Winter, her intrepid journalist could have added more than plot advancement.  Winter is a talented actress, yet she is only afforded fleeting snippets to demonstrate her range, in such moments as awkwardly spurning a college crush’s kiss or role-playing undercover as an enthusiastic fan of Levine’s.  The rest of her role is dryly devoted to straightforward action and plain dialogue.

“Banshee Chapter” arrives two decades too late.  It would have been a better fit for 1998, when “The X-Files” was at its small screen peak and the film adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” reintroduced Hunter S. Thompson as the patron saint of psychotropic counterculture.

Saner minds left behind fascinations with conspiracy theories and Gonzo journalism in the artificially-enhanced haze of bygone college days.  Meanwhile, “Banshee Chapter” is still busily fusing Art Bell-influenced hysteria with drug-fueled paranoia for its frenetic tale of mind-control experiments and government cover-ups that is not as timely now as it would have been then.

Review Score:  55

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