THE CONSPIRACY (2012)

Studio:       XLrator Media
Director:    Christopher MacBride
Writer:       Christopher MacBride
Producer:  Lee Kim
Stars:     Aaron Poole, James Gilbert, Alan C. Peterson, Bruce Clayton

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Two filmmakers creating a documentary about a conspiracy theorist uncover the existence of a sinister secret society. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

July 2011 – Documentarians Aaron and Jim begin interviewing conspiracy theorist “Terrance G.” for a film project. In his apartment, Terrance shows the two filmmakers his collection of newspaper clippings documenting various connections to conspiracies. He also introduces them to a virtual chat room known as “Conspiracy Café” where he uses the handle “T-Rex.” Aaron found Terrance after being sent a YouTube clip called “Check out this freak!” posted by terry2012. The clip featured Terrance preaching his theories via megaphone on street corners.

Jim and Aaron interview other conspiracy theorists about Freemasons and secret societies, including “Conspiracy Culture” bookstore owner Patrick Whyte. Some organizations mentioned include the Illuminati, the Bilderberg Group, and Bohemian Grove. After an interview on July 20th, Jim and Aaron are unable to reach Terrance for four weeks.

August 24th, 2011 – Aaron tries asking about Terrance in the chat room, but he is ignored. He and Jim also discover that Terrance’s landlady is throwing out his remaining belongings. Aaron decides to collect the newspaper clippings.

Aaron reviews footage shot of Terrance. He and Jim watch a clip from the July 20th interview where Terrance identifies a spook on a bicycle wearing sunglasses that has been shadowing him.

August 30th, 2011 – At Jim’s birthday party, the camera shows Jim’s wife Tracy and his infant son Bobby. After reviewing more footage of Terrance and the conspiracy theories, Aaron decides to start reassembling Terrance’s wall of newspaper clippings.

September 2nd, 2011 – Aaron’s obsession with finding a pattern in the articles grows. Jim becomes frustrated with his friend.

September 6th, 2011 – Aaron reveals that the pattern shows that each date on Terrance’s timeline coincides with a few months before a major historical event. The discovery leads Aaron to a 2003 Time magazine article by Mark Tucker titled “Where the Elite Meet and Greet.” The article mentions a retreat for politicians and corporate leaders called the Tarsus Club. Murray Chance, the founder of Chance Investments, leads the group. Aaron discovers that a Tarsus Group retreat took place right before each major event such as WWII and the 9/11 attacks.

Jim and Aaron try tracking down Mark Tucker with no luck. They post online about the Tarsus Group in an effort to draw out information. Aaron discusses his interest in an off-grid community in Northern Alberta called Freespace, where participants live off the land by digging their own wells and growing their own food.

September 17th, 2011 – Aaron meets with someone in the conspiracy chat room who claims to be Mark Tucker. Mark agrees to meet with the filmmakers if they agree to remove all of their information about Tarsus from the web.

October 12th, 2011 – In an interview, Mark Tucker reveals details about Murray Chance and the Tarsus Club. Mark suggests that Tarsus is after a “New World Order.”

While discussing Mark’s information at an outdoor café, Aaron notices that he and Jim are being watched by the same bicycle spook that Terrance previously spotted.

October 21st, 2011 – Aaron returns home to find his apartment ransacked. Aaron moves in with Jim and his family.

October 29th, 2011 – Mark Tucker tells the duo about the Tarsus Club’s ritual hunting and slaughtering of a bull during the midnight hour of their meetings. The ritual is based on the worship of Mithras. Mithraic scholar Roger Beck, author of “The Religion of the Mithras Cult in the Roman Empire,” fills in the filmmakers about the deity of Mithras. The story of Mithras is similar to Christ’s even though Mithras predates Jesus by 2,000 years. The image of Mithras slaying a bull is said to be similar in meaning for his worshippers as the symbol of Christ on the cross is to Christians. Mark claims that the common handshake originated from the Mithraic secret handshake.

Jim and Aaron meet freelance journalist Sarah LaLonde, who shows them secret photos taken outside Tarsus gatherings. Aaron asks Mark if it would be possible to sneak into a Tarsus meeting. At a spy shop, Jim and Aaron purchase tiny cameras hidden in tie clips. A dark car follows them after leaving the shop. The same car is later seen outside Jim’s house. Aaron chases it away. Jim tries to keep his wife uninvolved.

Mark arranges a meeting where Jim and Aaron pay a groundskeeper from the site of the next Tarsus meeting to sneak them into the event. The film crew drops off Jim and Aaron in the woods. The duo finds a small building that they agree upon as a rendezvous point for if they become separated. Jim and Aaron then lie in wait on the forest floor. When the groundskeeper’s truck pulls up, Jim and Aaron jump in the flatbed and zip up themselves inside oversized bags.

Jim and Aaron emerge from the bags in their suits and tie clips. They begin exploring the Tarsus Group meeting. At the bar, a man introduces himself as a Lion and asks if Jim and Aaron are first time Ravens. The filmmakers agree. They also learn that members refer to each other as “brothers.” They next discover a study that has a table of masks and a table of ancient blades.

The clock chimes at midnight. Everyone gathers on the lawn where there is procession of men in masks and togas carrying torches. All Ravens are asked to form a line, which Jim gets in reluctantly. New initiates are led to a tent where their hands are bound with rope. The initiate states his name, his father’s name, and ends with, “Mithras is my only crown.” The rope is then severed with a blade and the initiate is given a mask.

While Jim is in the tent, Aaron sees Mark Tucker arriving as a member of the Tarsus Club. Aaron tries to force his way into the tent to alert Jim. After being threatened with a call to security, Aaron returns to the end of the line and sees that Jim has completed the initiation ritual.

In a mirror, Jim sees himself wearing a mask. He returns to the mansion and removes his mask. A suited man greets Jim and makes a veiled mention of Jim’s wife and child. Jim tries to escape, but he discovers that his wife and son are being held hostage.

Aaron completes the initiation ceremony and then realizes that he was given the mask of a bull. With blades in hand, the other initiates chase Aaron into the forest when a horn sounds. Aaron manages to escape to the rendezvous point. He sees Jim waiting for him inside the small building, but when Aaron enters, he is attacked by robed members of the Tarsus Club.

November 30th, 2011 – Tarsus Club International COO William Jensen grants an exclusive interview. Nicole Higgins, Senior Vice President of Public Relations for Tarsus Club International, also gives an interview. Seemingly under duress, Jim indicates that Aaron was only scared, and not killed. Having a breakdown following the event, it is suggested that Aaron retreated to the Freespace community in Canada.

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Review:

Doomsayers bellyaching about a perceived oversaturation of “found footage” on the horror market have their work cut out for them if they want to convince anyone that “The Conspiracy” should not exist.  Writer/director Christopher MacBride’s thriller may use the “found footage” template as a launch pad, but his subject matter is a far different cry from the usual trappings of an exorcism or a haunted asylum.

Aaron (Poole) and Jim (Gilbert) are documentary filmmakers whose latest subject is a sidewalk preaching conspiracy nut known only as “Terrance G.”  Resembling a less intimidating Joe Eszterhas, Terrance is entrenched in that underground world of paranoid crackpots who see sunglasses wearing spooks and dark cars with tinted windows following them around every corner.  When Terrance comes close to connecting the dots between World War I, Vietnam, 9/11, and every other major event in world history, the scraggly man disappears under suspicious circumstances.

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"Terrance G." and Hollywood screenwriter Joe Eszterhas: Separated at birth?

Picking up where Terrance left off, Aaron follows through on the research and traces everything back to a mysterious secret society called The Tarsus Club.  He and his filmmaking co-conspirator then decide to turn their conspiracy theorist documentary in a slightly different direction.  And after digging into the clandestine organization’s origins and schemes for creating a “New World Order,” the daring duo plots an expose that involves them infiltrating a secret Tarsus Club event.

It is a good thing for Jim and Aaron that the story for their own feature does an about face.  Because as an actual documentary, their focus on Terrance and his conspiracy theorist peers plays like a disjointed mishmash of random claptrap about the Illuminati, Bohemian Grove, 9/11 being an inside job, and even the sinking of the Lusitania.  Absent is a linking thread that would have made their piece informative or something more intelligent than any other video spouting wild accusations without a grounding in hard facts.  That is, until they discover The Tarsus Group.

The story of Terrance G. is a first act smokescreen, after all.  The real meat lies in the shadowy details surrounding this little known secret society that actually controls the world.  “The Conspiracy” lives or dies according to how well it pulls off the fictional organization that drives its story.  And with what he ends up creating, Christopher MacBride could not have achieved a more convincing illusion of frightening authenticity.

Every detail that goes into selling this conspiracy as genuine is right on the money.  The very word “Tarsus” is enigmatic as a moniker and the Time Magazine article that spurs the filmmakers’ deeper investigation is deviously well designed.  Google no doubt explodes with keyword searches for “Tarsus Club” and “Murray Chance” after every screening of the film.

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Is "Mark Tucker" actually Academy Award-winning makeup artist Rick Baker?

Earlier in 2013, I wrote a review for the movie “Shadow People” (review here) that called out those filmmakers for not selling their hoax beyond the fourth wall.  “Shadow People” purported to be the true story of radio personality Charlie Crowe Camfield and a deadly encounter with supernatural phenomena.  The trouble was, Internet searches for the names of any principle characters cited in the film yielded zero hits.  Not a single phony website had been set up in advance to continue confusing audiences about the supposed authenticity after the fact.

The creators behind “The Conspiracy” put much more thought behind their mythology.  Someone smartly preplanned methods to perpetuate the hoax after the credits rolled with a handful of sly Wikipedia articles and slick websites designed to make Murray Chance and The Tarsus Club appear real.  Anyone who enjoys the movie will appreciate the believable backstory that these efforts add.  One of the Wikipedia articles was even created by the handle “Tarsus PR.”  When little details like this are considered, major kudos must go to those responsible for contributing the additional layer of mystery.  (UPDATE: The Wikipedia articles were removed as of August 11, 2013.)

Of course, the depiction of the Tarsus Club in “The Conspiracy” itself is even more unnerving.  The spectacle of what takes place at their secretive gathering and their cryptic ceremony is hypnotically riveting.  Unlike the aforementioned paranormal hauntings and exorcisms that typically occupy “found footage,” there are no hard expectations for what these clandestine rituals should look like.  And this constant mystery transfixes completely with its behind the curtain peek at how our unknown rulers go about plotting the course of human events.

The suspense is deepened by the spy shop tie clip cameras that record the goings-on.  Their limited view obscures the periphery so that a sense of danger always seems to be lurking out of frame.  Simple gags such as blurring identities and masking voices take on more ominous tones, too.  Something about faceless old white men speaking in garbled baritones is just plain creepy.

Everything about the atmosphere created works to make small moments like a montage of political handshakes seem sinister in the context of revealing forbidden knowledge regarding the custom’s origins.  From stem to stern, each facet of “The Conspiracy” is infectious and contagious.  And it is not only effective as “found footage,” it is effective as a tense thriller with more relatable roots than its supernatural brethren could ever hope to achieve.

Review Score:  85

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