Tonight's Horror Movie: Banshee Chapter (2013)
Shout out to a good friend on Twitter for recommending this one to me a few days ago. I always appreciate any horror movie recommendation. This one had a really interesting storyline. Before we get too deeply into the plot, it is basically a mix of MK-Ultra mind control experiments with H.P. Lovecraft's eldritch horror.
Having said that, I am only giving this one a 'fair to middlin'' rating. The acting is pretty high quality, the plot is very engaging, and the atmosphere is downright dreadful. Watch this one with the lights on, trust me.
Ultimately, however, the movie relies far too much on the most overused horror trope in any movie: the jump scare. Don't get me wrong, when jump scares are done well, they will make you...well, jump. And they will scare you. But if a movie leans on them too much, they just get predictable over the course of 90 minutes (in this case, 87 minutes). And by the end of this movie, that's what it became: predictable. Right down to the false ending.
But it was a pretty good ride along the way, so let's dive in...
Banshee Chapter starts out with documentary footage — some real, some made for the movie — about the infamous CIA MK-Ultra experiments in the 1950s through the 1970s. Those experiments were partially revealed through FOIA in 1977 and MK-Ultra has been the subject of countless books, movies, and even songs ever since.
So, we start with the premise that the CIA absolutely sucks, which is always a good place to begin.
As Banshee Chapter begins, an ambitious, would-be writer James Hirsch (Michael McMillian, True Blood) wants to write a novel about MK-Ultra, so he tries to learn everything about the experiments. This includes taking the drug that was administered. James has his friend Renny (Alex Gianopoulos, who is more of a production assistant than an actor, but did appear in an episode of Breaking Bad) document the experiment.
Almost immediately, both James and Renny start to hear weird music and voices come from the radio and James starts saying, "They're coming." What happens to James and Renny next I will leave unsaid, but a few jump scares let you know that it's no good.
The movie then switches focus to lead Anne Roland (Katia Winter, Dexter, Sleepy Hollow) who was James' best friend from college and possibly in love with him (he was definitely in love with her).
[Interesting side note. The school James and Anne went to was "Atticus University," the same name as the government experiment facility in an underrated horror film, The Atticus Institute. It is not certain whether The Atticus Institute used this fictional school as inspiration, but the writer of Banshee Chapter said that his inspiration for the name was Atticus Finch...which is just weird.]
Anne is an investigative journalist and wants to know what happened to her best friend, who has gone missing, as has Renny. She goes to James' home and some sleuthing leads her to the other lead in the movie, Thomas Blackburn (the wonderful Ted Levine, The Silence of the Lambs, Monk). Blackburn is a clear Hunter S. Thompson imitation, a gonzo author and journalist who is into counterculture, firearms, and heavy drug experimentation. Levine absolutely nails this character, in every respect. The movie is worth watching for his performance alone.
Anne goes to Thomas in disguise because he hates journalists, and he invites her back to his home to experiment with drugs. Thomas' friend Callie (Jenny Gabrielle, Sweetwater) has gotten her hands on some of the same drug that James took. Thomas reveals that Anne's fake persona didn't fool him and he tricks her into taking some of it, along with him and Callie. Immediately, the same creepy music and voices start playing and a presence starts stalking the trio. It doesn't end well for Callie, which leaves Thomas and Anne to try to solve the mystery of what is going on.
Thomas then delves into Lovecraft, saying that the drug does not alter your mind, it turns your mind into a receiver for "them." He tells Anne the Lovecraft story of From Beyond (which is a great story if you haven't read it) where a scientist learns how to look into another dimension, only to find out that the other dimension is also looking back. It's not clear in this movie who the "them" are, but it doesn't need to be. There are hints, through the MK-Ultra experiment footage interspersed throughout the movie, that it could be dead people, but it also could be some Lovecraftian elder gods. It doesn't really matter. Whoever "them" are, they are up to no good.
Anne and Thomas resolve to go to the MK-Ultra site to try to destroy the transmission at the source. This leads to the final act of the movie which is basically one long extended jump scare. I will not reveal what happens at the end, except to say that it is fairly predictable and you will see everything coming, including the false ending.
And that's another problem with relying on jump scares. Not only do they become predictable, but they also force the writer and director into some plot contortions just to enable them. At several points during the movie, you will ask yourself, "Why are they doing this...and why are they doing it in the dark?"
The movie also breaks some of its own rules about how -- and when -- people become receivers for "them." We start out with the understanding that it is the drug that makes this happen, but by the end, we have no idea how it actually happens (some online have suggested it can be transmitted through touch, but that doesn't really hold up either.
So, the movie has some problems. But it also does many things well. The radio transmissions, for example, are exactly as creepy as you could imagine them to be. They are a harbinger of doom and doom always arrives.
And, as I mentioned, the acting is very well done. Winter does a great job as Anne who, although she makes some typical horror movie stupid decisions, combines an incredible bravery with a soft sensitivity, even for Thomas, who is kind of a jerk to her throughout.
Levine, as I mentioned, is just masterful as his Hunter S. Thompson counterculture icon Thomas Blackburn.
Director Blair Erickson also does a very good job of mixing found footage with documentary footage with fake documentary footage with just straight-up filmmaking. The scenes from the MK-Ultra experiments -- again, though overloaded with jump scares -- will genuinely creep you out. What is even more horrifying than the scares themselves are the brutal attitudes the doctors take toward their subjects (based in part on actual history, though highly fictionalized).
The movie is very dark throughout, and I am talking about the lighting and atmosphere. I would have liked to have seen some of this in the daylight, where I think it would have been even scarier to be stalked by "them" (kind of like It Follows) but again, the dark scenes, twisting hallways, obscured windows, and other directorial devices enable jumps scares.
As for gore, the movie is not very bloody, save for a couple of scenes, and the "them" are always very obscure, so there's nothing to really gross you out, but the obscurity does provide some good frights. Give it a Gore Score of 3 out of 10.
So, what's the verdict? I would say this one is worth a watch. It will scare you and it will make you look twice at shadows at night. But I think it could have been so much more had it not relied so much on a single trope but instead explored the quiet terror of being stalked by a mysterious force. (And if it had followed its own rules a little more tightly.)
Horror veterans will likely see everything in this movie coming but it is worth 87 minutes of your time.