Banshee Chapter

Dir: Blair Erickson

2013

**

Banshee Chapter is one of the most frustrating films I've seen in quite some time. The premise was brilliant; based on the true events that have been uncovered regarding the CIA's 1950's mind control program called Project MKUltra and loosely following H. P. Lovecraft's novel From Beyond, the film had a brilliant balance of other worldliness and realism. It's filmed to begun with as a sort of documentary, although the rest of the film isn't, it rather thoughtlessly carries on the hand-held filming style. It's the first mistake of many. The beginning sequence sees a mix of well shot 'found footage' and real news reels from the 50's, 60's and 00's. It's completely believable, heightening the suspense and fueling one's intrigue. It then descends into cheap and tiresome creeping about in the dark as seen in The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity series. I'm not a fan of the technique and Banshee Chapter certainly doesn't have the pay off that it's predecessors have. The acting is very convincing and the plot is always relatively clever, which only makes it's faults all the more obvious. I'm being harsh on this film because it promised to be so much more than it was and with a few tweaks it could have been. I'm looking forward to seeing more from Blair Erickson as he is clearly a talented director with big ideas, he just needs to steer away from the cliches, of which his debut is, I'm afraid, swamped in.