User reviews

I'm not a fan of jump scares. I think they're cheap, sometimes manipulative, and they rarely imbue dread. Rather, they can ruin a movie's atmosphere if used incorrectly. Having said that, The Banshee Chapter has the best use of jump scares I've seen in a long, long time. You can sense them coming from a mile away, yet they can still make you crap your pants. I credit this to the director who clearly has a grasp on how to utilize atmosphere and build-ups effectively. These scares don't seem cheap; well, some of them do, but the tone is set by the creepy music, the static, and the robotic voices which really holds the movie together. And the imagery itself is creepy. If I saw one of those things near me, I would freak the f*** out too.

Now, you probably noticed by now that I haven't even hinted at a narrative in this movie, and that's because it's so flimsy it's hardly worth mentioning. It's basically about MK Ultra and the government testing drugs on people, then things start to go horribly wrong. The premise is good, but the actual story - the execution - is hollow and lazy. I didn't care what has happening half the time. I was too busy peeking through my eyes (kidding, but not really) waiting for the damn thing to come out from somewhere. Almost every scene is crafted this way - light on substance, heavy on scares.

Thankfully, horror is about the scares so I have to give The Banshee Chapter credit. Even though it stands for everything I hate in horror movies, this one actually gets it right, and for that alone, bravo.

While i recommend this for viewing, it does have some issues. Shot like a f.f. Movie, but the last half there doesnt seem to be a person behind the camera, but it is still filmed as such. Strange. There are some other things that bothered me, but i will let you judge for yourself. Overall this is a very decent horror film that made me creeped out a few times. Thats hard to do.

I really wanted to like this film. But there was so many things being thrown in the mix it's was just too much to take. Number stations, mk ultra, drugs, government conspiracies, and a barrage of scenes which never really give the viewer time to build up to a feeling of dread. They're just delivered to you in a quick fire fashion and even the "face at the window" shots are so quick you can't define them sometimes. I have to say I liked the Ted Levine character Blackburn as he played it with gusto right to the end. But apart from the outlandish story there are many plot holes and the ending just wasn't that satisfying for me. Still, I respect any new director trying something a little different.

I'd never heard of this film, (and only recognised two of the cast) but found it while channel hopping last night.

The blurb sounded promising so I thought I'd give it a go… and I was glad I did.

The film felt very "indie", a simple (if somewhat odd) idea nicely executed. Other reviews have described it as "Lovecraftian", and that description works well (there is even mention of Lovecraft at one point).

The mood is one of hidden lurking menace, never fully seen, only glimpsed. There were several excellent "jump out of your seat" scares, but even those were tastefully done. The acting is low key and the roles well cast.

I'm not going to say much more as I'd love people to discover this underrated little gem for themselves.

Journalist Anne Roland explores the disturbing links behind her friend's sudden disappearance, an ominous government research chemical, and a disturbing radio broadcast of unknown origin.

This film has some good things going for it. With using MK-ULTRA as the background, they are able to blend fact and fiction, and certainly horror stories resulting from government experiments exist. This was a clever idea, even if not always done to its full potential.

There is also a very clear reference to Hunter S. Thompson, and that will make lots of people smile. Perhaps actually making the character Thompson and having this re-imagined as a bizarre pseudo-historical film might have helped.

Low budget and creepy as all hell. The budget and aesthetic of Paranormal Activity (2007) with the otherworldly broadcasting of Videodrome (1983), set in the location of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) with references to Hunter S. Thompson and Timothy Leary crossed with H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King. Writer/director Blair Erickson has only helmed this single movie, a studio needs to give him budget to make more, he could be the next David Cronenberg. Part found footage, part fake documentary, this fictional story begins with real historical events explained in the beginning of the movie. What if this bioengineered mind altering drug the United States government really created could still be found and what would it be like for the people who take it? As we see, it's horrifying. As the audience learns the history of what was done, we realize the characters are in even greater peril than they know.

Given the poster to this movie and the movie synopsis, I had initially expected something more from the movie. And I must admit that I found the movie to be rather slow-paced and anything but scary.

The story is about a journalist Anne Roland (played by Katia Winter) who is exploring the events revolving around a chemical experiment, where she is helped by the eccentric writer Thomas Blackburn (played by Ted Levine).

I found the storyline to be dull and rather uninteresting. And there were very little aspects of the story that had any real appeal to me. As such, then the movie turned out to be a rather big swing and a miss. There are far better horror and thriller movies available.

I will say that Ted Levine did a nice job in carrying the movie. But his performance wasn't sufficient enough to salvage this movie.

The movie is filmed with a documentary-like style camera-work. You know, those hand-held in the midst of everything kind of styles. Now, I don't enjoy this one bit. When I watch a movie, I want proper and steady camera-work, not something that I could have done myself with my own DV camera.

And the whole 'based on true events' aspect to the movie? Mmmm-hmmm, sure...

There was an interesting H. P. Lovecraft reference delivered by Ted Levine. And that was, for my case, the most interesting thing about this entire movie.

"The Banshee Chapter" might be suitable if you are a hardcore Ted Levine fan, but otherwise, there is nothing interesting to be had here.

The Banshee Chapter is a decent horror flick with a lot of potential that unfortunately fails to deliver on most counts. The film starts really well, but sadly doesn't manage to keep up with its early promise. It does have a few genuinely nail biting moments in it however, which make it well worth a watch. I would recommend approaching this film in the knowledge that it is a highly flawed yet enjoyable hour and a half, so that you aren't disappointed and can enjoy the film for what it is; A relatively well- made chiller with some very good ideas, executed clumsily. I feel that with a tightening of the plot and a better lead actress, there could have been a really excellent film here. Still, The Banshee Chapter is much better than the majority of horror films out there, and definitely worth viewing at least once if you're in the mood for a fright.

Just watched this and was pleasantly surprised. Especially after seeing the IMDb page and checking out the HORRIBLE poster and low rating.

Essentially a tale about government chemical mind control experiments, with a mix of a scary shortwave radio transmission and some super cool Lovecraftian elements a la From Beyond, it is done in a scary manner, with a mix of found footage, real and faked news clips, and sometimes just plain old standard filmed storytelling.

The flashlight, a common horror cliché, is also used to great effect here. I can see some people not liking this one and it being a polarizing movie but I enjoyed it very much. It also boasts a great performance by Ted Levine, who freaked us out as Rusty Nail in "Joyride." This is the first scary movie I've seen in a while. The last thing I can say is it's a mix of originality, cliché, and "borrowing", but what movie today isn't?

BANSHEE CHAPTER is a weird little horror flick that offers something different to the usual ghost or stalk-'n'-slash thrills. The plot incorporates government mind-testing, a 'ghost' radio station, government conspiracy, an anarchist writer modelled on Hunter S. Thompson, and aliens, alongside some traditional ghostly spirits designed to pop up in scare scenes and spook the viewer.

It's not really all that successful because the plot ingredients are all over the place. At times this strives to be a found footage flick and at other times it just plays out normally. I did like Katia Winter's protagonist, who's more intelligent and less of a screamer than the usual horror heroine, but the real stand-out performance here comes from an unrecognisable Ted Levine (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) as the boozy, washed-up writer who gets drawn into a sinister conspiracy. BANSHEE CHAPTER is a weird little film all right and fans looking for something different might just find something to tempt them here as the creepy atmosphere is spot on.

I'm definitely on the fence about how I feel about this film. On the one side, every scene that was meant to be scary, scared the poop out of me 100 percent. But, on the other side, every thing in between I found to be a little confusing and well, Blah. I was really confused by the misconception of the film being a found-footage film, when only the first few minutes were actual found footage themed. The rest of the film, which is shot found footage style i.e. guerilla style, is only that. I kept thinking that another person was filming the main character, but it ended up just being the way the film is shot. I think most of you will understand what I'm referring to once you watch it. My other beef with this film is that the story is all over the place making it hard to follow. I found myself tuning out every now and again because the main character was super blah and I had a hard time understanding what she was doing half the time. But regardless of the story and actors, this film is effing SCARY! Every few minutes, something would happen that was so horrifying that the images are burned into my brain. The creepy music and the subject matter is enough to get you past the annoying things and help to keep you focused on the reasons you came upon The Banshee Chapter in the first place. I swear to you that on more than one occasion during this film, I let out yelp/scream in many of the scenes. You know that noise that comes out of your body that you were completely unaware you were capable of making, until you are scared to the point that all cards are on the table. Yeah, this film did that to me multiple times throughout. So did I think this was a movie with a great story, no… not really. But do I think you should watch it if you love being scared, Absa-frickin-lootly!

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By now, most of us have heard about the government funded (or at least endorsed) MK-ULTRA project from the '60s and '70s, where US agencies ran experiments in mind control on unsuspecting volunteers. All true.

"Banshee Chapter" opens with a statement similar to this and then, in the next title card states: "The results were horrifying." Also true.

Now the question...does Banshee Chapter help flesh this thesis out and perhaps dig deeper into one of the (no doubt many) horrifying self-inflicted chapters in our national history? No, it doesn't. It veers immediately off into SciFi/Horror-land. Which is not such a bad thing...if the story, acting, and virtually all of the directing didn't suck. Which it does.

And THAT sucks because, judging from the first twenty minutes of Blair Erickson's feature debut, Erickson's got it going on. The first third of the film is intriguing plot-wise and there are some genuine jump-in-your-seat jump cuts.

But following the introduction of Ted Levine's character (a gonzo "radical" journalist obviously modeled on Hunter Thompson, minus the cigarette holder) the film falls inexplicably flat. The momentum runs out and the pacing is sluggish...there are too many scenes in the dark with Katia Winter and Levine yelling at each other and even the scares begin to wane: Erickson starts to repeat himself in an endless loop that almost makes you want to turn the film off by the third act.

As for Winter, I found her performance to be a bit too monotone and colorless, though to be honest Erickson really didn't flesh her (or her supposed love-interest, a 2 second plot point, that) character out well enough. We get enough of that background to care in the beginning, but then, it's as if the film is holding back for budgetary reasons. And what they wind up shooting is just same old same old.

For instance, the radio transmissions, which could have been really creepy if they had been staged with any flair, fall tone deaf. That saw is as old as "Close Encounters," but even there it was well done because --- at one time, Spielberg was a helluva filmmaker. And that was about flying saucers for god's sake!

It's not that I found the detour Banshee Chapter took that implausible or irritating --- certainly Erickson is not mandated to give us a docudrama about MKULTRA. But, come on dude...at least give us something that doesn't put us to freaking' sleep!

There is no shortage of Found Footage movies right now, but this might be one of the first that goes 3-D with it. In select cinemas (or on your 3-D Player) that is of course. While that doesn't necessarily make the movie better, the addition of one Ted Levine ultimately does. Apart from our (pretty) female lead, he is the one people will remember from this movie very fondly.

The movie itself is tricky at times and has some nice little twists here and there. You'll have the usual "Don't go there" and "Look behind you" moments (mixed with the "No sane person would do that"), but overall the movie (and the actors) are selling it quite nicely. Not great, but a nice little horror movie to watch

The first ten minutes are extremely interesting and sets the stage for what should have been a one of a kind classic. Unfortunately, it's all down hill from there. As a huge fan of Found Footage, I don't like the addition of scenes not recorded by the camera which supposedly filmed the footage. If you're somewhat familiar with MK Ultra and the drug DMT, you'll probably be letdown and frustrated by the direction they take. There's some jump scares and very little thinking required so as an average horror movie, it succeeds.

Crap, garbage, filth, useless... There are many words to describe a movie in a negatory fashion, but I don't think there are words enough in the dictionary to describe just how bad this movie is.

It starts out somewhat interesting incorporating real news footage to make it seem like this story could actually have happened...

And it also starts out as a found footage/documentary which adds on to this...

And to be honest the first 10 minutes doesn't suck, they don't but I still can't bare to give this movie the lowest of ratings because everything after that is complete utter crap...

As I said it starts out as a found footage/documentary but that changes rather quickly and you start to wonder how the lead could possibly have six different angles depicting the events going on, does she have six cameramen?

No they just all of a sudden decided that it wasn't a found footage/documentary anymore...

Anyways even if I was to look aside that the plot is trying to confuse the viewer that it's actually clever when in fact it's just plain terrible and the actress who takes the lead after the likable guy in the beginning disappears is just undeniably unlikeable and you'd struggle finding a more bland and uninspired performance...

But you can't really blame her, who could be inspired with a script like this...

And did I tell you how incredibly boring and not at all scary this movie is? Well it really is...

Avoid at all costs

I just finished watching this film at the After Dark Film Festival in Toronto.

I was impressed. It has a genuinely creepy atmosphere and well-earned jump scares that had me leaping out of my seat a few times.

The film is an effective mix of traditional filmmaking,'found footage', and even actual documentary footage and news reels. This melding of fiction with 'faux-real' footage and factual footage was perfect given the subject matter (which revolves around the real-life MKUltra 'mind control experiments' conducted by the CIA during the Cold War). The film also cleverly mixes in the genuinely creepy lore of shortwave 'numbers stations', resulting in a calling card for the film's villain which is flat-out *beep* scary.

Speaking of the 'villain', I don't want to give away too much, but I wanted to congratulate the director for creating a 'Big Bad' that is unnervingly ambiguous and 'unknowable', both in terms of motivation and appearance.

The performances are solid, and I particularly enjoyed the Hunter S. Thompson-esque character for the humour he brought to the proceedings.

Tonally, this movie reminded me of the Mothman Prophecies and a lot of the better 'Creepypasta' stories from the internet. I give this a big thumbs up :)

There is nothing worth telling about this movie except that it is one of the most disgusting movie I have ever watched. I waited and waited for the movie to pick up some pace and deliver something worth watching but there was nothing except disappointment. To be very frank I didn't like the trailer at all, I decided to watch the movie only after reading a few positive user reviews on IMDb. To my utter disgust it turned out to a complete waste of time. In fact majority of the movie is bald and boring, largely due to some poor acting & amateurish direction. In addition there was nothing scary in this so called 'horror flick' which was the least I expected. Bottom line guys stay away from this movie, save your 87 precious minutes or watch something else. I would like give it a big 0/10 but since there is no such option i vwill rate it 1/10.