Banshee Chapter (2013)
Directed by Blair Erickson
On the trail of a missing friend who had been experimenting with mind-altering drugs, a young journalist - aided by a rogue counter-culture writer, finds herself drawn into the dangerous world of top-secret government chemical research and the mystery of a disturbing radio signal of unknown origin.
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6 films that influenced Banshee Chapter
What critics say influenced Banshee Chapter
There's a scene in the original " Cat People " (1942) where a woman goes swimming at an indoor pool after hours.
Levine's presence, coupled with the detective story set against the unfortunate legacy of America's insecurities, recalls The Silence of the Lambs, though the association is only skin-deep: Blackburn's house is similarly crammed with iconography, like the workshop of Levine's Buffalo Bill in Jonathan Demme's film, but director Blair Erickson never articulates any moral or psychological complexities, and the characters are thus merely broad archetypes moving around impeccably dressed sets.
When the film begins to show its From Beyond influence, Erickson means to capture the outright absurdity of both the 1986 film and the Lovecraft story on which it's based and use the premise for political satire, but the conclusion becomes burdened by the rigidity of Erickson's tone and restrains itself from the bizarre heights material such as this allows.
Much as in “The Blair Witch Project”, the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, or “Chronicle”, “The Banshee Chapter” is told completely through the perspective of “found footage”, complete with shaky-cam, and overt exposition by main characters.
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All of this material is delivered documentary-style, either on camera or in voiceover, but having set itself this formal limitation, the film seems to subsequently shy away from the demands of the sub-genre, only occasionally (and pointlessly) cutting away to ‘real’ video footage at random interludes thereafter (a can’t-be-bothered quality it shares with other such semi-found footage films as David Ayer’s recent End of Watch and Ti West’s upcoming The Sacrament).
Banshee Chapter suffers from End Of Watch syndrome: It feigns a found-footage approach, but abandons the gimmick whenever it proves inconvenient.
Much as in “The Blair Witch Project”, the “Paranormal Activity” franchise, or “Chronicle”, “The Banshee Chapter” is told completely through the perspective of “found footage”, complete with shaky-cam, and overt exposition by main characters.