In today’s video, we will be going through the 2013’s American Horror film The Banshee
Chapter. Spoilers ahead!! Make sure to give this video
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The movie is based on an experiment that the US govt began in 1963 on American citizens
using chemical agents intended to induce mind control. The experiment is known as Project
MKUltra. Several video footage of prominent American figures is shown. A chemist, Dr.
James Moore, admits that the use of the special chemical can cause changes in behavior and
mental attitude. President Bill Clinton acknowledges certain government-sponsored “unethical”
experiments were being performed in Universities, Hospitals, military bases around the US. All
people who were subjected to the chemical reported having experienced the same phenomenon.
Under its influence, they were all reportedly greeted by a shady entity characterized as
“malignant” and “threatening.” The scene then cuts away to camera footage
of James Hirsch, a young aspiring novelist investigating the Project MKUltra. With a
friend Renny Seegan filming him, James injects the drug used in the experiments, dimethyltryptamine-19
(DMT-19), to note its effects on subjects. The drug is extremely difficult to find, but
apparently, James acquired it through “some friends in Colorado''. Soon, bizarre music
and voices begin to be intercepted on a nearby radio. James becomes extremely anxious, announcing
that something is coming towards the house and that it wants to "wear them.” A large,
shadowy figure rushes by the window. The camera's footage cuts in and out. In the video, someone
screams for help, and ultimately it ends with a shot of James with scary all-black eyes
and a disfigured bloody face. The movie then shifts to Anne, who is a reporter
at an online news portal. She attended college with James. They were inseparable in college.
After graduation, they had only been in touch with each other through occasional emails.
She is concerned about her pal’s mysterious disappearance. Police suspected that James's
friend Renny had murdered him but couldn’t charge him with any crime without a body.
Renny then also mysteriously disappeared a few days after he was questioned by the police.
Resolving to find out what happened to her college mate, Anne investigates James's house.
She finds swathes of dusty documents and notes on project MKUltra. There also was a letter
from “friends of Colorado” addressed to James. She also discovers a Betamax cassette
that contains footage of the MKUltra experiments. Curious about some of the things found in
the house — particularly some information about radio waves — Anne goes to a local
expert Henry Cale. Henry identifies the radio noise from James’s video and ascribes it
to a known number station. Number stations are shortwave radio stations of unidentified
origin that produce artificially generated voices.
Using a young female voice, they read out streams of numbers, words, letters, backward
music, or encrypted codes. She learns that the bizarre radio broadcast can only be tuned
into at a certain time of the night, in the black rock desert. It is called the Lonely
Traveller station. James' cabin is not far from the station. Anne asks Henry questions
about his past employment as a code breaker for the National Security Agency starting
in 1963, coincidentally the same year when the Project MKUltra began and ending in 1979.
Henry is not pleased when Anne questions his history with the NSA. Anne then drives out
into the desert after dark and is able to pick up the broadcast. As the signal gets
stronger, she overhears noise coming from outside her vehicle. She steps out to check
the source of noise when a monstrous form appears from the darkness. She flees in fear.
Anne discovers that a mention of "Friends in Colorado'' in James's notes is related
to the counterculture writer Thomas Blackburn. Thomas has a book by the same name, and he
signs his letters by the same phrase. He is known for his use of drugs and unpredictable
behavior. Anne tries to contact him by phone but is angrily rebuffed when she mentions
Project MKUltra. Anne then goes through the Betamax cassette retrieved from James’s
home. The cassette contains video footage of DMT-19 being injected into people and its
effects being observed by researchers. It also shows that researchers were extracting
DMT-19 from the pineal gland of a female corpse, dubbed the "Primary Source.” The last 35
minutes of the video are also missing, so Anne sends the cassette to video forensics
experts to retrieve it.
Anne travels to Blackburn's hometown. She ambushes him at the pub he often visits. She
lies about her identity to gain his confidence, and he invites her over to his home for an
“unforgettable” experiment. Anne agrees and goes to his place, where he introduces
her to his friend Callie. Callie has a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry and makes the DMT-19
which they all plan to take. Anne covertly throws the dose that she was supposed to consume.
However, Thomas sees through her ruse and tricks her into taking DMT-19. The night quickly
sours as Anne is angry at the deception. Callie begins exhibiting the same behaviors that
James did earlier in the film. She starts hearing voices and can feel someone approaching
towards them. As Anne tries to console Callie, she too hears some of the bizarre music played
by the phantom station and goes to investigate, only to be attacked by a strange entity. Callie
suddenly exhibits the same black eyes and disfigurement as James did and vomits blood
onto the floor.
An indeterminate time later, Anne and Thomas awaken to find Callie missing. Sensing that
they are no longer safe at Thomas’s home, they immediately take his car and bolt. It
is revealed that in addition to the base chemical compound, scientists were also adding harvested
material from the pineal gland of a female corpse, dubbed the "Primary Source,” into
their test subjects. The subject had a more severe response when administered with the
enhanced DMT-19.
In the car, Anne asks Thomas how Callie got the Chemical Formula of DMT. Thomas doesn’t
know-how. Anne then insists that they must go to Callie’s house to get to the bottom
of it. Thomas agrees. While on their way there, Anne gets spooked by an apparition in the
rearview mirror and the sight of a bleeding Thomas in the back seat seemingly being overtaken
by the entity momentarily. Thomas eventually comes back to his senses, and they continue
their journey to Callie’s house. Thomas suspects that the DMT-19 doesn’t cause hallucinations
but instead works as a "radio antenna" of sorts. It allows otherworldly entities to
broadcast signals to the people on the drug and take over their bodies and minds. The
more people take the drug, the more hosts are created for the entities to take over.
The more it spreads. Going through Callie’s basement laboratory, Annie comes across research
on DMT and a map of the black rock desert with chamber 5 circled. She also finds a recording
of the broadcast from the desert on her laptop.
Charlie had jotted down the exact code from the broadcast on a chalkboard and deciphered
it. The deciphered code was the formula of DMT. It becomes evident that the combination
of streams of numbers and words transmitted by the entities were, in fact, the drug’s
chemical formula. The US government never came up with DMT. It, too, perhaps intercepted
the similar signals from the otherworldly entities. The government then may have used
its arsenal of intelligent code breakers like Henry Cale to decipher the signals and recreated
the drug. It administered the chemical to humans to test its effect, naively helping
the unearthly entities spread without realizing the full implication of their actions. Anne
is nearly captured by Callie, who is now controlled by the entity. She manages to escape with
Thomas.
Given James’s cabin’s close proximity to the desert maps at Callie’s place, Anne
realizes that the signal is likely coming from the laboratory that performed the Project
MKUltra experiments, which is in the same desert that the radio broadcast was coming
from. Shortly after this revelation, Thomas reveals that he had lied about giving her
DMT-19. Knowing that James’s friend Renny disappeared despite not having taken the drug
himself, Anne believes that the entity will pursue her regardless. She resolves to put
an end to the broadcast once and for all.
Once during the extraction of chemicals from the pineal gland of a female corpse, the doctors
observed more activity in its brain than a normal functioning human brain. The female
corpse eventually came back to life and attacked one of the doctors. Perhaps that’s when
the entity took over the secret US government lab in the middle of the desert. It then started
operating a radio station out of it to create more human hosts to take over.
She and Thomas travel out into the Black Rock desert. They discover the laboratory in an
abandoned fallout shelter. Thomas takes a can of gasoline inside the Lab so that they
may burn whatever they find. Inside, they find beds and chairs where doctors’ used
to experiment people. For some reason, Thomas seems to know a lot about the chairs. They
then discover a room full of radio broadcasting equipment and a large tank. Upon inspecting
a small porthole built into the side of the mysterious tank, Anne is frightened by a live
pale figure with black eyes residing within looking back at her. This pale figure is presumably
the female corpse from whom DMT was being extracted by doctors, and during one such
process, she came back to life and attacked the doctors. She is the primary source.
At this point, the radio equipment suddenly comes to life and begins broadcasting the
spooky signals. Thomas realizes that the entity wanted Anne and him to come to the lab all
along. Anne looks for the Gasoline Thomas brought with him in the corridor but is instead
greeted by a deformed figure in the dark. Thomas pulls Anne inside the broadcast room
and locks them inside. However, soon the entity starts taking over Thomas. He begins to bleed
from the eyes and convulse violently. Realizing that the entity might try to harm Anne using
his body as a medium, He takes out his gun and shoots himself in the head. The deformed
figure outside the room starts banging at the door. A frightened Anne hides in the locker
inside the room. The figure eventually breaks in and finds Anne in the locker. Anne screams
and bolts outside. It pleads with Anne to come back.
She then finds the gasoline in the hall. As she proceeds to pick up the gasoline, she
again gets spooked by the figure standing beside her. She runs to the broadcast room
with the gasoline. In a frenzy, Anne smashes open the porthole in the tank. She pours the
gasoline inside and throws a lighter scavenged from Thomas' corpse. The resulting explosion
knocks Anne unconscious. When she becomes conscious, she finds the clothing worn by
her friend James before his disappearance lying outside in the hallway. She realizes
that the creature chasing her had been James the whole time. The entity had taken over
James’s body and mind.
Anne makes it out of the Phantom radio station alive. She is eventually taken into custody
by the police for questioning. One of her co-workers travels down to ensure that she
is okay. She and Anne discuss the events that have happened so far, including the tape that
Anne had discovered earlier in the movie. Part of the tape had been erased but had been
retrieved by a video forensics company. Anne then muses that she can't understand why James's
friend disappeared, as he had never taken the drug. She begins to hear the phantom broadcast
issuing from the room's intercom. She suddenly realizes that the effects of the drug can
be passed along by human touch, as she still saw the creatures despite never having taken
the drug. She then turns to discover that her co-worker, whose hand she held moments
before has been taken over by the entities. The film then cuts to the recovered footage
on the tape, which reveals that a college-age Thomas Blackburn was one of the people who
had taken part in Project MKUltra as a test subject.
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