Midweek Mention... The Conspiracy

This week, the Dads pull out the red string and the newspaper clippings to review The Conspiracy (2012), a Canadian found-footage indie thriller written and directed by Christopher MacBride.

With Pete away skiing (and tracking his WOD PRs), Sidey, Dan, Reegs, and Cris dive into a mockumentary that blurs the lines between actual historical psy-ops and deep web paranoia.

In this episode: - Arsenal injury conspiracies and the truth about international breaks - Terrence, the ultimate tinfoil-hat kook, and his magnificent "murder wall" of newspaper clippings - The psychology of conspiracy theories: why believing a shadowy cabal controls the world is more comforting than accepting chaos - How the film effectively weaves real-world events (9/11, Gulf of Tonkin) into its fictional narrative - The dreaded Tarsus Club and the logistics of crashing an elite secret society dinner (surely they counted the masks?) - The inevitable pivot into Blair Witch meets Eyes Wide Shut in the third act - Tie-clip cameras, blurry faces, and aggressive stabbing sound effects - That deeply unsettling final interview scene

Verdict: Strong recommend. A tight, breezy indie thriller that executes its premise well, even if the final act goes a bit off the rails.

Films/shows mentioned: The Conspiracy (2012), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

We love to hear from our listeners! By which I mean we tolerate it. If it hasn't been completely destroyed yet you can usually find us on twitter @dads_film, on Facebook Bad Dads Film Review, on email at baddadsjsy@gmail.com or on our website baddadsfilm.com.
 
Until next time, we remain...
 
Bad Dads

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Where is Pete? Is he still claiming to be so busy? He's back now. Back once again with the Renegade Master. Yeah, he was back on Saturday afternoon at 5 post Meridian. Limey, are you tracking his movies? I am indeed, yeah. That would be very on point for this one.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Whoa yay yay. And what did you uh twist?

SPEAKER_00 0:36

And um he promised I'll see him tomorrow, so Oh god.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

How's he coming to day today? I know. I'll come in after fucking smashing another T across it.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

Have you? Yeah. Maybe. Go on. Maybe. This is the first part of Conspiracy Week. But is it though the first part? Exactly. The conspiracy is. This will be heard much, much later. So that's why I'm a little bit confused.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

You're confused.

SPEAKER_03 1:05

Well, just do some research, Chris. Do your own research and you'll get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Yeah, well, exactly. That's I I'm trying to do my own research, but I don't know where to start or where to finish.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

Well, you should start with The Conspiracy.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

A Canadian 2012 film written and directed by Christopher McBride in his debut feature.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Or was it?

SPEAKER_03 1:24

Or was it? Yeah, we can do a lot of that. Okay. And it's got nobody you ever heard of in it because it's a kind of low budget. Or does it? Yeah. Right, enough of that. I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Did you did you watch this? Side. Yes. Oh, you did, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

Yeah. And shall we just lump straight into it? Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Or will we? Yay, yes, we will. It starts with the Benjamin Disraeli quote. For you see, the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes. And he was, of course, a British Prime Minister, not a complete crank. So anyway, and then it opens with your typical sort of long haired what you might imagine a kook to look like sort of screaming at the skyscrapers about controlling with a megaphone, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I thought it was real documentary at this point.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

Yeah. Good, because that that is probably the best way to watch this movie, I would think, if we're about to go.

SPEAKER_02 2:24

I quickly like realised that it you know it was trying to look like Blair Witch, but No.

SPEAKER_03 2:30

Yeah, anyway. Yeah, so he's talking about overpopulation and screaming about the system of control up at some skyscrapers basically. People just walking past, ignore him. And yeah, like you say, it's structured like a documentary. And then we get to meet Aaron and Jim, who are a couple of documentary filmmakers. They've came across a viral video mocking this guy and then sort of got drawn into it by the way.

SPEAKER_00 2:59

And they go to see him.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah, because uh the comments are mostly people agreeing with him. Yeah. Uh so yeah, they go to see him and it's not you know, the the stated intention of the documentary is not it's not about conspiracy theories, it's about the people who are into them.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

And so we meet like a lot of them through either their online life, they meet in a conspiracy cafe thing, or they meet in the on in the real world in a place called conspiracy culture, which was like a bookstore that Yeah, and he says, Why like why when there's the internet do you have this?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

And they're like he like turns that into conspiracy because it's their greatest it's their greatest weapon.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Yeah, everybody can track you. And he was saying about Orwell and who who would have thought that you would voluntarily submit yourself to that kind of observation and all those sorts of things. So the two sort of documentary filmmakers they're different types. Jim has got a a kid and uh you know a very young kid and a wife, and Aaron is kind of more of a loner. He's already like fantasizing in some ways about a life off the grid. He sometimes looks up.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah, something to do like a commune, right? Yeah, that's I can't I can't remember where. In Arkansas, Alaska or I think it was Arkansas.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

Are you really a conspiracy theorist if you don't have a newspaper cutting wall? Yeah. Which Terence is his name is Terence does have that.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Not just a wall, he's got the whole house.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

I can't help but think of is it Charlie from It's Always Sunday in Philadelphia that being with him like pointing at his like crazy wall with all the lines over it. But this is his whole house.

SPEAKER_03 4:34

But he does have one particular area with everything connected up.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

I should get one here, shouldn't I? It's a bit like this, I mean it's it's a little, yeah, that's too orderly. But it would be nice to get some, you know, pins and some red string and just link all the things together. I'm sure we could draw a pin some patterns.

SPEAKER_03 4:51

Well, as he'll say to him later, if you stare at anything for long enough, you'll find a pattern.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Yeah. I think we do get one more scene of Terence, he's walking down the street, it looks like a sandwich board, and it turns out to be his sort of like Well, it's his wall, like he he takes it out and he gets almost in a fight with someone who says About nine eleven.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

I think the film is quite exploitative using night like actual shot it sh uh shots of nine eleven and that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yeah, because it does do that. And yeah, he's he starts to go on about that in a park and someone like takes umbrage with it and it's really like offended by him.

SPEAKER_03 5:22

But then intercut with this are genuine examples of what you would call a psyop these days, like the Lusitania being sent by the Brits into a passenger ship being sent into a war zone to be destroyed to drag the Americans into the war, or the Gulf of Tonkin, a fiction the thing that was emerged in 2005 that it was fictional that ships were attacked, that the event that drew uh America into Vietnam, the final thing. So Yeah, it's interesting to put that stuff in there.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Um Yeah, and it j it does kind of then give a little more credence into Terence's mutterings and and he talks everything from 9-11, but he's he kind of focusing down on a particular group, isn't he?

SPEAKER_03 6:09

He's how I don't think that actually comes out just before he's abducted, but or wherever he goes because he just disappears from the movie, and it's a bit of a shame, really, because he was the best character in it, I think. But he he disappears and they it drags Aaron and Jim into it. Aaron particularly, yeah, he goes straight into the new side of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

He tries to re-assist. Well he picks up everything from the flat, no? He just Yeah, and he he puts the timeline straight through the middle, doesn't he? And then he's like, look at the you know, he's gonna be like the dates. He's gone. Yeah, he's into it.

SPEAKER_03 6:37

And the the dates lead him to this article about this club that they've referenced a whole time that I've heard million times the Bilderberg group, the Illuminati, Bohemian, Military Industrial Complex. Yeah, all of that stuff. And it leads them to this online article in this guy called Mark Tucker, who used to go to school with us. Is yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:57

Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 6:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

Not really. I'm assuming it was a different guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:04

But he'll agree to talk to them on camera if he's has his face sort of But now it for the rest of the film, like 90% of the people do have that. Yeah, and it's weird. Yeah. And the face distort and the voice distorted. And he's got like it looks like his fingers have been broken.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Yeah, and the wrists as well. It looks really Yeah, he picks something up off a plate, doesn't he?

SPEAKER_03 7:22

And all his fingers are buckled in.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Or they've been tortured by the Illuminati. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

And he's got a great ponytail. Yeah, really easy.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

Really easy to tell who he is if you know who Yeah, if you knew it, you'd be like, oh, is that guy with the broken fingers and the long hair?

SPEAKER_03 7:41

If his fingers didn't make it obvious enough, his massive long ponytail would have done. Yeah. So they find this article from this guy and it leads them to this thing called the Tarsus Club, and they find a website for it, and they decide to phone it, and all it does is repeat back his phone number to him. Spooky. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:58

Well they're they're caught in at one point. Yeah, they're caught in a trap, and at one point he comes back home and they've trashed his apartment. Yeah. Aaron's apartment, and he has to move in to his buddy's apartment there. They've got a young baby and his wife, his partner's there. She's not in it too much, but Well they they do a nice way of pointing out that he's got a nice, happy family.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, family.

SPEAKER_02 8:24

And a lot more a lot more to lose, as it were. Although yeah, why he moved out made me think, well, they didn't they just trash the place. Like they didn't he's scared, I guess. That's why he moved out, but he he moved out for a little while. It wasn't a lot.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

And they also said that yeah, he's this is the first time he was happy that he was broke. They didn't have any money, so it's not like Yeah, but it would anyway, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

So yeah, he was they spooked themselves a little bit because they're looking out, they've got a guy that we see every now and again who's videoing all this as well, so they're in front of the camera, but they've obviously got a symbol.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

It's no longer some s to them some sort of fringe lunatic conspiracy theory that this is a thing that exists.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Yeah, and it starts to infiltrate their lives, right? They see a guy on a bike repeatedly that was in the background of a video. At one point a car starts following them into a car parking lot and all you know stops and all that. Yeah, and they they take on Terence's conspiracy and his paranoia and continue the the plan to find out more about there's also this myth of Mithras who predates Christ by two thousand years. He's got a bull for a head, or a killer bull is part of his killer bull is part of his but he also sort of died for three days and was resurrected and shares some common elements with Christianity.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Like 25th of December.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:48

And things like that.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

So anyway, it's all building up to this organisation, and then this, you know, to cut a very long story short, this Mark Tucker guy says, Well, right, I can get you in there. They have these meetings because what they've been able to show is before every historical event, there's been these meetings of these people, and there's another one happening, and he can sneak them in. So it starts the final stretch of the movie, which is where they get these really bad tie-clip camera things and then go undercover. They sneak in through the woods. On the way, they find a house, a cabin. Yeah, weird. It reminded me of that one that was in Midsummer, that you know, those pointed roof ones. And they say to meet back there if they've ever a problem. I wonder if that will happen. And then they, you know, through some shenanigans with a guy that they've paid off and some hiding in bushes and all that. And in bags. And in body bags or something, I don't know. They end up sneaking in there and mixing amongst the Illuminati, the brothers.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

The brothers.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Taking a gin and tonic and and having a laugh and I was just thinking about the organisation of the gathering.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Yeah. And surely they were throwing the numbers out. I don't mean like getting the numbers out, I mean just from a purely logistical of the colour. Yeah, they do two extra seats at dinner. Because there's there's a ceremony for newbies, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

Yeah, I thought this. And they all get knives laid out.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

There were knives and they all get a mask in this ceremony where they're anointed into the brotherhood. And I was thinking, well, there'll be two masks short. But and he's last, one of them's last.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

But they they also have counted into this, I I guess, as we learn, because well, it it it's not to surprise anybody that they knew they were coming. Anyway, that's how my stupid brain might have been.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Well, no, but they saw they see the guy, right? They see the polytail. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

I mostly thought, like, if this really is the Illuminati, why are they meeting in like a three-star hotel? Because it's really I was thinking stone cars. They've got no you know, they didn't have any money. This is a low budget film, so you can you can excuse all that. So yeah, they begin the ceremony and Jim's right at the front of the queue, and Aaron's at the back, and there's a sort of will they won't he get killed and rumbled and the bit of tension which is.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

Yeah, he's he's able to watch the guy in front of him what he has to the scripts that basically they have to go through. So he so he if he'd been first, you'd imagine it would have been a bit of a car crash, but he just repeats what the guy's said and it is you know re repetition. You have to name your father. But making it back and starting to freak out because he is at the back and he doesn't know if he's alright. He's like, I need to see my friend, and they're like, brother, brother, you're you're fucking it all up, you know, just go and wait. And it's getting a bit you know, it's getting a bit aggro, a bit tense, but eventually he sees him walk past and he's like, Okay, okay, okay, I'll wait. But he could the whole time because of the way it's got the camera on there, but it's the you can hear their breathing. Breathing from 2001. Yeah. You know, the the tension is is kind of building.

SPEAKER_03 12:40

Yeah. And like you say, Mark Tucker walks in through the crowd, you're like, oh shit, hang on a minute. But this was all right. Well that's why he panicked, right?

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Because he's like, What the fuck? What the fuck with this guy's here? Yeah. And again, he's he's got the mask, the the face blurred out, but you can see the ponytail, so you can't.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

I really like the way that they somebody actually went, Oh, Mark Tucker's here, but you didn't I mean he was a really tall guy with his own.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah, yeah. What's the what's the where's the guy who goes second? Aaron. So Aaron, when he goes in, he is given the the sacrificial because they've been told it's a hunt, right? Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's your first hunt, your first hunt. This is oh, you're gonna have a lot of things. We've seen all the knives. And he is given the sacrificial thing, and he works he walks through the curtain and just pauses, he can see his reflection, he's like, Oh fuck. Yeah, and he's wearing his.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

And they have the horn, they just do that.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

I think the f first does he s he takes it off, and the guy's like, Oh, I need to show you something. And he's like, Oh no, yeah. I just need to go for a piss. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

In the meantime, J oh is that Jim you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

Yeah, Jim, yeah, yeah, yeah. He when he goes in, yeah. And then he tries to call his missus and his missus is a big thing. Well, he hears the phone ringing.

SPEAKER_03 13:50

He phones his missus, he can hear the phone like in the room next door or whatever. So he goes and opens it and there she is. With the baby. With the baby, and he is abducted and taken away. So then it's like Aaron is just in the forest running away from like a hundred guys, all dressed up in fucking white robes and horrible masks with knives. He sort of somehow manages to evade them all and get back to the cabin. Yeah. Thank God. Jim's there, that'll be safe, and he opens the door and says, Jim, he goes, Aaron, and then as he opens it, a load of guys come out and stabby, stabby, stabby. And then Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

I was so baffled. Yeah. Because there's loads of stabby sound effects. Yeah. Loads of them.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah, there is. And then it sort of cuts to the CEO of Tarsus Club talking about oh, we you know, we have a lot of people try to break into the meetings and people do get beaten up, but that's all that happens.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

We do scare them a little bit. But that's all that happens, but you'll never see him again because he's he got scared actually, and he'll same as Terrence probably.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

And then he says he went off to the commune is the Yeah, and he says about you know, what people will be surprised to learn is yes, there is meetings of you know, powerful people and global leaders and everything, but it's not some sinister thing you need to worry about. We're just trying to create, you know, a world order. A new world order. I don't know, man. It sounds pretty creepy. Yeah. And the chick speaks as well.

SPEAKER_03 15:15

I can't remember what her she's she's been a dissenting voice throughout the whole thing about CT. She's part of the organization. She's head of PR. Yeah, yeah. So it sort of ends on that sort of note. But there's been this thing that they play with the sort of whole way through in that they say things like, Well, the group wants you to know a little bit about them and maybe they'll tell you s some little snippets of who they are and what they're about through the media, through some of the people.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

But they're gonna need people to know that they exist to get new recruits and stuff. Yeah, I guess. I don't know. But also the stabbing sound effects were pffff, I don't know what they were because he's clearly not dead. He's talking to camera at the end of the movie.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Well, the other Aaron's not there, is he? Jim's there, but it is.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

But what what it kind of meant to me was that they told him to lie to camera and we're not gonna kill you and your family, and that guy's gone, and and he kind of gives that unbelievable interview at the end where he's just says, Well, I guess he's gone to the same place as Terrence. Yeah. The guy that they were interviewing and just disappeared off the f face of the earth, and he looks kind of teary-eyed a little bit because he's traumatized for sure.

SPEAKER_03 16:27

And his wife's sitting next to him looking really pissy on the sofa.

SPEAKER_02 16:30

Yeah, like you better be saying exactly what those people said to say. And that's it. And that is it. Yeah. Fade to black.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

Yeah, I was hoping for a little bit after post-credits, maybe something, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

That I guess all happened online where they made a little bit of a mythology by putting a website out there and put you know, putting the article online, the Mark Tucker article, and a few other things just to make it a little bit real worldly. Nice.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

It was it was a a good start. I really enjoyed the start of it actually. And you you mentioned the Terence character as being the best part of the film, then I agreed actually. Yeah, I thought he he was I'd like to have seen more of him because he was believable in that role. Whereas the other two, I obviously as it went on, it got a little more ridiculous for me. Th the tie clips made it just, you know, that footage that we were getting from there.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

I was Oh, it was painful, wasn't it, at that point. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:29

It was a little bit too found footage, Blair Witch kind of thing going on. But you know, obviously a budget movie. Um million dollars. And it had um Really? A million? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:45

Gosh, that's not a lot, is it?

SPEAKER_02 17:46

Not not for a yeah, and so yeah, I a good interesting subject around, you know, Illuminati or this Tarsus group and everything. Just felt it did get a little bit ridiculous towards the end, but otherwise it was, you know, a a good hour's entertainment before.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Yeah, it's quite breezy, it's about an hour 30, something like that. Yeah, I thought I quite enjoyed it. I do like I would have liked to see a separate movie where it is what they talk about at the start, like why when they talk about the comments and why so people so many people get hooked into this stuff about you know the psychology of that and why people what they're searching for that makes them connect with all this stuff. Yeah. That that's also really interesting. But I I enjoyed the film. It it it suffers from the the sort of film quality.

SPEAKER_03 18:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

But it's a deliberate effect, you know, to have the lapel cameras, the hidden cameras, but I was so like squinting the lot with the fuck down, you know. And then you've got not only that, but everything's blurred. Yeah. And voice effects on it. But I thought it was alright.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Conspiracy theories are like the moon landing, really, aren't they? Yeah. They're all fake.

SPEAKER_03 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

I mean, I c I quite agree actually. I don't think it quite sticks the landing in the the most like third of it, but you could see what they were going for, and there's a lot of things to like about this movie. It clips along. Have they done anything else since these guys? Not that I know of, but I didn't do my research actually. That's Chris, did you enjoy it?

SPEAKER_00 19:12

I actually enjoyed it to be fair. Again, it's it's is it gonna win an Oscar? Is it gonna be anything probably the the acting was good? Considering I've never I've never seen these guys ever in my life, and I've never heard of this film. I couldn't tell you anything about it. I was really confused initially because I knew as it's a film, but I was just like, so what it what kind of genre is this? Documentary tr film, but actually and because the guy always looks at the camera. Yeah. You know that he's breaking the fourth rule, he's aware he's being a little bit more. So it's like, okay, well, this is a documentary, but it's not a documentary, and then obviously the more you like you get. Yeah, later on I saw the synopsis, but it's like I found okay. You you can get a little bit in it. And and I I did find it, I can't remember what what is what year is this, May? 2012. Yeah. The I found the chat room really interesting. Oh, the like Sims thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The way the way they had that chat room where you approach someone and you speak into it and you have an avatar. I thought that was quite an interesting because obviously there's loads of chat rooms where you kind of just type in or you know, whatever. But I don't know. I like I like that bit where he's like, oh, these anonymous whatever. Oh, I will come and take that off the internet, I will do this. But it was good. It was good. And again, an hour and 20, another than 30 was the visuals at the start where they were just showing the skyscrapers.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

It looked amazing, didn't it? Right. It looked fantastic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

Like some abstract artwork or something. Really cool. Just on on this particular conspiracy, I think the idea that the whole world is being controlled by a shadowy elite is you know, that meets up to do some kind of blood ritual is probably quite comforting to a load of people, rather than to think it's really fucking chaotic and like Yeah, I think it's probably one of the weaker conspiracy theories, though, sadly. I think it sort of has an element of truth about it. Yeah, of course, like the fucking finance minister of the of this place meets up with the finance pastor of that place to chat. Of course they fucking do. And yeah, th the I don't know. Anyway, so yeah. Strong recommend. Very strong. Yeah. Mmm. Or is it? Or is it the same thing?