Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

Any and all discussion about Dark Conspiracy, the RPG of modern conspiracy horror
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ReHerakhte
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

Post by ReHerakhte »

A movie that doesn't leap out as a source of inspiration for DC but is worth the watch is the 1997 thriller Smilla's Sense of Snow.
IMDB page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120152/

Julia Ormond has the lead role as Smilla Qaavigaaq Jaspersen, born in Greenland to a local Inuit woman and an American father but raised in Denmark from a young age. As a person with no connections in Copenhagen except her father, she befriends a young boy in the apartment block she lives in.

One day she comes home to find he has fallen from the roof and died, the authorities rule it an accident but she isn't convinced, particularly after seeing his footprints in the snow on the rooftop. Her Greenlander heritage has given her a greater insight into snow & ice and she is certain the boy was chased onto the roof and then fell to his death.

As she investigates, she finds certain people connected to Greenland Mining on the periphery of the boy's death and as she digs deeper she finds that Greenland Mining conducted a number of expeditions to a glacier in Greenland and that somehow the boy is a central part of it all. With only a minor sci-fi theme but weighing in more heavily with the investigative and conspiracy themes, it has some interesting ideas for gaming.

As always with IMDB, it can sometimes be worth reading the comments to get some greater insight into aspects of the movie but generally, the movies I like (such as this one and Narcopolis) get plenty of hate from various people in the comments section so it's a bit of a minefield.
I don't know if it's just me being intellectually snobbish, but some of the comments seem to be written by people who don't actually pay attention to what they're watching or they just won't suspend their disbelief to allow the movie to tell it's tale.
Either that or they're just complete morons who can't understand some pretty obvious storytelling concepts.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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ReHerakhte wrote: I don't know if it's just me being intellectually snobbish, but some of the comments seem to be written by people who don't actually pay attention to what they're watching or they just won't suspend their disbelief to allow the movie to tell it's tale.
Either that or they're just complete morons who can't understand some pretty obvious storytelling concepts.

I think a good 50% of the comments on IMDB are by people who seem to have a perpendicular relationship with reality in general. The film sounds interesting - my mum read the book a while back, I shall have to ask her what it's like.

Having picked up the Garth Marenghi's Darkplace on DVD in a charity shop I've been rewatching that. I'd forgotten or perhaps hadn't realised, that B-movies and half-witted action movies were such an influence on it. The "Skipper the Eyechild" episode has a balcony showdown reminiscent of the one in Monolith, complete with helicopter. Darkplace would could make an interesting variant setting for DC, perhaps just for a short, not entirely serious, campaign. It's got the multidimensional gateways, monsters, empaths, weird science, and everyone regardless of profession seems allowed to carry a gun. Most, if not all, the male characters are war veterans.
Last edited by Linden on Sun Jun 04, 2017 1:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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A friend lent me his DVD copy of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace that has now sort of become my copy (because he had two copies or he had a copy on DVD and one on BluRay or something like that...)

I remember that I hadn't heard much about it but the very few reviews I had read were not complimentary. Then I watched it (sometime in early 2016), and I found it entertaining and amusing :D I think I'll have to watch it again soon.

I think back on the reviews I read and I believe that they just didn't "get it". Again, maybe I'm being intellectually snobby but I'm inclined to think that the reviewers were expecting supernatural horror and didn't comprehend that Darkplace is a horror parody of 1980s television.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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ReHerakhte wrote:
I think back on the reviews I read and I believe that they just didn't "get it". Again, maybe I'm being intellectually snobby but I'm inclined to think that the reviewers were expecting supernatural horror and didn't comprehend that Darkplace is a horror parody of 1980s television.
It's fairly well regarded here in the UK. Something of a lost series but its relatively short run and the fact that most of the cast have gone on to bigger things probably qualifies it as cult. I'm glad they only did one series as I'm not sure they'd have been able sustain the joke ad infinitum. The DVD is great though with all the commentary and extra-interviews being in-character. Dean Learner especially comes across as a very sinister character as he does his best not to talk about the unfortunate deaths of various people involved in the production.

I think a reviewer would have to be quite extraordinarly thick not to realise that it's a spoof. :roll: :wink:
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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R.I.P. Bill Paxton, apparently the only person (apart from Lance Henriksen) to have been killed on-screen by a Terminator, an Alien and a Predator. Add Near Dark, Weird Science, Twister and Apollo 13 to the list and that's pretty much the Dark Conspiracy world in one go 8)

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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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And although nothing to do with movies but definitely connected to DC, Loren Wiseman of GDW died of a heart attack on 15 Feb this year.
Bill :cry:
Loren :cry:
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Morthrai wrote:R.I.P. Bill Paxton, apparently the only person (apart from Lance Henriksen) to have been killed on-screen by a Terminator, an Alien and a Predator. Add Near Dark, Weird Science, Twister and Apollo 13 to the list and that's pretty much the Dark Conspiracy world in one go 8)
Has anyone seen Frailty, the horror film he directed? Supposed to be quite underrated. From what I've read it could be about a religiously inspired empath with high foreboding and human empathy skills going on an anti-Igor killing rampage.

DC connection aside, he was a bloody good actor. Reading interviews with him he seemed like a very thoughtful sort of bloke, millions of miles away from the goofy characters he often portrayed. I thought he was great in A Simple Plan where he played brilliantly against his usual type and completely acted Billy Bob Thornton off screen. One False Move is also worth checking out if you've not seen it.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Linden wrote:Reading interviews with him he seemed like a very thoughtful sort of bloke, millions of miles away from the goofy characters he often portrayed.
Several people have said the same thing in their tributes to him, and Schwarzenegger also said he was the best friend a person could have. Seems like a top bloke all round.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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I think this will be of interest to you Kevin, a digital remaster of the original "Stalker" movie :D
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Morthrai wrote: Fri Apr 21, 2017 8:40 pm I think this will be of interest to you Kevin, a digital remaster of the original "Stalker" movie :D
Most definitely! I wasn't aware that it was getting any new release at all let alone a digital restoration. I have the movie (on VHS and DVD, yes I am that much of a fanboy) and while I've watched it on large screen TVs I wish I was in the UK at the moment because I would love to see it on the real "big screen".
Cheers, Lee, now that I know about it, it's on my wishlist for July... just in time for my birthday, it'll be a present to myself haha!
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Back in 2013, somebody got me the first season of the TV series Continuum. For some reason or other, I never actually watched it until last week (yeah yeah, three years too late...) and have become quite taken with it. I'm now tracking down the other seasons so I can see more of the story. I had a quick look through these pages but couldn't find any reference to it here which surprised me a little as it has many Dark Conspiracy elements.

Setting aside the time travel elements, the first season has scenes set from the future period the protagonist is from. She lives in a northern America that consists of sections of the former United States and the former Canada. The governments of those two nations had apparently suffered a massive economic failure - so bad that they sold the right to govern to the corporations. The government of her era is known as the "Corporate Congress" because corporations have replaced senators.

Other aspects of the future society are a particular corporation involved in food production deliberately withholding supplies to drive up the price of food, freedom fighters struggling against the rule of the corps - unfortunately they become so driven by their goal that they resort to any sort of crime to accomplish it and the "police" become increasingly para-military to deal with them, the manipulation of citizens by corporations to serve the corp's desires, a much larger conspiracy behind the scenes than the initial conspiracy being confronted by the protagonist, computer gaming technology being used to alter the mind state of certain people to the level of reprogramming their brains and others that I can't think of at the moment.

The creator said he had up to 10 seasons in mind but the show only ran for four seasons, I haven't seen the latter seasons but according to some reviews it becomes another "typical police procedural" show. That would be a real shame if it's correct because the future society has a lot of elements that are either already in place in Dark Conspiracy or can be used for inspiration. So at the very least, the first season is worth watching just for the glimpses of the future society, a society dominated by corporate control where the powerful are very powerful and the poor sometimes have to resort to looting just to get food.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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ReHerakhte wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2017 1:33 am So at the very least, the first season is worth watching just for the glimpses of the future society, a society dominated by corporate control where the powerful are very powerful and the poor sometimes have to resort to looting just to get food.
The whole thing does sound very Dark Conspiracy. I shall have put that on my ever growing "to watch" list.

Last night I saw Nemesis, a cyberpunk thriller from 1992. It borrows liberally from The Terminator, Robcop, Bladerunner and Invasion of the Body Snatcher but isn't in the same league as any of them. It's directed by the infamous Albert Pyun who has something of a reputation as a latter day Ed Wood. Script and acting are mostly dismal. Art direction, cinematography and use of locations quite good. The opening shootout with the two gun toting goth girls also strikes me as well done.

You could probably make a half decent Dark Conspiracy scenario out of the basic premise of someone or something replacing people with cyborg duplicates - those pesky mechaniacals or their alien creators perhaps?
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Well, I seem to have missed both the Continuum series and the Nemesis flick too. Seems like Linden and myself both have permanently expanding watch piles 8)
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Morthrai wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2017 3:38 pm Well, I seem to have missed both the Continuum series and the Nemesis flick too. Seems like Linden and myself both have permanently expanding watch piles 8)
Having said that, though I know I haven't seen Nemesis I have heard of it. It may have come up on the FB groups before now I guess, I certainly recognise a couple of the images that come up in Google.
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Re: Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

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Morthrai wrote: Sun Jun 04, 2017 3:38 pm Well, I seem to have missed both the Continuum series and the Nemesis flick too. Seems like Linden and myself both have permanently expanding watch piles 8)
I certainly do. Currently ploughing my way through Line of Duty which is undoubtedly a conspiracy drama although not DC related. Then again, a mini-campaign with the PCs as anti-corruption cops investigating a police force infiltrated by a Dark Minion backed crime syndicate? Well, possibly. I nominate the Cobra People or Dark Elves as villains of the piece.

I think the poster/DVD cover of Nemesis is one of the best things about it - suggestive of a very different, and probably much better film than you actually end up watching. Lee, if you get round to it you might enjoy the appearance of cult favourites Tim Thomerson and Brion James, although one reviewer's comment that they both resemble a couple of middle aged divorcees hitting the singles circuit after their 20 year marriages have gone down the toilet is sadly all too on the money.
Last edited by Linden on Mon Jun 05, 2017 8:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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