Inspirational Movies and TV for Dark Conspiracy

[ReHerakhte]

I recently started re-watching a one season TV show from the US called Surface. I made a brief post about it on the Dark Conspiracy Discord server that Lee set up and in that post I mention that I thought I had made a post here about the show. I've just spent the last two days going back through all the posts in this thread and have found that I never did talk about the series here.
This really surprises me because I was certain that I had made mention of it in this thread but alas, no (either that or the Minions removed my post because it was too close to the truth!).
However this wander back through the pages did refresh my memory about many of the movies or TV series that I'd like to see but haven't got around to yet

The brief synopsis for Surface on imdb goes as follows: - "A marine biologist, an insurance salesman and a teen-aged boy find their lives fundamentally changed by the emergence of a new, and often dangerous, species of sea life, while government agents work to keep the affair under wraps."
That doesn't really give you much to go on but it also involves corporate intrigue, people going missing, environmental troubles like sinkholes appearing and draining all the water from a lake and weather patterns changing, covert government investigation into a new species of aquatic creature and the unofficial investigation done by two people who encountered the creature, government coercion of one of the people involved in the unofficial investigation, biotechnology/genetic engineering and the global impact of all these things because they are all linked.

It got cancelled after one season but they managed to wrap it up in the final episode from what I remember although (and this is part of the reason why I like it), it's not the typical happy/hopeful ending of most American made TV shows.

[ReHerakhte]

As a minor point of information, I've just found out that one movie mentioned here that I wanted to watch The Borderlands (I believe Linden mentioned it?) is know as Final Prayer in other countries (and on Google Play where I was hoping to buy it).
Frankly, "Final Prayer" sounds pretty naff as a title, the kind of juvenile title I've come to expect from Hollywood in an attempt to con adolescents into going to the cinema.
I feel that "The Borderlands" is a far more evocative title given the premise of the movie.

EDIT: Some time later...
So I managed to find a copy of The Borderlands and am finding it enjoyable enough despite my dislike of found footage style movies. I particularly like the nods to other British movies like the quip from Grey to a local resident to "enjoy his time with Edward Woodward" but also some of the blink-and-you-miss-it moments like when Grey is in the church graveyard rolling a smoke (where he looks down at a gravestone without paying attention to the stone, the only thing I noticed at first was that the gravestone death date read 2012 but looked awfully neglected for a grave from the same year that Grey is investigating the church - spoiler below)


SPOILER:


When Grey looks back at the gravestone, the death date is now 1803.



EXTRA BIG SPOILER:



The gravestone you initially see, dated 2012 is for Grey himself.

[Linden]

As a minor point of information, I've just found out that one movie mentioned here that I wanted to watch The Borderlands (I believe Linden mentioned it?)

I really liked it (and as a general rule I'm also not keen on found footage films ). I'd watch it again definitely, and would look out for the odd details you mention.

The Borderlands is definitely the better title, although Devon where it's set isn't really on the border of anywhere unike say the Welsh Marches near me. Do the adjoining counties Somerset and Cornwall count I wonder? Hmmm. Cornwall is culturally distinct from the rest of England, so that might be it.

I suppose the characters are on the borderland of reality, and something else.

Possible spoilers ahead:

In terms of what they're up against I'm thinking something like a Lloigor from the mythos, or perhaps a malevolent version of that insensate but empathic living island in the lost colony chapter of the Protodimensions sourcebook.

[ReHerakhte]

I enjoyed it despite my dislike for found footage films, particularly the ending, I was expecting someone's demise but I wasn't expecting that ending!
I think this one was a bit different in that the found footage felt reasonable and natural enough (with a few concessions for the various needs for film making & editing), so I'm happy enough to give it a pass

As for the title, I can't say I'm overly familiar with the geography of the United Kingdom so I didn't particularly relate it to a geographical border and after watching the movie, I took "The Borderlands" to refer to not a physical border but the place where the natural met the supernatural, a place where the old world (with its old gods) met the new (Christian) world, so yes, like you say, the border between reality and... some other reality?
A Proto-Dimension perhaps?

Edit: Well this is a little awkward... I didn't cotton on to the spoiler part you had at the end of your post until after I posted this but yes, some good (very interesting!) ideas there.

[Linden]

I took "The Borderlands" to refer to not a physical border but the place where the natural met the supernatural, a place where the old world (with its old gods) met the new (Christian) world, so yes, like you say, the border between reality and... some other reality?

Yes that must be it.

The tunnels underneath the church could well be a Protodimension, or at least contain the entrance to one.

The scene were Gordon Kennedy punches the bus stop yokel in the face really made me laugh. I know it shouldn't but...

[ReHerakhte]

Well, I could just be reading too much into the title, that's always a possibility!
But yes, seeing the bus stop yokel get his comeuppance made me smirk so I have no judgement on anyone who might have laughed. The scene with the sheep was quite effective I thought, so seeing one of the potential perpetrators get some consequence for their actions appealed to me (and the scene reminded me directly of the article you linked to about the New Forest)

I think the film makers did quite well with the tunnel scenes, gave the impression that it was "miles upon miles" of underground pathways heading to who knows where.
And when they find the "end", literally and figuratively, there's no escaping the consequences of their actions

[Linden]

But yes, seeing the bus stop yokel get his comeuppance made me smirk so I have no judgement on anyone who might have laughed.

It's the way he marches straight up to him then "blam!" No messing. Plus Kennedy being best known over here for genial comedy roles gives the scene extra "punch" as it were. It's not the sort of thing you associate with him - although he has been in a fair amount of drama over the years as well. He was the sinister squad leader in Tank-432, perhaps not the best use of his talents, but nowhere near as bad a film as some of the reviews would suggest (think we discussed that one already?).

[ReHerakhte]

Ah! That does give it something extra then.
I'm not particularly familiar with actors at the best of times and definitely not up to scratch when it comes to Kennedy so I don't think I've recognised him in any other roles (doesn't mean I haven't seen any movie he's been in, just that I don't remember most of the actors I see!)
Still haven't seen Tank-432 yet and yes we have mentioned it somewhere further back.
Must find a copy of it sometime soon and give it a watch.

[Linden]

I'm not particularly familiar with actors at the best of times and definitely not up to scratch when it comes to Kennedy so I don't think I've recognised him in any other roles (doesn't mean I haven't seen any movie he's been in, just that I don't remember most of the actors I see!)

He's best known over here as a comedy perfomer in Scottish sketch show Absolutely - bit of an acquired taste, sort of like the more surreal stuff Monty Python used to do. Oh, and co-hosting the National Lottery. He does seem to be doing more drama these days and I'd class him as one of those solid character actors who you can rely on to put in a decent performance whatever he's in.

[ReHerakhte]

Hey all, in a fit of frustration with the state of current rpgs and D&D 5th Ed. in particular, I have been trying to rev my gaming group up to the thought of Dark Conspiracy. As part of my plan, I have been trawling old sites and I stumbled upon a link to Chris Carpenter's DC movie database which I promptly plugged into the internet archive wayback machine and got a hit

So, despite the lack of images, we can still access the database although it's limited to movies and TV series up to 2002. Hopefully this may prove useful to people: -
https://web.archive.org/web/20021204220 ... efault.htm

[Morthrai]

Ah the movie database I still have most of the original website files and many reviews. I posted a bunch of them in a thread on here but maybe we could resurrect the DCMDB in some form? Marcus?

[ReHerakhte]

I tell ya, now more than ever, with the lucklustre performance of modern rpgs, I really feel the pull of those old visions of the future (and also the future as imagined by various gaming products). I've fallen deep into the well of cyberpunk to the point of re-reading my William Gibson novels and re-watching Blade Runner and wandering through the Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2020 rpgs.
So Carpenter's DC movie database has been (reasonably) satisfying in regards to finding material that scratched that particular itch.

[Marcus Bone]

I see this is coming out soon - The Vast of Night - Looks an interesting take on the UFO phenomena. Has to better than the very disappointing Project Blue Book TV series

The trailer on YouTube is is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQvP7YHsx80

[ReHerakhte]

Speaking of disappointing shows, has anyone seen the US 2010 TV drama series titled The Event, if so I'm interested in your take on the show?

I binged watched it and finished it last night. I think the show had a lot of potential but that potential was lost due to some pretty average script-writing. Writing that, in a few situations, doesn't bare examining too closely (otherwise you'll be wondering how it could possibly have happened in the way that it does) and a few deus ex machina moments. I see a lot of viewer reviews rate it as great but it feels to me like the show never actually reaches it's potential for greatness.
There's a heavy use in the beginning of the series of cutting back and forth in the timeline, the worn-out trope of "five hours earlier/24 hours earlier" etc. etc. and that didn't go too well with the audience at the time so they cutback on its use in later episodes.
There's some inferred Judeo-Christian mythology aspects that are layered too thin to be apparent to any audience that just passively watches the show without thinking about it and there are other aspects that come across as nothing more than mystical mumbo-jumbo. Unfortunately neither of those aspects seems to go much further than some dialogue between characters (it probably would have been resolved in a second season).

For a show that starts off as a rather peaceful integration of non-terrestrial beings on Earth, promising to become a full blown invasion, there are some really interesting concepts to explore - aliens among us, high-tech, surveillance, invasion, infiltration, potential for conflict and so on. However there are times when the plot falls into some typical TV drama tropes and these are pretty easy to spot, to the point where you can accurately predict what will happen next.
For example, there's too much use of drawing out a situation to try and amp up the drama, if you think too much about the situation being drawn out, the drama comes across as melodrama and then there's the medical examination of a woman with the "While we were examining you, we found something else" pregnancy trope that really didn't need to be included at all.
There are times when the aliens are able to accomplish certain things that are quite incredible, unfortunately if you think about it, you see that that undermines all their earlier inability to accomplish little things or worse, it actually creates a situation that would ruin the aliens chances of success. It feels like the rules of logic applied earlier in the show are put on hold to allow a suitably dramatic event to occur.

To be a little fair, a second season may have cleared up the Judeo-Christian mythology elements but it wouldn't have been able to make up for the kak-handed script-writing. Apparently viewer ratings for the first season dropped to such a low level towards the end of the show that the show was cancelled before a second season could even be thought out. Upon viewing the whole season, it's easy to see why.

Is it worth watching? I give it a cautious yes - it has some good fodder for gaming. Overall it isn't "bad" but with tighter script-writing and a better eye for continuity & logic it could have been so much better. Sad to say, you're not really missing anything if you don't see it.

[Morthrai]

Obviously I don't ned to tell those here assembled that 1992's "Split Second" is pretty much first edition Dark Conspiracy in movie form. Well, just found out today that someone has finally put together a luxury edition BluRay version with tons of extras - it must be mine!

https://www.horrorsociety.com/2020/06/1 ... n-blu-ray/