The Conspiracy (2012 film)

The Conspiracy is a 2012 Canadian found footage conspiracy thriller horror film film about two filmmakers making a documentary about conspiracy theories that takes a horrific turn after they uncover an ancient and dangerous secret society.
 * Directed and written by Christopher MacBride.

We are slaves. (taglines)

Terrance

 * Which one of us is really crazy?

Ron

 * The internet may be a threat to those in charge but it's also their greatest weapon. Every single thing you do on the internet is monitored: every e-mail you send, every website you visit, every picture you look at on your wife's Facebook - all of it. And George Orwell predicted that Big Brother would be watching us one day, but what he didn't predict is that we'd create Big Brother ourselves and then willingly give ourselves over to it.

Nicole Higgins

 * You see, the thing about the belief in conspiracy theories is that you can't disprove them. You can't prove that there aren't secret masters trying to control and manipulate us.

Dialogue

 * Terrance: [On a bullhorn out in public] We are human beings! We're not symptoms of overpopulation for you to deal with! We're not cannon fodder for your wars! We will fight for our freedom because we know what freedom feels like, and this is not it! This is not it! [In interview] People think they're free, but they're not. We've been given the illusion of freedom, the illusion of choice. It wasn't so much conspiracy theories themselves, as it was the people who believe in them that attracted me. You know, it really is a fascinating societal phenomenon, and it's one that we have to try to understand in order to dispel it. We made a mistake. We made a huge mistake. That's the genius of these rulers, that they've created this society that's conditioned to deny what's right in front of its eyes.
 * Jim: Which is what?
 * Terrance: That we're slaves.


 * Jim: Hey, Firefly, this is T-Rex.
 * Terrance: How you doin'? This is, uh... This is what I call The War Room, where I put up anything I read, any information I find, any event that occurs, any legislation that gets passed, I put up here. Okay, anything that I find to be significant. Let's look at some recent significant events from our friends, the Government of the United States of America. '06, the Military Commissions Act passes, which allows U. S. citizens to be detained in undisclosed locations indefinitely. Boom! And people always ask, how do I know that there's this huge conspiracy going on? If these all-powerful rulers are all-powerful, how come they let me stumble onto this information? FEMA conducts training exercises for clergymen on how they can help the government quell dissent in the case of the enactment of martial law. Boom! The answer's simple. I mean, it's easy to do the research that I did to find out the things that I did. It's easy to turn you into me, but you don't want to be me. '09, Bill H. R. 645 authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to set up a network of FEMA camps to intern U. S. citizens in the case of a national emergency. Right? You can justify them separately for all kinds of reasons, but when you connect them all up, the pattern emerges.


 * Ron: You can see where it's leading. Well, it was actually this guy who first discovered Terrance. Um... I was sent a clip, uh, you know, to some random stupid thing.
 * [An internet video of Terrance on a bullhorn in public at downtown passerbys]
 * Terrance: Please do not slow down! Continue scurrying to your places of work! Continue consuming! Hey, hey! You are not people! You are sheeple! Baa! Baa! They are watching you! They are monitoring you! Oh, you're listening to me! That must mean you are a psychopath! Slaves! Slaves! Slaves! Oh, by the way, they're building camps for when the shhhh... hits the fan! Baa!
 * Ron: It wasn't so much the video that fascinated me, as much as it was the comments. It wasn't people making fun of him. It was people agreeing with him. Like, a lot of people. There's this entire group of people online, this underground that believes the world is controlled by secret forces.


 * Patrick: If you're searching keywords, if you're looking up hot material, if you're scouring Internet conspiracy sites, definitely, you're of an interest.
 * Ron: We hear a lot of people talk about "they. " Who are "they"?
 * Passerby 1: The Illuminati.
 * Passerby 2: Bohemian Grove.
 * Passerby 3: The Council on Foreign Relations.
 * Passerby 4: Halliburton.
 * Passerby 5: The Carlyle Group.
 * Passerby 6: Military-industrial complex.
 * Passerby 7: Rothschild.
 * Passerby 8: Rockefeller.
 * Passerby 9: WTO.
 * Passerby 10: CIA.
 * Passerby 11: NSA.
 * Passerby 12: MI6.
 * Passerby 13: The IMF.
 * Passerby 14: World Bank.
 * Patrick: In my opinion, the Bilderberg Group.
 * Ron: How do you handle all of this information? What does one person do with it all?
 * Patrick: What I always tell my friends online is, it's not enough to stay within our group, to discuss these issues only within our own circles. We have to go out into the world. We have to break into other people's circles, uh, let others know the truth by whatever means necessary.


 * Ron: What is it that really happens at these things? You wrote, um, "The drinking and deal-making "all ends at midnight when the attendees participate in the ritual hunting and slaughter of the bull." What's that about?
 * Mark: The ritual. The ritual is based on an ancient and highly secret set of beliefs.
 * Ron: Which are what?
 * Mark: The worship of Mithras. The cult of Mithras was both an association and a religious cult focused on the worship of this god, Mithras. Mithras was a deity that first appeared in Persia over 4,000 years ago. Now, according to the myth, he was born on the 25th of December. He died and was resurrected three days later. Bear in mind, this was 2,000 years before the birth of Christ. Many scholars believe that this is the basis of Christianity. Mithraic caves, where they secretly worshipped, have been discovered throughout the former Roman Empire from, um, Scotland to Russia, from the Sahara Desert to the heart of India. This was essentially the world's first truly secret society. So, yes, there probably were quite a few Mithraists who had the ear of quite powerful people. I don't know about, uh, modern secret societies with wide agendas. Again, if I did, I wouldn't tell you. The depiction of Mithras hunting and killing the bull is to the Mithraics what the Crucifixion was to the Christians. It is the central image of their belief system. Would you like to see the Mithraic secret handshake? Just do what I do. Follow my movements exactly, okay? [Holds out hand peculiarly bent]
 * Ron: Okay. It's a regular handshake.
 * Mark: The custom that we have of shaking our friends' hands when we meet them on the street or when we seal a business deal comes directly from the secret handshake of the Mithraics. The first-ever depiction of people shaking hands in human history comes from a 4,000-year-old carving of Mithras shaking the hands of the Syrian King Antiochus. We live in a world...
 * [Archival footage of stock market trader] We're going to turn the bull loose!
 * Mark: ...that has been built and guided by cultural forces that exist behind those we see in the forefront.

Cast

 * Aaron Poole - Aaron
 * James Gilbert - Jim
 * Alan Peterson - Terrance
 * Bruce Clayton - Mark Tucker
 * Roy Swanson - Murray Chance
 * Laura de Carteret - Nicole Higgins
 * Julian Richings - Green Man
 * Melanie Scrofano - Sarah