Five films that dig into conspiracy theories

We’re in a golden age of galaxy-brained nuttery. Conspiracy theories abound, from Jewish space lasers setting California on fire to satanic pizza parlors where children are available as toppings.

There has never been a better time to sell tinfoil hats, but it’s also terrifying, as we saw during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Here are five films that help make sense of the nonsense. They poke fun, prod at the truth and, at times, seek to understand the people who fall prey to ridiculous and dangerous ideas.

‘Operation Avalanche’ (2016)

The granddaddy of all American conspiracy theories is that the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing was faked, with my personal favorite variation being that director Stanley Kubrick was involved. This theory has been more or less overshadowed by the resurgence of flat-earthers, but it’s still compelling enough for the guerrilla film “Operation Avalanche” to get made. The movie follows three CIA agents who infiltrate NASA looking for a Russian spy but eventually discover the secret plans to fake the moon shot. What follows is a pretty by-the-numbers political thriller.

Where the movie achieves absolute greatness is in the near-illegal way that it was filmed. Director and star Matt Johnson managed to shoot some scenes at NASA by lying to officials that he was making a documentary about how the space program operated in the 1960s. NASA granted them permission, and only some relatively recent changes to fair use laws kept the project from ending up in court.

The resulting film is rough and rambling, but it’s a surprisingly effective adventure in conspiracy theories. Johnson has gone out of his way in numerous interviews to make sure no one thinks he actually believes the moon landing was faked.

Watch it: Available to stream on Amazon Prime Video.

[embedded content]

‘Dark Dungeons’ (2014)

QAnon’s obsession with dark cabals is nothing new. In the 1980s, people were convinced that playing “Dungeons & Dragons” was going to entice children to the dark side. The whole thing came to a head when Christian cartoonist Jack Chick published one of his most famous tracts about the urban legend, “Dark Dungeons.” Enter writer J. R. Ralls, who won $1,000 in the lottery and decided to ask Chick if he could make a movie based on the comic. Chick surprisingly said yes, and one of the greatest piss-takes of a short film was born.

“Dark Dungeons” is every conservative parents’ nightmare come to life. Innocent kids are drawn into a role-playing game group and slowly corrupted into murder and Cthulhu worship. The sets are delightfully gothic, and it’s amazing they ever existed at all considering that Tracy Hyland as the cartoonishly evil Mistress Frost eats every inch of scenery. At times, it blurs the line between satire and just a really good example of weird ultra-religious filmmaking, but if you’re in on the joke, it’s a gas.

Watch it: Available to purchase for $2.50 at DarkDungeonsTheMovie.com.

[embedded content]

‘South Park: Mystery of the Urinal Deuce’ (2006)

“South Park” is a very mixed bag when it comes to commenting on social issues (just see their recent QAnon special), but occasionally they absolutely nail it. One of those episodes is “Mystery of the Urinal Deuce,” where Cartman descends into increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories, tying an incident at their school where someone defecated in a urinal to the 9/11 attacks. The conspiracy gets deeper and deeper, with the George W. Bush administration becoming involved in the web of dookie-based deceit.

Look, it’s a 30-minute poop joke, but the payoff is the ending when rationality finally takes over. Cartman’s rantings about odd number coincidences and hidden faces in the smoke from the towers accurately re-creates that particular madness after the attacks. The episode reminds viewers that the most likely culprits of 9/11 were the people who said they carried out the attacks and left a pretty verifiable trail to follow. If you ever wanted to explain the concept of the Gordian knot to someone, make them watch this. As a bonus, they will learn a whole load (heh) of new phrases to describe going to the bathroom.

Watch it: Available to stream on HBO Max.

[embedded content]

‘The Men Who Stare at Goats’ (2009)

Of course, one of the reasons that conspiracy theories attract so many people is that powerful forces often pull shady shenanigans behind the scenes. The infamous “Business Plot,” in which wealthy American financiers allegedly attempted a fascist overthrow of the Franklin Roosevelt White House, is one good example, and the American government itself is no stranger to bizarre plans to further its own interest.

George Clooney’s “The Men Who Stare at Goats” (based on the book by Jon Ronson) is a dark comedy looking at some of the more esoteric goofiness that Uncle Sam has tried. These include a crack team of “Jedi Warriors” led by Clooney that could supposedly stop hearts with psychic powers and walk through walls.

Believe it or not, much of this nonsense was actually based off real government documents like the First Earth Battalion Operations Manual (which aimed to create super-soldier wizards) and the MK-Ultra project (which involved the CIA dosing people with LSD without their consent — to attempt mind control). Sometimes there really is a conspiracy, but it’s usually even more ridiculous when it’s true.

Watch it: Available to stream on HBO Max.

[embedded content]

‘In Search of a Flat Earth’ (2020)

A lot of YouTube personalities have created videos about believers in the flat Earth, but the person who did it with the most care and heart is Dan Olson, host of the “Folding Ideas” YouTube channel.

It starts small, critiquing a flat-Earth video that claims the shoreline of Alberta’s Lake Minnewanka proves that there is no curvature of the Earth. Olson lives near enough to the lake that he was able to drive out and re-create the experiment, showing that it was flawed. That’s just the start. Using a laid-back approach with a lot of shots of the gorgeous Canadian landscape, Olson slowly links the emergence of flat-Earth beliefs to their religious foundations. He explains that the ideas that became the flat-Earth culture-sphere are more about a need to feel special in the universe.

The connections between this need for emotional answers, which some people feel science and truth are denying them, and the rise of QAnon-style violent conspiracies is something that often gets overlooked. Olson’s approach to laying it all out is gentle and scholarly, while never shying away from the fact that flat-earthers are often also believers in more harmful things, such as denying the efficacy of masks in preventing transmission of COVID-19.

It’s a far more useful take than something like HBO’s “Q: Into the Storm,” which unfortunately is a little too beholden to both-sides-ism to be an effective extremist examination. Olson still pokes fun because it is very hard not to do that with so silly a concept, but he also validates the vulnerable emotional states of people who fall into the hole while not forgiving them the harm they do. It’s arguably the best thing that happened on YouTube in this past terrible year when conspiracy theorists literally tried to kill the nation.

Watch it: Available to stream “Folding Ideas” YouTube channel.

[embedded content]

Related articles

Review: ‘South ParQ Vaccination Special’ is ugly, angry and a total waste of time

Review: Are we living in a simulation? ‘A Glitch in the Matrix’ attempts to answer that question

Review: HBO docuseries takes viewers down the QAnon rabbit hole

*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from SF Chronicle Datebook can be found here ***