Beyond the Black Rainbow
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Beyond the Black Rainbow is a 2010 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by Panos Cosmatos in his feature film debut. It stars Michael Rogers and Eva Allan.
Plot
In the 1960s, Mercurio Arboria founded the Arboria Institute, a New Age research facility dedicated to finding a reconciliation between science and spirituality, allowing humans to move into a new age of perpetual happiness. In the 1980s, Arboria's work has been taken over by his protégé, Dr. Barry Nyle. Outwardly a charming, handsome scientist, Nyle is a psychopath who has been keeping Elena, a young girl, captive in a hospital beneath the institute. Elena only communicates through telepathy and demonstrates psychic capabilities, which Nyle suppresses using a glowing, prismatic device.
In an effort to understand Elena's abilities, Nyle subjects her to daily interrogations, during which Elena demands to see her father. By night, Elena is kept in a room with a television. Nyle spends his nights at home with his wife, a docile woman who exists in a state of constant stupor, yet seems to genuinely care for Nyle despite his lack of tenderness towards her. Nyle takes significant quantities of prescription medication and disguises his complete lack of hair and his black irises with an elaborate wig and contact lenses.
Attempting to elicit an emotional response from Elena, Nyle speaks about her dead mother, whom he calls "beautiful" and "desirable". He hints that a photo of her might be in Elena's room, which she later discovers under her bed.
That evening, Elena's nurse Margo discovers Nyle's case notes on Elena in a wall cavity, finding strange symbols and images that indicate Nyle's violent sexual obsession with Elena. Fearful of what the notes contain, Margo puts them back. Afterward, Nyle receives a mysterious phone call and rushes back to the Institute where he discovers ash from Margo's cigarette near the case notes. Nyle takes a psychedelic drug to calm himself.
Suspicious of Margo, Nyle informs her that Elena has smuggled contraband into her room. When Margo attempts to forcibly take the photograph from Elena, Elena kills her by telekinetically crushing her head. Nyle, monitoring Elena's actions, is intrigued by this blatant display of psychic ability and pleased at Margo's death. He allows Elena to leave her cell and activates the prism, causing her to convulse and pass out. While unconscious, Elena is approached by an entity in a red spacesuit (identified as a "Sentionaut"), who injects her with a syringe before walking off.
Nyle goes to see Arboria at the institute. Displaying signs of senility and drug addiction, Arboria does not acknowledge Nyle's psychosis, regarding him as his best protégé. A flashback to 1966 reveals that Elena's mother was Arboria's wife Anna, who was present when Arboria led a young Nyle through a procedure meant to allow him to achieve transcendence. As a part of the procedure, Nyle was submerged in a vat of black liquid and experienced otherworldly, hellish visions. Nyle emerged insane and killed Anna. Unperturbed, Arboria submerged the infant Elena in the black liquid. Back in the present, Nyle murders Arboria by administering a fatal drug overdose.
Nyle returns home, presenting himself to his wife without his wig or contacts, and tries to convey his inner pain before crushing her head. Meanwhile, Elena escapes from the Aboria Institute. She encounters a Sentionaut who, instead of capturing Elena, removes its mask to reveal a mutated, childlike face. Nyle, having dissolved his final contact to the material world, collects a ceremonial dagger he calls "The Devil's Tear-Drop" and follows Elena. While chasing her through the woods surrounding the institute, he encounters a pair of "heshers," whom he kills after insisting one of them had sex with Elena.
Nyle eventually corners Elena in a clearing and repeatedly implores her to come to him. Elena uses her psychic abilities to keep Nyle's feet planted on the ground and as he tries to run, Nyle flings his head against a rock, killing him. Free of her captor, Elena follows the light generated by a television set to a nearby town.
Cast
