Detective Frank Bumstead [Dark City, 1998]

Dark city plot

John Murdoch awakens in a hotel bathtub, amnesiac, and receives a call from Dr. Daniel Schreber, who warns him to flee from pale, trenchcoat-clad aliens called the Strangers. Discovering a ritualistically murdered woman and a bloody knife, Murdoch escapes as the Strangers arrive. Inspector Frank Bumstead investigates the killings, suspecting Murdoch, but later questions the city’s reality. The Strangers, extraterrestrial hive-mind entities inhabiting human corpses, manipulate the city’s architecture and inhabitants’ memories nightly via “tuning.” Murdoch, an anomaly, instinctively uses tuning to evade them. Schreber reveals the Strangers seek to study human individuality to save their dying race, but Murdoch’s unplanned awakening disrupted their latest experiment. Murdoch’s quest to find Shell Beach—a mythical coastal town—leads him and Bumstead to a wall revealing outer space, exposing the city as a deep-space habitat. A fight ensues: Bumstead dies, and Murdoch is captured. Schreber, defying the Strangers, injects Murdoch with knowledge of their machines, amplifying his tuning powers. Murdoch battles the Strangers, defeating their leader, Mr. Book. Learning Emma’s memories are irreversibly altered, Murdoch reshapes the habitat, creating Shell Beach. He confronts dying Stranger Mr. Hand, declaring humanity’s essence lies not in memories but the mind. Rotating the habitat toward sunlight, Murdoch steps outside, meeting Anna (formerly Emma), now with new memories. They walk toward Shell Beach, embracing a new beginning. Key elements retained: Murdoch’s amnesia, the Strangers’ experiments, tuning, Schreber’s betrayal, Shell Beach’s revelation, and the existential climax. Redundant details (e.g., Mr. Hand’s role, specific chase scenes) are streamlined for brevity.

Detective Bumstead is the type of person who likes everything neat and tidy. He is a lonely man. With his new case, Bumstead is forced to face the unknown, and his neat and tidy world is shattered. He meets Murdock, a seemingly mad man whom he somehow knows is not lying about killing those women, and is confronted with his old friend's newfound madness.