I've been struggling to decide whether or not to watch the latest movie when this popped up on my recommended videos and it sort of blew my mind:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YASj8IuQ_Yw
It's a fan theory about the first movie that alleges that there's nothing supernatural going on, Mike and Josh are simply luring Heather into the woods to murder her (https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/4qumns/a_theory_about_the_blair_witch_project_which/). Spoiler: they're 100% successful.
I have a confession to make. I love the Blair Witch movies. Yes, even the crap second one.
The first one was the quintessential found footage film. I loved it. The second one got a lot of flak for taking it in a completely different direction and generally being terrible in a variety of ways. I kinda like it, though. It was just bad enough to be extremely entertaining. The characters get swept up in fan obsession and come down with some sort of group psychosis - individual and shared hallucinations, misremembering, etc. Trying to piece together what actually happens and what's just in their heads is most the charm of the film.
As far as I can gather, there's nothing supernatural going on there, either. Most of the characters are damaged goods from the start and it's hard to tell who got the psychosis ball rolling. Tristan, Erica, and Kim all play roles ramping up the creepy factor, but Tristan stands out as the main corrupting influence. From there on out, the characters quickly lose contact with reality and go on a murderspree which is then forgotten/misremembered until they're confronted with the grisly truth by the authorities.
So the bottom line is that people, not witches, are the real villain here. All the witch stuff is either misdirection or scapegoating. Hell, the second film is a literal witch-hunt - ostensibly against the Blair witch but actually against one of their own.
I'm hoping that the third one, even if it doesn't wow audiences, will hopefully be a guilty pleasure and follow the same misanthropic theme as the first two. Anyone seen it yet?
I like to watch these movies where I can add dialog.
Thanks for the warning.
That would be at home, not in a theater.
I like the first one, but mostly because I was charmed by the idea of kids making a movie and actually selling it to Hollywood. While it was low budget, it was about as chilling as the stuff put out by the professionals, maybe even a bit more. The acting, considering it was a bunch of friends who decided to be actors, wasn't bad. It was rough around the edges, for sure, but considering that it was inexperienced kids, they certainly did well enough, and they succeeded in giving me the creeps. I've seen worse acting using professionals in a Hollywood movie or two.
I'm pretty sure I saw the second one, but I think I was pretty disappointed. I'd be willing to watch it again to confirm that memory, or not confirm it. The third one didn't get much affection from the reviews I read, but critic reviews are always hit and miss for me, but what I did read, although it didn't put it in my words, kind of upheld what I would have suspected: There will never be another Blair Witch Movie phenomena like the original. It was a one of a kind, and becoming a Hollywood franchise will never be as magical a happening as the original endeavor.
I won't bother with the one in the theaters, but I'll surely rent the DVD.
I can't watch scary movies. Even the shitty ones, so I won't be a good gauge for it. I have heard from a few of my friends that they really enjoyed it though. Although, you know my stance on remakes. Don't. do. it.... unless maybe until 50 years later. Or you're remaking "Hulk"
Quote from: PickelledEggs on September 18, 2016, 02:59:56 PM
I can't watch scary movies. Even the shitty ones, so I won't be a good gauge for it. I have heard from a few of my friends that they really enjoyed it though. Although, you know my stance on remakes. Don't. do. it.... unless maybe until 50 years later. Or you're remaking "Hulk"
Saying remakes shouldn't be done is just wrong. You can't judge a movie that hasn't been made yet.
Quote from: SGOS on September 18, 2016, 01:14:13 PMI like the first one, but mostly because I was charmed by the idea of kids making a movie and actually selling it to Hollywood. While it was low budget, it was about as chilling as the stuff put out by the professionals, maybe even a bit more. The acting, considering it was a bunch of friends who decided to be actors, wasn't bad. It was rough around the edges, for sure, but considering that it was inexperienced kids, they certainly did well enough, and they succeeded in giving me the creeps.
I just rewatched the first one to make sure I'm looking at this through nostalgia.
I thought the film was amazing when I first saw it. I liked the found footage premise. I thought it was great how an extremely low-budget film could compete with the big-budget titles - that you didn't have to have big actors or amazing special effects to tell an interesting story. I liked its internet marketing. I liked how the ending was intentionally ambiguous.
This time around, it was still pretty good, though the novelty has worn off. I was kinda bored initially with the film, but it got better and better as tensions flared. One thing it had going for it is that the acting was, for the most part, really good. It didn't feel like I was watching actors reading from a script. It felt like I was watching actual students lost in the woods. It felt genuine. In our current age of green screens and superstars, there's a lesson to be learned in following a simple concept with modest resources and putting your own spin on it.
The "lost in the woods" thing really got on my nerves. I took a few survival classes in 1969 and I could have been out of there in six hours, even at night. I understand that's not the usual thing, but it ragged on me.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 18, 2016, 05:29:02 PM
The "lost in the woods" thing really got on my nerves. I took a few survival classes in 1969 and I could have been out of there in six hours, even at night. I understand that's not the usual thing, but it ragged on me.
ah but you were in the woods in realsverse, a place there witches and wizards don't exist, where as the kids in the movie were in movieverse, a place where they do exist, along with Jessica rabbit.
Quote from: Munch on September 18, 2016, 05:47:46 PM
ah but you were in the woods in realsverse, a place there witches and wizards don't exist, where as the kids in the movie were in movieverse, a place where they do exist, along with Jessica rabbit.
Sorry, but I had LOTR with me every time.
Quote from: Gawdzilla Sama on September 18, 2016, 05:29:02 PMThe "lost in the woods" thing really got on my nerves. I took a few survival classes in 1969 and I could have been out of there in six hours, even at night. I understand that's not the usual thing, but it ragged on me.
Yeah, a character even remarks how difficult it is to get lost in America, but somehow they still managed it. They even brought a book entitled "how to stay alive in the woods" along with a map and compass and had the good sense to follow running water. It didn't work. It could've been a combination of fatigue and mental fog setting in or it could have been deliberately poor pathfinding.
I think the woods are a great scary locale. You're alone and vulnerable. There are bizarre noises, especially at night. The trees provide hiding locations - someone or something can hide behind the trees and watch you. (Slenderman is frequently spotted practically blending in with trees) Anything can happen there and no one's coming to your rescue.
I couldn't help but think that they were in the woods for the first time. And the stolen camera gear was an issue for me.
I don't know if I read this into the situation, and it was a few years ago, but I felt quite certain that the size of the woods didn't matter. They could have gotten lost forever in five acre brush patch, because a witch was working her spell trap. Getting lost and finding themselves in the same places over and over again was part of what happens when you dare enter a forest to hunt a witch. She gets in your mind and confuses you, makes you walk in circles thinking you are in vast uninhabited forest that harkens back to 17th Century New England, when witches had extraordinary powers. Such patches of forest evil still exist scattered about the Northeast. Eventually she lures you into its vortex where she hides in waiting, and that's when she unleashes her most hideous evil, and you are never seen again.
I would love to watch it in the theater.
Quote from: PickelledEggs on September 18, 2016, 02:59:56 PM
I can't watch scary movies. Even the shitty ones, so I won't be a good gauge for it. I have heard from a few of my friends that they really enjoyed it though. Although, you know my stance on remakes. Don't. do. it.... unless maybe until 50 years later. Or you're remaking "Hulk"
Or the Haunting.
Quote from: huit on December 13, 2016, 12:05:10 AM
I would love to watch it in the theater.
It was low budget, props fashioned out of bundles of sticks, and actors with no previous experience. But it WAS creepy. Really creepy.
Quote from: SGOS on December 13, 2016, 09:23:18 AMIt was low budget, props fashioned out of bundles of sticks, and actors with no previous experience. But it WAS creepy. Really creepy.
I think most of it was the fact that it was more covert than overt. In the first Blair Witch, a monster didn't jump out at you. You had some hikers coming across creepy stuff - strange noises at night, clearly human-made stick men and piles of rocks despite them never encountering other people - while they keep talking about that area's dark history. It psychologically primes you for fear and paranoia. It turns your imagination against you, and most people are way better at scaring themselves than other people. The first Blair Witch ran on the Nothing Is Scarier trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NothingIsScarier) and it really worked for them.
Quote from: SGOS on December 13, 2016, 09:23:18 AM
It was low budget, props fashioned out of bundles of sticks, and actors with no previous experience. But it WAS creepy. Really creepy.
it was in a time when the internet wasn't as mainstream as it is now and so they could get away with making up things in advertising for films they can't do today. Thats what gave the movie its hype, marketed as something real found footage, and a lot of young people thought the hype must be true
The advantage to the digital age is also the disadvantage to building such hype around these things.
Iirc, it was one of the first movies to try to viral internet marketing. Its novelty might've played a big part of its success.
This picture reminds me of Blair Witch, for some reason:
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/9d/55/c1/9d55c176761c0d7df6a13c2413cc13e9.jpg)