Blair Witch Project (1999)
John Thompson 
Why did all the critics splooge over this crapfest?
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 64 | October 5, 2018 4:38 AM |
I enjoyed most of it. It was right for the zeitgeist.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | October 3, 2018 7:24 PM |
I thought it was great. Legitimately chilling. I was pretty freaked out by the end
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 3, 2018 7:25 PM |
It wasn't bad, but it was overhyped.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 3, 2018 7:25 PM |
WHET to Heather Donahue, btw?
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 3, 2018 7:26 PM |
They should remake it and the witch should be a nude murderous Lena Dunham stalking hipsters in the woods, leaving cheerily ominous cakes around.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 3, 2018 7:28 PM |
That sounds far scarier than the Blair Witch, R6.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 3, 2018 7:42 PM |
It was and still is good. Way ahead of it's time, too.
The last few moments of the film still creep me the fuck out.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 3, 2018 7:57 PM |
It is a dull movie and I will never forgive them for spawning the execrable "found footage" sub-genre in horror.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 3, 2018 8:00 PM |
Was very original at the time.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 3, 2018 8:03 PM |
To be fair, R9, Cannibal Holocaust preceded it with the found footage, but that's a much more obscure, less mainstream film.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 3, 2018 8:03 PM |
We do this thread every October
Datalounge hates this movie
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 3, 2018 8:08 PM |
R11 I agree, there were others before, but it seems like Blair Witch kicked off the trend for the aughts through present.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 3, 2018 8:08 PM |
It was the first movie to successfully use online marketing to promote it.
I went to school with Mike.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 3, 2018 8:09 PM |
I love it. Found it terrifying and the marketing was genius. Was never gonna be a movie for the masses, the masses saw it hence why so many call it crap and overrated.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 3, 2018 8:12 PM |
The first big "found footage" movie. It was original and people enjoyed it. I liked the night scenes that were so dark the theater was nearly pitch-black for minutes at a time.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 3, 2018 8:14 PM |
It broke new ground. I remember waiting on a very long line for tickets to see it at the Angelika. We were super excited to see it because of the marketing and the vibe in the theater was very charged.
I liked it because it was genuinely scary (to me) without any violence or gore or monsters. The air of menace is far more effective, IMO.
See also: Haneke, Michael.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 3, 2018 8:16 PM |
Heather Donahue supposedly took her BWP earnings and bought a farm in Virginia with a million animals on it, R5, and is blissfully retired from show bidness.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 3, 2018 8:20 PM |
J'adore this film (and I'm pretty picky when it comes to horror). I think the scariest scene happens before they even go into the forest, when that creepy-looking woman tells them how she saw the witch when she was little. I'll never forget that woman's face.
Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I go for a walk in the nearby forest and I recently started thinking about this film while doing that - I got out of there as fast as I could. Dark forest at 2AM and memories of this film don't go together very well!
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 3, 2018 8:29 PM |
[quote]Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I go for a walk in the nearby forest
Why would you do that??
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 3, 2018 8:33 PM |
I was ten when it came out, so I didn't see it in theaters, but I remember the older kids in school talking about it as if it were real. In hindsight, I'm not sure if they genuinely thought it was real because I know some people believed so at the time, or if they were just perpetuating the myth to creep us out, but it fucking worked. We were all in a van driving home from Disneyland at night, and I remember looking out the window at the hills and being deeply creeped out.
I didn't see the film 'til way later. Like... maybe around the time Paranormal Activity came out and I was way older and into horror films. It still managed to creep me out. I think R17 sums it up most astutely. It's got an undeniable atmosphere that, if you buy into it, can make for a chilling experience. I understand the people who were bored by it, but it worked for me.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 3, 2018 8:36 PM |
Good lord. I remember seeing this movie when I was 18 in a dumpy movie theater in Wildwood NJ with my parents and younger brother on a rainy day during our beach vacation. We all walked out of the theater like “WTF was that?!”
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 3, 2018 8:38 PM |
It depends on whether or not you can get into the story. Being lost in the woods, hungry, cold, with someone outside of your vision stalking you is pretty frightening if you can get into it all.
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 3, 2018 8:38 PM |
R20 Dunno, I find it relaxing. It's very hypnotic walking around in total dark while listening to music and seeing nothing but starry sky and outlines of treetops above you. But yeah, once in a while you start thinking about scary stuff and it's everything but relaxing when that happens.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 3, 2018 8:43 PM |
I got so sick of those other two guys constantly yelling at poor Heather. It just became annoying. Not scary AT ALL.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 3, 2018 8:46 PM |
One of the guys in this film, Joshua Leonard I believe, is married to Allison Pill. He was also in that film Humpday with Mark Duplass.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 3, 2018 8:48 PM |
I didn't see it, but a few of my friends did opening weekend (I was in high school). They seriously thought it was real, which added to the creep factor. Looking back, they realized how stupid that was but in the moment? Freaky.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | October 3, 2018 8:48 PM |
Loved it. A true accomplishment for a bunch of film school guys. Was proud of them. May be the last true original I've seen in a theatre and it was almost 20 years ago.
Should have won a Sound Design Oscar for sure. That's where the scares came from (expertly).
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 3, 2018 8:48 PM |
Horrible acting by everyone but Heather. And it got really repetitive. And an Oscar for Sound Design? Jesus fucking christ.
| by Anonymous | reply 29 | October 3, 2018 8:51 PM |
R25 Are you kidding?
If I was lost in the woods for days and freaked out by a stalker and this bitch felt the need to film the whole thing I throw the camera in a river
| by Anonymous | reply 30 | October 3, 2018 8:52 PM |
If anyone wants to go out walking in the woods at night, October's the month. There's two meteor showers, first one peaks on the 8th with a new moon, and the 2nd one's around the 20th.
| by Anonymous | reply 31 | October 3, 2018 8:56 PM |
R30 - I found their yelling and ganging up on her to be downright misogynistic. What a coupla mean pussies.
| by Anonymous | reply 32 | October 3, 2018 8:57 PM |
Most of it's pretty dull, but that final scene is legit terrifying.
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 33 | October 3, 2018 9:04 PM |
R32 You really be angry at her though?
| by Anonymous | reply 35 | October 3, 2018 9:04 PM |
R35 - No, I wouldn't be angry with her. They both came voluntarily. It's not her fault they encountered a witch. Those guys were useless in helping the situation. Only Heather had some balls.
| by Anonymous | reply 36 | October 3, 2018 9:07 PM |
But why continue to film it R36??
| by Anonymous | reply 37 | October 3, 2018 9:11 PM |
R31, I would love to go forest walking at night but am a bit afraid of wild animals. Maybe there is a Meet Up group for this.
| by Anonymous | reply 38 | October 3, 2018 9:16 PM |
I tried to watch this once but the video was so bouncy and jumpy that it nearly gave me motion sickness. I had to turn it off. Looked totally boring.
| by Anonymous | reply 39 | October 3, 2018 9:16 PM |
I went to see it expecting something special. I was very underwhelmed. And the jerky camera made me nauseated. By the way, the "found footage" plot was ripped off from "Cannibal Holocaust", a very graphic horror movie that was banned in some countries because of its explicit scenes.
Some idiots actually thought "The Blair Witch Project" was REAL. Of course it wasn't. It wasn't real. Just very lame and boring.
| by Anonymous | reply 40 | October 3, 2018 9:17 PM |
R37 - It's what they were hired to do.
| by Anonymous | reply 41 | October 3, 2018 9:17 PM |
Not so uncommon with frequent plots. Young people foolishly separate and get picked-off or disappear one by one, absent no heroic survivors that kill or neutralize the evil entity. A big difference, the audience doesn't get to see the witch or depictions of bloody gore.
| by Anonymous | reply 43 | October 3, 2018 9:21 PM |
So has anyone seen the sequels? Are they really as bad as people say?
| by Anonymous | reply 44 | October 3, 2018 9:22 PM |
There should have been some homoerotic tension between the two male characters to keep it interesting.
| by Anonymous | reply 45 | October 3, 2018 9:25 PM |
R17. I saw it at angelika also. Remember the cheesy foam ore displays with the witch-figure-sticks? Like a high school project.
| by Anonymous | reply 46 | October 3, 2018 9:47 PM |
The Film was way ahead of its time with its utterly convincing, pre-opening promo campaign. I found it chilling because it was such an immersive experience and the terror appeared genuine. The sense of dread and the way the Characters moved inexorably to their doom, made it an incredibly intense and deeply disquieting experience. One caveat, the wholly unnecessary ‘tooth’ scene, apart from this momentary blip, BWP is a masterclass in cinemas ability to stimulate the imagination via showing less but hinting at more. Jacques Tourneur’s classic The Night of the Demon also suffered by showing the Demon when our imaginations were in overdrive so the final image was superfluous.
| by Anonymous | reply 47 | October 3, 2018 10:00 PM |
It had a lot of buzz and chatter about it prior to it’s release. Easy to see why it did well.
| by Anonymous | reply 48 | October 3, 2018 10:07 PM |
Paranormal Activity was the last horror film to have a similar impact.
| by Anonymous | reply 49 | October 3, 2018 10:10 PM |
i'm a scaredy cat, i watched this movie when it came out with the huge publicity and i remember NOTHING about it. NOT.ONE.SCENE. I GUESS IT WAS SHIT.
| by Anonymous | reply 50 | October 3, 2018 10:27 PM |
A different take on the movie:
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 51 | October 3, 2018 10:43 PM |
R44, I saw BW2. It was stoooopid.
I’ll admit it was a little bit scary. But stupid.
| by Anonymous | reply 52 | October 3, 2018 11:07 PM |
It's unbelievably overrated. And that famous scene where her runny nose is right up to the camera and she's blubbering like an idiot made the audience I saw it with start laughing.
| by Anonymous | reply 53 | October 3, 2018 11:13 PM |
Blair Witch (2016) is pretty terrifying in the last 30-40 minutes!
| by Anonymous | reply 54 | October 3, 2018 11:15 PM |
Heather hasn't acted since 2008.
Both Mike and Josh have frequent acting jobs. Mike is in an episode of the new FBI series.
| by Anonymous | reply 55 | October 3, 2018 11:20 PM |
I found the movie unnerving. I watched an advanced screener version in my home at midnight, and two thirds of the way through suddenly thought, “Why am I stupid enough to live ALONE???”
I finished watching it in the morning, because I didn’t want to have nightmares.
| by Anonymous | reply 57 | October 3, 2018 11:26 PM |
[quote]R20 Why would you do that??
Offsite Link| by Anonymous | reply 58 | October 3, 2018 11:28 PM |
I just watched the end clip and I still don't know what happened. I didn't see anything. What in the wolrd did I miss?
and to this guy
[quote] Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I go for a walk in the nearby forest
You're very brave - nuts but very brave.
| by Anonymous | reply 60 | October 4, 2018 1:02 AM |
Blair Witch was one big tease.
Stupid.fucking.movie.
| by Anonymous | reply 61 | October 4, 2018 1:25 AM |
Watched it again today prompted by this thread and still love it. And anyone who thinks that's bad acting does not get what's involved; I loved that they'd find notes every morning about had to happen or be covered and went from there. Very talented (but got typecast by its success, Heather in particular who hated that she used her real name, a big mistake).
Even the townspeople at the beginning do a great job especially the creepy Mary woman (as mentioned above) and the cool lady with the baby. It's a great film.
| by Anonymous | reply 62 | October 5, 2018 4:24 AM |
(Just think of all that footage yet edited so precisely that it moves like gangbusters. Not a wasted frame or lull, it just builds and builds more. Talented filmmakers and on $25,000 all in).
| by Anonymous | reply 63 | October 5, 2018 4:28 AM |
[quote]Cannibal Holocaust preceded it with the found footage, but that's a much more obscure, less mainstream film.
Not just Cannibal Holocaust. In1992, there was a cult movie, Man Bites Dog, which I'm 100% sure directly inspired this movie. I liked BWP a lot but it kind of annoyed me how it got so much acclaim for being so "groundbreaking".
A little trivia: the first true found footage film wasn't a horror. It was a comedy called David Holzman's Diary.
| by Anonymous | reply 64 | October 5, 2018 4:38 AM |
