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Forum:Blair Witch Project
So like many of us this weekend, I saw the Blair Witch Project
this weekend. I thought about writing a full blown review, but
have opted against it. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I'd really
rather solicit comments on the movie. I do ask that anyone who wants
to put spoilers in their comments try to warn people before they read
anything that might spoil the movie. But what did you guys think of
it?Update: 08/02 08:34 by H :FiNaLe wrote to say that August 2nd, at 9pm Eastern, on irc.scifi.com
in #auditorium the Directors of The Blair Witch Project will be talking.
havent been that creeped out in a long time..
a great movie, esp if you do a lot of camping/hicking!
I"ve heard a few stories as to how the acting in the movie was so good. One of which was that The Blair Which Project started out as a real documentary about the Blair Witch and the crew working on the documentary were the 3 people in the movie along with 2 or 3 others(the real producer another reporter, and another filmer) THe 3 people in teh movie went into teh woods like they did in the movie, but while they were there the three crew memebers who you didn't see decided to pull a prank on them and made all those weird sound effects and actions which scared the h*ll out of the 3 crew on camera(which is why they genuinly looked scared). After the initial scare they realized that instead of finishing the documentary they could make this into a low budget horror type flick since they had such good footage of the 3 crew being scared out of their minds.
The movie was entertaining, but it was based on the plausibility of the events being real. Who the hell walks around the woods, lost, starving, cold, and...filming? I understand that they were out there for a film project, but there reaches a point (i.e. when you are certain you are lost) when filming becomes pretty unimportant. But, even assuming that the filming takes place because of the girl's particular psychosis ("My filming is all I have left" *sob sob sob*), I really had trouble accepting that anyone would continue filming inside that house.
:) Rob, go put your nose in the corner...Hemos, come over here...
But still, it was pretty creepy and fun to watch
I agree completely. About 30 minutes into the movie I thought I was gonna be sick, and I had to get up and leave for about 5 minutes. Even after I came back I had a hard time watching most shots. I guess theres no other way they could have shot it and made it look realistic, but it pretty much ruined the mindset for me since rather then thinking about the situation, all I could think about was getting out of there. On the other hand, once I had been home and got settled down and thought about it, I did get a little creeped out.
The movie was an interesting concept for a horror flick, but definately did not live up to my expectations. I normally prefer intellegence over gore, but the scariest scene in the movie was also the goriest. I think that if this had been real, it would have creeped me out in the extreme. As I know it is fiction, I really couldn't find it scary. That is, by making "ultra-real," the movie asks you IMHO to set a higher standard for suspension of disbelief. For e anyway, it didn't quite work. It actually would have, in my opinion, worked a little better with some more flashy special effects (not necessarily gory either)
Still a hell of alot more interesting than you standard horror flick though, and worth seeing. But definately not "The scariest movie of the decade"
To answer the guy who asked what movies people who didn't find BWP scary scary,: Alien, Jacob's Ladder, and more of a freaky sick feeling than scary movie, Eraserhead.
What seemed unreasonable to me was that they were so confused on how to find a way out. I mean, even without a map, they should have known the general direction that they came from. Plus, they probably had some idea of what direction major town and stuff were in.
:)
Of course, if the witch was dicking with them (and it certainly seems that way...like when they walked south all day and returned to the same place), then that's a different story
My friend saw it this weekend and said he'd need to sleep with the lights on (he lives in a heavily wooded neighborhood).
And I guess you really weren't fast enough for First Post. Mwah hah hah!!!
It is not showing anywhere near where i live (far north) but i'd love to know - as others have mentioned it.
I didn't get that last part. He got clubbed over the head I assume, but why was he upright facing the wall?
** SPOILERS **
:)
.. when his camera was dropped, Heather was still running around upstairs (looking at those symbols & flipping out). As for why he was just standing in the corner.. who knows.. total mindfuck..
:)
:)
^L!
In the bundle.. I think it was supposed to be one (several?) of Josh's teeth. I don't think she told Mike. As for why they thought he was still alive.. quite possible to knock/rip a tooth out and not die from the wounds.
Yes, Mike in the corner. He didn't get there fast.. remember, there was time
Stick figures.. I think they were just there to give us something visual to spook us. It worked!
After I watched it, I was flipped out for a couple hours.. I went online and proved to myself that it wasn't real (saw a interview with the actors on hollywood.com) and was finally able to get some sleep at 4:30 am.
When I was calmed down the next day, I did some thinking about the film and realised what an incredible impact it had. Excellent film!
Lets see the movie cost 65 grand to make.
As in video editing the audio editing cost another
35 grand. The Company that pushed the film
spent a total of 15 million dollars in advertising!
So lets see the movie cost a total of 100 grand.
The advertising 15million. it mad 28 million
first offical release.
So they made their advertising budget back and then some.
Its really no big deal. With a 100 thousand dollar budget they could have made a better quality
VIDEO presentation. It didn't have to look that bad sheesh. Its one thing to try and make it look
real but they over did the cheezy.
And the real world anology is correct.
and I hate real world. All this stupid arguing
got annoying after a while.
You want a movie that will pleasantly suprise you
and keep you entertained all the way through?
and it wasn't over hyped.
Go See LAKE PLACID.
I know its got a big crocodile. Why see it.
Its written by David Kelly and the
acting in that movie is fantastic. The best
one liners I have seen in a movie in a long long time. You will walk out wishing it was longer.
thats how good and tight the script and acting was. Funny as hell and some good chills.
Great Flick!
IMO, they should have had a few more creeps details:
"The Compass must have a spell on it!" (The three film students realize that compass is spelled. And then a cool shot of it being smashed by one of the freaked out guys.)
One of the guys should have had a knife? He could have then made a hooky spear that didn't help him at all against the witches, familiars.
Someone should have had a cell phone. They could have talked to someone until they got out of range.
You don't walk for 15 hours in a circle and not notice the position of the sun. Witches being able to conjure a complete alternate reality is not correct.
I'd give it 3/5 stars for the unique format. Maybe the fact that I don't watch "The Real World" means that I would like it, but the movie seemed awfully thin. When I compare BW to the last movie I saw, Eyes Wide Shut I can't help but comparing Kubrick to this director and realising that BW was quite weak.
Good movie, but I'll agree.. Those camera movements almost made me horq.
I thought that the movie was a big disappointment--I wasn't scared at any point during the whole film. It was an erie film at best, but definitely not scary.
However, if I hadn't known it was fake, it would have scared the sh*t out of me. And as for the video being too high res, I couldn't disagree more. I found it to be a constant annoyance throughout the film--I could clearly see the pixels in the image. But, I guess that was necessary to keep up the illusion that it was really a home video. I just wish that the film makers had waited a month or two after the wide-scale release before admitting that it was all staged.
I cant really recall being scared of a movie since ET when I was about 3. As horror movies go, I'd say BWP was pretty good.. but I can't really picture an adult being scared by a movie.
So what if it isn't true?
I saw it at the Sundance Film Festival in January, and even then they were clear about it being fake. Back when Haxan Films' web site was actually theirs (before Artisan purchased the film at Sundance after the first screening), there were discussion archives from Haxan's mail lists re: Blair Witch, and the entire thing was blown wide open months before the movie even aired. If it's honestly being made out to be true, I haven't seen any advertisements claiming so.
Give it a rest. It's an awesome movie. Whether it's fake or real, the story is cool, the filming is cool, it's creepy as hell, and it's yet another triumph of David over Goliath (I think it cost about $40,000 to make the movie. In its first day it grossed more per theater [in the theaters it opened in] than Star Wars: Phantom Yawn did. The underdog took on Hollywood's multi-million dollar "blockbusters" and has -- in a way -- won. You may not care, but I think that's pretty damn cool).
Erik Ratcliffe
Caldera Systems, Inc.
(Indie films rock...)
I didn't like the movie at all, but my main point here is that BWP is NOT the best indie film in a long while. My personal favorite indie film (and one of my favorite films persiod) has got to be Pi!! And I also just saw "Run, Lola Run" which was an EXCELLENT German indie film.
I was actually pretty impressed with the movie.. although when it ended I was like "woah, that's the end?" I was expecting alot of news coverage afterward and maybe some freaky stuff about when they found the film. But I like it.
Then I went to the website. This website was very well done in support of this flick. They made a complete mythology and gave hints of the characters lives outside of what you see in the movie. They have interviews with the investigators and the parents. They even have Heather's Journal, complete with all of the "been rotting in a duffle bag under a cabin for a year" look.
Make sure and check it out.
www.blairwitch.com
I'm from New England and had never heard of the Blair Witch before, however, I'm sure everyone has heard of the Salem Witches. In todays modern,logical and agnostic( how many people really go to church anymore) society we tend to believe there is only rational explanations for any unknown phenomena. Who lived back then and can say these women that were burned and stoned to death weren't really what is classicly known as a witch. If you believe in god, who has his clergy and worshippers here on earth, there must also be a darkside that also has clergy and worshipers with their own sick religious rituals and holidays too gruesome to even consider. There are references to witches in everything from Shakespeare to pratically half the Mother Goose stories. In fact Mother Goose herself is a type of good witch. I think there were and are REAL witches out there and we'd all be wise to not go looking for them in their creepy haunts of cemetaries and backwoods because we may just be unlucky enough to find one.
What on earth did they spend all that money on?
Yes!! I really liked the idea of no background music. Nothing to distract the senses and no hidden messages from MTV or record companies :) It was cool in some of the tenser moments to hear the theatre in TOTAL silence. Neat effect :)
The stuff in the bundle of sticks looked like Josh's teeth. It was hard to tell from the rollercoaster type filming.
Well I guess that I'm the only person who was VERY bored with this flick? I'm old enough to say that I went and saw Alien in the theaters at 9yo an THAT was scary.
Yes I know "SUPPORT IDIE" mantra, and I generally do. But I was bored from the intro, sickened from all the camera motion (should go see EWS for antidote) and not impressed. I must also say that the folks in the theater, even the vocal supporters, were mainly just creeped by the idea and not the film.
The ONE AND ONLY INTERESTING part of the experience is watching folks swear that it's all true, the kids really did disappear. . . HA!
I guess if you like this genera of horror go and rent Pacific Heights, late eighties filck focusing on disturbing human behaviour.
My theory is that Josh actually killed them. Somehow, some unseen force used him just the way it used the other man mentioned in the legend (the man who killed the 7 children). Of course, Josh somehow wasn't himself at the time.
I too think it was his teeth in the bundle. If you listen to the way his voice sounded when he was moaning and calling, it sounded as if he was trying to speak, but somehow couldn't. Just like he had had his teeth ripped out (or had done it himself).
As for Mike in the corner. It is precisely the fact that it doesn't make sense for a person to just "give up" in that situation which makes it so freakin' creepy. He was acting just like the children in the legend. One can more easily envision a child doing what he is told. But Mike was so beaten down that he was like a child. The scariest part is: what must Josh have wispered to Mike to incent him to go into the corner (especially given that Mike had heard the legend!).
Great movie!
one word - "steadicam"
It was almost unwatchable. All they had
to do was rent about 1 day on an avid and
run it through the stabilizer. It really
took away from the whole cinematic effect.
it also bothered me that even the 16mm shots
were 4:3.
i think it's really funny reading all the rumors that are being spread about what the filmmakers did to make the actors' reactions more realistic. Someone should keep a log of all the "I heard they made the actors..." stories.
For the last month or so I have been reading so much about the movie that I think I was expecting too much. I love movies I go to practically every movie that looks decent. This movie lacked the gore and special effects of some of the new big budget movies which I think was good. It was more of a movie to get on the psychological side of things. Does anyone really think that it got to them? I mean I have heard stories of people not sleeping, and people sleeping with rosaries. I left the movie not scared. However it kind of stuck with me like every once in a while I would just think about it for a minute or so. When I saw the excorcist for the 1st time that movie scared the hell out of me. I remember going to sleep with the chills after that film. I think the movie has been acclaimed for its acting. The actors were great. Although the girl got annoying at points it was still excellent. I think that new movie stigmata looks scarier! Well thats my 2 cents. I think maybe if I would have read nothing about it the movie would have been scarier. Any Linux user would have had GPS what the hell are you boyscouts talking about!
>having one stand in the corner, eyes to the
>wall. Ugh, I'm getting spooked again.
I was bored and experiencing motion sickness throught most of the movie, they started to get scary and then broke it off before any kind of pay off. Kind of like being on a date and thinking you might_go_all_the_way and then getting stoped at second base.
UNTIL THE HOUSE. The hand prints and then seeing Mike in the basement were the ultimate horrors. As the 16mm was going down you kept saying "dont go down there" and then she went there and you see Mike and its all like "UUUHH!!" What a rush. Those 10 minutes made my $6.50 worth it.
Curb
Didn't see it, have no desire to see it, will wait patiently for Just Another Fad to sink quietly into oblivion, got lots of better things to do with my time... well, you get the idea.
The movie was utterly terrible, it was an overhyped B movie. It was one of the worst films I have ever seen. Half the people in the theater left because it was so boring.
I thought I was over hyped myself. I probably would have enjoyed it more if I thought that the documentary was real. I got my wife to go thinking that the whole student thing was real. Now shes spooked and probably hates my guts.
Pathetic......Above all else it was very sad, boring and highly stupid. I think Lucas must have had somthing to do with it :)
Sorta like Linux, eh?
A much more down to earth, in a loose sense of the term if you will, movie kicks the asses of the corporate Hollywood fluff.
A much more down to earth, also loose sense, operating system kicks the asses of the corporate closed source fluff.
I'd say thats one of the reasons that Star Wars was so popular its first time around. It wasn't corporate fluff. It was a real, cool movie. It just had that down to earth, real feeling to it. "The Phantom Yawn", as it has so been called may have been a CG triumph and all, but it was so sterile and obviously marketed. And although the original Star Wars was a rather simple plot, small group of oppressed idealists take on evil and with the help of the budding jedi, blow up the evil's superweapon through a small weakness, it was still good regardless. The Phantom Yawn was a similar thing, A small group of oppressed take on their oppressors and with the help of said budding jedi, blow up their superweapon through a small weakness. And even the jedi side plots are similar. A new jedi begins to see his destiny in the Force (Anakin, Luke) and the older Jedi (Qui-Gon, old Obi-Wan) dies to fighting the evil one (Vader, Maul). And even though the plots are similar, the first Star Wars was so much more popular because of its down and dirty feel, its harsh reality sense. Just like Blair Witch and even Linux. Anyone else see where I'm going?
Am I just crazy, or just offtopic?
kaniff -- Ralph Hart Jr
"I believe Frosted Flakes is a racist term."
***POSSIBLE SPOILER***
I thought the movie was a little spooky, but those campers were retarded so it hard to feel any pity for them. After I walked a whole day and ended up at the spot I started, those woods would have been toast, literally. Break out those matches and burn baby, burn. Also, NO WAY anyone was going to stand watch by himself, especially after seeing that shit hanging from the trees. I think the best part was seeing the guy standing in the corner at the end. I can't even imaging how scared I would have to be to just stand there and let the witch kill my friend as I listened and waited for my turn. One last thing, if you see it again (or were stupid and read this before seeing it the first time) you can "impress" whoever you see it with by recognizing the strange writing on the wall in the house as Enochian. It was in that first city (Enoch) that men/women were first taught magic by "The Watchers" (angelic fathers of the Nephilim).
My question is, why was he standing in the corner? That was what the old man did when he was killing the seven children. He was hung in the 40's. He wasn't the one doing the killing in the last scene so why was Mike facing the corner?
There has to be a unique talent and special skill set to make a movie so bad. I mean you just can't screw-up to that degree without putting some real effort into it.
I'll summarize the story for you:
day 1 - wake up, fight, extreme close-up of foo
day 2 - wake up, fight, extreme close-up of foo
day 3 - wake up, fight, extreme close-up of foo
day 4 - wake up, fight, extreme close-up of foo, mysteriously disappear
A better title would have been "Endless Bitching" or "The Blair Witch Project Idiots" or "I'm not really a Video Production Major or in fact know anything at all about film or cameras, I'm just in a Movie". It's a camera not a microscope -- back up. Really, really not frightening to watch 3 morons fight for 1.5+ hours. I could have stayed home and watched Jerry Springer for free.
You probably shouldn't read this if you haven't seen the movie.
I don't know about anyone else, but I like closure. I assume the filmmakers chose not to 'close' this movie, because they felt it would be 'scarier' if we were still spooked and guessing after we left the theater. I cannot agree less. To me, I feel as if the hour and a half of my time invested in watching this movie are for nothing.
I assume most of you have seen the movie 'Cube' as well? If not, please stop reading again (sorry). The Cube pulls the exact same technique as Blair Witch. Basically, the entire move up until the end is endured because of the anticipation that the viewer is going to find out what's going on.
So what happens in Blair Witch? Who killed them? What is outside the damn Cube? I want to know! I want closure! And it's not because 'not knowing' scares me, it's because not knowing pisses me off. Some people say that ending a movie like that is 'brilliant' and makes us really think about the movie. Not me. When I see an ending like that, I feel that the filmmakers couldn't create an ending that would live up the expectation of the audience, so decided to leave it open.
Laziness, if you ask me.
IMHO I believe that wrapped in the bundle of sticks was Josh's tounge and or teeth. Because the night before they heard a man screaming, presumably Josh, he was yelling strange mumbled stuff, like how most people scream with their tounge cut out.
After seeing this movie, I felt like renting a movie camera and getting some of my friends so I can get away with what the producers of this movie did ; present an extremely amerish movie, get movie distributors to hype it and get paid!
The jerky film footage almost put me asleep. Only the last 30 minutes was the movie interesting to me.
Given all of this, it made me wonder if this was a true story and the film footage featured real people, not actors, if that would've freaked me out better? Now that would be scary!
After seeing this movie, I felt like renting a movie camera and getting some of my friends so I can get away with what the producers of this movie did ; present an extremely amateurish movie, get movie distributors to hype it and get paid!
The jerky film footage almost put me asleep. Only the last 30 minutes was the movie interesting to me.
Given all of this, it made me wonder if this was a true story and the film footage featured real people, not actors, if that would've freaked me out better? Now that would be scary!
The guy who created and directed it is a local around here, and he used his parents' life savings to create it. Unfortunately, his parents hated the film. ;)
But I bet they LOOOVEEE the royalty checks!
It was a very boring movie. Not scary at all (my wife was a little uncomfortable). The acting was top notch and very believable. The story sucked. Waste of time and money to see it. Remarks throughout the theater at the end of the movie were such as: "..sucked...", "...boring...", etc. People stayed in their seats waiting for a _real_ ending that never came. I even heard someone exclaim, which got a good number of laughs, "...Blair Witch Project 2: This one will make sense."
In short, don't go. I was sadly disappointed. If it were not for the quality of the acting, I would have left the theater. I've only done that once in my life!
I can't believe that anyone could be scared by this movie. I saw this with my girlfriend and we were both waiting for the scary part...right up until the lame ass ending.
I did like the documentary style shooting, but there's so much more they could have done. Good concept, but lousy in the end. I can't believe this movie is getting good reviews.
Everyone in the movie theater where I saw this basically felt robbed and wanted their money back.
You're absolutely right! This wasn't even scary....actually it was lame.
Everyone in the theater where I went wanted their money back. So, I don't know what the hell is wrong with everyone else.
How this movie could possibly get a good rating is beyond me.
*** S P O I L E R ***
I first heard about this movie 3 weeks ago on seattle.sidewalk.com [yep, the only good M$ product] and tried to buy tickets 3 times before I finally was able to get in. I had heard so much hype about this movie that I expected to be really scared. I wanted to see a movie that was so scary that I wouldn't be able to sleep for a week! I have never found a movie that was that scary and this one is no exeption. The acting was disapointing and that last sceane, that totally sucked!!!
When will somebody come out with a movie that scares the hell out of us?
that's just the way they chose to market the film. they probably thought that it would scare the audience more, by making them think that it was real. they weren't trying to hide the fact that it wasn't a true story.
What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit?
;)
Looked like a nose or ear, some teeth, and some hair...
If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did.
You're quite right there.
-- jc Only an AC cuz I'm not logged in at work... If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?
It is conceivable that his nose or ear was taken off with him still being alive.
That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away?
Nope, that was josh. As for him standing in the corner, we are dealing with a witch here... I wouldn't put anything past a witch.
Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps.
Well, Mike looked pretty dead from that thwack he gets when he's holding the camera... I doubt he would be able to stand up after that. I think we are supposed to believe that it is Josh.
8mm was a sick and twisted film. It is far more scary to see what kind of f*ck*d up people are out there...
8mm made the Blair witch look like Snow White...
I wish I could shake a camera for 30minutes then overdub people screaming and fighting. Yea, I am trapped in the woods whats the first thing I'm gonna do? KICK THE MAP INTO A RIVER, YES!!
Actually, I've been playing first-person shooters for quite a while now, and don't get sick at all when -I- play. It's when I'm watching someone ELSE play, usually someone who doesn't play that well or who doesn't do what I'm expecting them to do, that I start to feel a little sick.
I definitely experienced the same thing with this movie -- I wasn't in control of it and didn't know what to expect the camera to do. Especially those scenes where she was walking and filming at the same time... blech..
Overall, though, I enjoyed the movie.
Isn't the Blair Witch Project a spin-off movie of TV's "The Facts of Life"? I thought this was where Tuti and Jo (et al) go looking for their missing friend.
Wow, and I thought I was the only one!
I was watching and enjoying when all at once, about 30 minutes in also, I felt a wave of cold sweat and nausea wash over me. I took a 10 minute break and was able to sit through the rest, but only because I kepot my eyes closed through most of the rest of the movie. I'm still not sure if feeling
sick heightened the experience of the movie or not.
And dammit, I never get motion sick!
I was definitely impressed with the acting in the movie and loved that you couldn't see whatever it was that was scaring the kids. Your imagination
can scare you much more than anything they could show on the screen.
.
This is a very cerebral movie. If you don't like using your imagination, then you'll come out of the movie saying, "What the hell?"
The Washington Post gave an excelle nt review of the movie -- something I find surprising, considering the Washington Post can usually tear a new movie apart. The most important thing to remember when you're watching the film is that you have to let your imagination wander. Ponder the worst possible thing that could happen and then listen to the horror in their voices. That is this film's unique ability.
Many people have become accustomed to having the media tell you what to think. In many movies, they paint the picture on the screen so there is no mistaking what is going on. In the Blair Witch Project the movie is only as scary as your imagination makes it...
I went home and changed all the lightbulbs that had burned out.
Actually, did you ever see the "Snow White" with Sigourney Weaver (as the bad stepmother)? It definitely was not the kiddie-Disney movie I remember from childhood!
I can't believe all the credulous kooks who believe this mega-over-hyped movie is real.
The producers and distribution company are doing everything they can to hoax the public, including banning the actors from TV interviews. After all, you cant interview "dead" actors can you?
All in the name of money...
There was no "fact" to blur. It was ALL fiction.
The acting was extrordinarly bad. They reacted to situations extrordianarily like Seinfeld, George and Elaine would. It took extraordinary endurence not to fall asleep while watching it. Most of all I was extrordinarily displeased the horrid actors playing annoying, idiot characters, weren't brutally and hideously tortured to death.
My but that movie sucked. Usually you have to be able to see yourself being in the situation the characters are in to be horrified, and it's beneficial if the characters aren't in the situation because they repeatedly do the stupidest things possible. Considering every time they opened their mouth I wanted to smash their teeth in with a rock, I didn't have any sympathy for them. I occasionally had to stop myself from laughing. Whether from the Seinfeld like antics or the fact that I had nothing better to do but watch that crap, I don't know, but it sure wasn't out of terror. I've had camping expeditions that make that look like tea with the teletubbies.
Blair Witch operates entirely out of your imagination. If you have no imagination, you won't like the film. If you don't voluntarily read fiction, you won't like the film. If you're a college student bent on cracking jokes the whole time to prove you're not scared, you won't like the film.
If you have an imagination, and you go see Blair Witch because you *want* to be scared, this is a once in a lifetime chance. No horror film has ever really worked for me beyond the jump-reflex until now (although Alien/s was close), and now I know why.
If you haven't seen it yet, have the courage to give it a chance. Rip it apart afterwards. Try to see it at a theater not packed with students.
No setup "Bad thing about to happen" music. No monsters. No "scary" shots of the moon (which, of course, really just lights everything up nicely). No cats jumping out to trick you. No double-trick ending where the hero wakes up-- but it wasn't really a dream! You don't get to know what rules, if any, apply to the Witch. You don't see any way of fighting it. You can't be sure what is the Witch and what is your own fear.
Best horror movie ever. I don't think there'll ever be another traditional film that will have that effect on people. It'll have to be something interactive. Think of the scariest moments in Half-Life and multiply them by a hundred, and that's what I see taking the crown from Blair Witch. Five or ten years from now, maybe.
But for those of you that thought it was lame... maybe now that they have some money, the directors will be able to go back and do it right. You know, get Neve Campbell, Freddy Prinze, and Leonardo signed on-- love triangle! Killer soundtrack by Limp Bizkit, Chemical Brothers, Kid Rock, ICP, and Blink 182, perfectly synched up so you know when you're supposed to be scared, in SDDS, THX, Dolby. Lots of Lucasfilm CGI for the Witch. Decent cameras that don't shake so damn much. You actually get to see the monsters this time. And a triple-tricky ending that'll send you chortling out of the multiplexes.
Have fun.
While I wont go so far as to say the movie totally sucked, it was no better than the average project for one of the college filmmaking classes I have taken. I wont bash the film technique as it was suppose to look crappy, but the acting was very poor.
The only thing this movie had was very good marketing. The direction, acting etc were worthless. I am glad the movie was sold out so we had to sneak in because I'd be pissed if I spent the 7 bucks.
I just shows good marketing can sell shit on a shingle and have the people begging for more.
Maybe Bush or Gore needs to hire these guys
Ive seen better acting on Jerry
They marketed it as real-- you must not have seen the documentary of it on the Sci-Fi channel. They gave the background of the Blair Witch legend and interviewed the townsfolk about the student's disapearance.
Nowhere in that did they mention, "oh, by the way... we made all this up!". They presented it as fact that the students disapeared and their tapes were found.
Very sneaky....
I disagree about knowing about camping making it unbelievable. I too am an ex-boyscout (eagle scout), but find it pretty believable. As for the comments about people that had really been prepared for a trek like this not making such obvious mistakes....How many people forget to do simple things when faced with terror. There is a lot going on psychologically with the characters that is influencing their actions. There is of course the possibility that the "Blair Witch" is interfering with their ability to escape the terror of the woods. These were college students entering the woods for a quick hike to a rock. I would have to say that in general this is not the most responsible group of people so it is expected that they make a few mistakes along the way. On the comment that they should have left a plan and a note on thier windshield...I don't believe these things would have really helped. The students were only gone for a few days. I don't explicitly remember, but I assume they only intended to be gone for 2 days or so. They hiked at least one full day from where any plan they would have written would place them. Anyone looking for them would need luck to stumble on them. These students don't seem to be the worlds greates woodsmen. Why didn't they mark trees or use some other maner to show where they had already been??? Good question. I think all of these questions and comments are what make this a good movie. There is a lot that is left unsaid, but a lot was said. The people that don't like this movie seem to be people that were expecting to be scared out of their wits and weren't. These people either don't fully "get" what was happening in the movie or are extremely quick to say that this movie sucked without thinking about it. Very few of the people that post saying that this movie sucked back it up. Those that do back it up for the most part have valid complaints, but I don't believe that they make this a bad movie. Some of the complaints just show how shallow the minds of many of the movie goers are. As for all of the comments about it being unrealistic...I think most people that have been either lost or scared in the woods would have to say it is pretty realistic. Besides...since when is a guy with really long fingernails going around killing people realistic.
There is a lot more that can be said on these topics (and many others), and I probably made some spelling and other mistakes in writing this, but I think I got a few main points across.
***************************************
I know this was a kind of long ranting post and didn't necessarily fit here, but hey this is where I decided to hit reply. If you would like to email me about this or just about any other topic email superkiwi@hotmail.com
Dont blame it on that kid, blame it in that you have good taste. For most people this is their first experience with very lo budget indie film so they think this is something new or unusual. The only thing new or unusual about this film was the marketing.
Try Getting the independant film channel if you want some good shit.
I'd say it was a pretty good movie. They could have cut off 10 or 15 mins and not lost much, IMHO. I rarely get motion sickess, but that movie did a number on me...headache, nausea, etc...
I havent seen this movie but for some of us who are Pagan this is like saying the Blair Christian
Project, The Blair Honky Project, the Blair Nigger
Project. I am sure it may even be a good scary movie which I would like but that title is the
first turn-off.
How about the Blair Nazi Project if your are
German. Or better yet the Blair Linux Project.
How would you feel?
I will likely rent this but refuse to
pay full price because of the title.
Signed,
mildly offended mostly turned off.
feral@nospam.neandertal.org
I seems that some people like to censor what they do not agree with for no good reason
Look at this post can anyone tell me why it was voted -1?
Re:Blair Witch Project (Score:-1)
by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 02, @10:11AM EDT (#52)
I completely agree, there was far to much time spent watching college students get lost in the great
outdoors, which was completely and underly boring. Shortly after every a seemingly endless hiking
sceene, something scary happens. The hiking is made more boring since you quickly figure out that they
can only be harmed in the dark, and that the "film students" are such uder morons that they deserve the
slowest and painfulest death they can find.
This movie left me, and my girlfriend with a feeling of betrayal. So called "film critics" responible for
hyping this thing up as "The scariest movie ever" must never of seen Repulsion.
I liked this movie...when I saw it over a year ago and it was called The Last Broadcast. Go check out http://www.tebweb.com/lastbroadcast/ It's just a little bit *too* similar to be coincidence...
According to magazine interviews, just teeth, and a glob of blood with some hair in it... one clearly visible tooth in the center, and some others in the bloody mass of hair.
there are quite a few theories on that, but not many people believe that the witch herself was doing in killing. It's a shame that it wasn't revealed in the movie that the killer from the 40's claimed to hear the voice of the Blair Witch, because I think the lack of that information is the source of many people's confusion.
Anyway, there are at least two people who might have killed Heather and Mike at the Witch's command, and I think there's strong evidence for both: Mary Brown, or Josh.
I think it very likely could have been either of them. There's evidence pointing at both, so we can't say which. Though I didn't manage to catch it either of the times I saw the movie, some have said that some of the string tieing up the bundle of sticks was identical to the string on Mary Brown's fence, and damn, you know SOMETHING is up with her. However, it could very likely have been Josh. That would easily explain Heather and Mike hearing Josh's voice... the voice actually WAS Josh, luring them in. Sounds likely, some people say Josh even ripped out some of his own teeth, and perhaps tore off some of his clothing and left it lying on the stairs, but some also claim that if you look carefully you can see Josh's body at the end of the movie -- but again, I didn't catch it.
I really think it was either Mary Brown or Josh who did the actual killing... or hell, maybe both of them.
read the end credits again, it has the standard:
All events and characters are ficticous line.
If you looked closely at the reward poster in the Sci-Fi channel special (note that the "Fi" in Sci-Fi stands for FICTION), you would have seen that the phone number listed was a 555 number.
"OH YES, YOU NEED TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION TO LIKE THIS FILM!"
Please. Try another excuse. When I go to a movie
I don't want to think. I wana sit back and watch a good move. To bad the movie sucked, and made me wana vomit afterwards. One or two people in the movie thearter actually got up and left because it was so god damn stupid.
This move SUCKED. SUCKED. SUCKED.
ps: all you "13 year olds who claim the film 'owns', go watch a real movie.
Thad (usually not anonymous)
This is a very cerebral movie. If you don't have an imagination, than you won't find it scary -- in fact, you'll probably walk out of the movie saying, "What the hell?"
I was originally intruigued by the movie because the Washington Post gave it an excelle nt review which is uncommon (the Washington Post can easily tear a new movie to shreads). The movie is only as scary as you let it be. It gives you room to imagine the worst. Modern media doesn't let you think for yourself. Ordinarily, when a film wants to express something, they do it with images. There's no room for misinterpretation. If they want you to visualize a dog, they'll put a dog on the screen; if they want you to visualize a cheeseburger, they'll put a cheeseburger on the screen, and so on. The Blair Witch Project uses the ultimate horror-creating device -- your own mind. You get the opportunity to visualize (for yourself) the worst possible thing that could happen, and then listen to their screams as it does.
This is not easy for many people because they like passive entertainment. They like not having to think during the movie. These people will be VERY DISAPPOINTED with the Blair Witch Project. However, if you let your imagination roam, then you can make the movie as scary as you want.
I went home and changed all the burned out lightbulbs in my house.
I got it, and still wasn't scared. It wasn't a scary movie, really. It was creepy, though.
I saw this movie with a bunch of friends. Though I admit that it gets creepy at parts, most of the show is boring and by no means scary.
If you want to scare yourself try playing Resident Evil 2 on the Playstation alone in your house in the middle of the night with to volume turned up! That will give you the creeps...
The vast majority of people that don't "get"
this flick need their storylines spoonfed to them
slowly so thta they can follow the plot.
There's a lot going on in this flick.
Anyone notice Mary Brown's gate?
I laughed so hard during this lemon...There were NO POINTS at which I even considered this to be real...come on what a sad pathetic joke...Did George Lucas direct this
???
just go to #freempeg4 and download of a bot.
180M
For us outside USA we cant be stuffed waiting 6months
I don't know.
Maybe my mind has too many swiss cheese sized holes from watching "extra-special episodes" of the Real World, or Jerry Springer. Maybe I just got numb from the flame torch of media hype, followed by the (predictable) cold shower of anti-hype, but over all, I didn't find this at all scary. Interesting, maybe, but certianly not scary.
It was an intersting POV for a film, true. And the acting was good, but really, if you take some old real world episodes, re-master them in black and white, and remove the hip-hop soundtrack, don't you have the same thing, essentially?
ps. Did any one else yell "Messa thinks we gonna die!" during the film?
So what's the deal in Seattle. The only reason I heard about this movie is because I was on vacation on the east coast. I was looking all over here for it when I got back and couldn't find it!!!
Sorry, too lazy to log in...
ten.knilrevlis@wkcuhc
I found the movie very tense and I tried to get myself into it. The running, the screaming, the fear of "what is out there". I got very hyped up into the movie. Though my concentration and "daze" was constantly interupted by the giggles of the foolish girls behind me. This movie will the scare the pants off of you under the following situations:
Dark Theatre, late at night, minimal amount of people, go alone
or
Rent it. Watch it at 10:00 (just after sunset and early enough not to fall asleep), watch it alone, make sure it's dark.
It is one of those movies that try (and succeed) to give you a sense of You are in the movie or in the same situation and thus use complex things such as empathy and catharsis to pull you in and thus eventually scare the living daylights out of you.
BTW Ever seen Living Dead 1? Well relate that movie to this movie and it's like this movie is a 1st person version of Living Dead w/o Zombies just that woods fear deal to it.
SPOILER:
I think Josh (the missing guy) was the one who killed them at the end. Remember you heard his voice? Well what if the witch mind controlled him?
2nd Theroy: Remember that scene in the woods with the stick figures and the big furry one. What if that stick figure with the fur is truly the blair witch and all those little stick men were the children.
That it was hyped up as a scary movie.
.. anyway, just explain it to me.
In fact, THE scariest movie.
Really, it wasn't more of a scary movie like we're used to, where things pop out and scare you.
Its more of a creepy suspense.
So most people went in expecting to be scared, you know, with the traditional things popping out and scary monsters, and so they were obviously disappointed.
I agree with you though, it does pop into your head every so often. If you really start to think about it, and you forget the fact that it was fake, it does kind of creep you out.
I didn't find it all that great, but I'm guessing the people who have rave reviews really got into the movie. I mean, watching it wasn't scary, but if I found those bundles of stones in front of my tent when I woke up, I'd be pretty freaked.
Another thing I didn't like is that you didn't get to see the witch, or learn a lot about its history. There's supposed to be a fake documentary on Space that gives quite a bit of it, but I haven't seen it.
I think it would've been cool if there were more things you knew that the characters didn't. I mean, if you saw something in the darkness, or somewhere off in the corner.
Can someone explain the deal with the final scene to me? I didn't really think about it until reading some reviews. Is the guy standing up dead? Was there something in the corner or something, I'm not sure, it looked like someone. I mean, I got the part about the corner, from those interviews but was it the psycho old guy or
BTW, what was the deal with the bundles of stones?
The legend was about a crazy hermit guy that killed the children. How do you know if it was a hairy witch or a crazy male ax murderer?
Thanks.
Oh I feel so sorry for you. Why don't you take your pasty white american butt to the middle east and see how they will accept you there? A better idea would be to move into a Iranian suburb. That's the most islamic you can get. See how much they respect you there?
Now be glad that you butt is firmly in Memphis and not there. So stop this trash talk about how oppressed you are for you are lucky to be living in the united states. Otherwise grow up.
BTW we all know "It's cool to be a witch"....
This movie will change the film industry. The story is amazing, the execution was brilliant,
the acting was very good (please tell me you
don't think Neve is a good actress?) and the
marketing was pure guerilla theatre.
** SPOILER **
Mary Brown IS the Witch. Reasons:
1. Her gate was made of tied sticks.
2. The gate was tied to the post with a piece
of dirty (bloody?) flannel.
3. She was covered from neck to ankle and wrists with an overcoat, all the while describing the
witch as being covered with hair.
4. The last thing she says is "..and she had a strange looking face."
Nobody wants some esoteric weirdo's opinion on the subject. Go watch Eraserhead with your other smug egghead buddies and leave us alone.
The one about the nuclear holocaust was probably
"Countdown to Looking Glass", it was meant to look
like a live news broadcast a la Orson Welles "War
of the Worlds" radio broadcast. After a short
nuclear exchange between US and USSR ships in
the Middle East the movie ends with a shot of
Looking Glass (the 747 that serves as the flying
pentagon when the real Pentagon is expected to be
destroyed momentarily) taking off and the TV network
preparing to switch over to the emergency broadcast system. Similar is "Special Bulletin" which deals with nuclear terriosts holding a news crew hostage and threating to destory Charleston SC with thier own A-bomb (which they eventually do) unless every nuclear device in Charlestion is taken out to sea and destoryed. The one about the nuclear plant was probably "The China Syndrome". I also remember the one about the space mission (I think it was on NBC) but I can't remember what it was called.
Yes, watching them lost in the woods was crappy.
1st day they hike out maybe 10 miles. Same the second (these are MAXIMUM figures). Along a curved path, so it's 20 miles, maybe 15 miles, from the town. They walk for two days. Haven't found anything except the river, twice. How big are these damn woods? I've never been in woods that keep the same environ for 20 miles straight. There's a shift in flora or fauna that's quite noticable. Anyway, they're either less than 5 miles from the town or 35 miles away, depending on which way they walked. Neither makes sense.
Oh. And then the last night. A house appears 100 yards from their camping location. They were roaming around during the day (otherwise both Mike AND heather would have seen Josh's body parts) and missed this, but found it at night?
So anyway, they stay up for almost 2 days straight, and the idiot films herself...and doesn't have bloodshot eyes. That was the end of all credibility. By this time, you *know* they're gonna die just like the kids in 1941.
BTW, wasn't this the Blair WITCH Project, not the Blair Hermit Project? Where was the witch? What did it have anything to do with the story???
Oh, and one more thing. How in God's name did these people manage to keep the cameras on each other the whole time? Those cameras are heavy, especially after you haven't slept for a day. And when you're looking for your friend you think is dead. That annoyed me.
Inquiring minds want to know.
Rob Nelson
ronelson@vt.edu
P.S. Where can I get camcorder film and batteries that last that long?!
I am an experienced backpacker and I just wanted to say that that is probably why the movie scared me so much. While the stuff about the witch was extremely creepy (especially so since everything you saw was not THAT scary in and of itself) the truly scary part for me was watching the students lose their wits as they got more and more lost. Although I agree with the majority of comments that they should have followed the river, people should also realize that that tactic wouldn't have necessarily led them out of the woods, because streams DO often turn into swamps or ponds, peter out, go underground, or go off cliffs that are inaccessable.
Using their compass to try and travel in one direction was a fairly good idea, but anyone familiar with the outdoors knows that compasses only point to magnetic north, which can change a lot due to deposits in the ground, mischevious witches, etc.
My advice to anyone going camping, though (and where I think that these kids really made their mistake) is to respect the power of the woods and the magnitude of all of our city-bred people's ignorance and STAY ON or near to trails! It is very easy to get lost off the trail, even if you think that you know where you are. Also, it is a nice idea to know a little bit about the edible and non-edible plants in your area.
Finally, on a lighter note, didn't you think that the witch-leavings were scary? Having found weird stuff in the woods that I didn't make but I knew some other person had is a weird experience, and if I had found any of that stuff, even if I thought it had been made by a person I would have read religious connotations into it. Thinking it had been made by a witch or something equally evil would have sent me running the other direction!
I was talking to some people at the mall after I saw the movie and they were thinking that Josh was the killer. First, all the blue goo was on his crap, he dissapeared in the night. Now if he was kidnapped he would of at least made some noise. I think that the witch possesed him and the old man that killed the children when they killed their victims. I just want to know whose teeth were in the sticks and who was in the corner. I was thinking maybe it was the other guys body leaned up against the wall.
*sarcasm* That was pretty stereotypical...good work!
they could have broken them. They could have divulged that BW was fake in September(imagine
how pissed you'd be!). The way they did it, everybody going to the movie sorta heard some people saying it was real and some people not--not altogether perfect, but a giant aid to suspending disbelief and a huge contributor to the success of the movie.
Puh-leeze! Who in their right mind would believe all this nonsense about witches was real. The average American maybe, but I think the average Slashdot reader is a little more intelligent than that.
Thank you! I've gone through a lot of these responses, and I keep seeing comments from people who loved the movie, and can't understand how anyone could possibly not like it. What really gets me is the theories these people have come up with to explain why some people don't like it. The two most common ones seem to be: young people "just don't get it", or that only people with imagination like it. How about: I SIMPLY THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF "WITCHES" RETARDED. I can see why people who believe in paranormal type stuff would like it. Otherwise, I think a lot of people are just gullible and will go for anything. It's hard for me to enjoy a movie where I'm sitting there the whole time thinking "this is so silly".
Regarding the film though, I was very impressed with the effective construction of the movie around the lack of a budget. It all added realism, the lack of a steady-cam, the cheap, grainy film, the difficulties which really would be associated with doing sound in their locations and situations. It was great.
To those of you who think it's real... please... don't go see it. If it were real, it would be no more than a snuff film. It'd be... disgusting and tasteless. If you say that because of the advertising, please also remember that advertisements claim that all detergents get whites whiter and brights brighter, that The Thirteenth Floor doesn't suck, and that if you use a certain deoderant, you'll 'get a little closer' with a cute member of the opposite sex in no time flat.
What I kept trying to figure out was how they managed to get themselves completely lost. Granted, the part where they kept returning to the same river was meant to screw with your head (as in there stuck in some maze), but you think they might have had a little more common sense.
I'm pretty sure I would have just following the river in one direction until I came across some power lines or something, but I guess that would have taken some of the fun out of the movie.
Most of my friends liked it a lot, but I only thought it was Ok. That's probably due to the fact that I knew so much about it already. Some friends had watched it earlier this year after snagging a copy of the film that was released at the Sundance film festival. On the drive into work on Friday morning, I heard the directors call in on Howard Stern and learned even more about the movie. By the time I saw it that night, I had a pretty good idea what was going on.
The movie was definately creepy, but if you take out all the uncertainty, you start to focus on other things, like how that girl was so incredibly annoying and whiny.
It was definitly refreshing to see this low tech film just for a change from typical HollyWood lack-a-plot-add-a-lot-of-effects type movies.
I loved it!
Thank you. Drive through. (:wq)
Playing Quake for the first time does gives that same sickening feeling... Luckily i've been playing 'First Person Shooter' games and was completely unaffected by the bouncy camera work. ;) Ha!
Thank you. Drive through. (:wq)
The movie IS NOT based on a true story. I'm sorry....but it's just not.
Werd.
I THINK the sound credits and stuff are for the people who sync'ed up the sound and added a few things later on. I don't think there was an actual "crew" out in the woods with them.
Werd.
Video will make this movie the best. I can imagine (with goosebumps) watching this at a cabin in the woods on a TV alone with some friends....
There is NO WAY you could go to sleep after doing that. :)
Werd.
I saw it Friday night, and went camping the next day 8-). Actually, as my fellow hiker observed, nobody is ever going to mistake the Olympic mountains (in Washington) for Maryland - for one thing, if you run screaming through these woods in the dark (or in the light) you're going to fall down the side of a mountain and die. And you're not going to catch me out in the woods with people I don't know well enough to trust.
That said, I think the movie creeped me out more than scared me - my heart wasn't pounding but I was definitely uneasy, and for several days. I suspect the people who really enjoyed the movie did so because they allowed their imaginations to go with the flow so to speak. Like most 'horror' movies, those who don't suspend disbelief in a big way don't get much out of it.
Mind you, there are major holes if you treat this as a 'real' movie. If the character were real, they were so stupid that they practially deserved to die. But that can be said of most horror movies. The point is, you willfully ignore those holes. If you want to see people being smart, go watch the discovery channel or something. I was there to see people die horribly 8-). Besides, people are stupid in real life, too.
I especially enjoyed two scenes:
1) When Heather is examining the bundle of sticks containing gristly bits. The hyperventilation was right on - I wonder how many people felt their breathing speeding up in sympathy. Although I thought sure she was going to pass out 8-).
2) The last 5 minutes of the film had a particularly sureal, nightmarish quality to them, with the ending so abrupt that is left me in mild shock.
- Ken
If you've got a passing knowledge of the stars, or can watch the sun for a few hours, knowing your direction is no problem. If you've got anything magnetic around, building a compass isn't much of a problem (shallow vessel, water, small leaf, light magnetic object). I would think losing a map would be much more of an inconvenience.
I don't know that they're really going to sue. One of the Blair Witch people did a daily diary for IndieWire and sat in front of some of the The Last Broadcast people on the plane over. He didn't mention any weirdness about it.
"Lots of fun"? Uh, in a really, really sick way I guess. I also recommend Man Bites Dog to those that can stomach it (it's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's just a movie) but it replaced "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" as the most disturbing movie I've ever seen.
Not every moment of their time is filmed. How do you know if they read the books? So what if they didn't? I *intend* to do all kinds of things but fail to.
Weapons? I never took more than a pocket knife camping. Where do you camp? Kosovo?
Did Mike really have control of himself when he was in the corner? Aren't there lots of examples of people doing *anything* when their lives are threatened?
So you think you heard Josh, so did they. But was it Josh?
Does anyone else remember the online promotion for Johnny Mnemonic? It turned out to be a pretty crappy movie but the online contest was fun. It was basically a net scavenger hunt which was a popular activity at the time but they also re-used the 3D cyberspace graphics from the movie. You could "navigate" in 6 directions (left, right, forward, back, up, down) and also turn to face in the different directions. It would load a new page with a gif of the view from that cell of the "space." It was a part of the scavenger hunt to navigate it to find some clues. I don't remember how big it was, I think it had a 0,0,0 point then +6 and -6 in each direction. That would be 13 cubed times 6, 1 for each way you could face in each cell. That's 13,182 gifs which sounds about right.
I was with you right up til you listed Event Horizon as a great horror movie. Event Horizon was crap, period.
I was somewhat underwhelmed by the movie, perhaps because I had read a lot about it.
However, the movie is only one part of the picture, and almost seems like an advertisement for the rest. The web site, comic book, soundtrack CD, etc, add a lot to it. Ultimately, the DVD may be the best way to get the whole experience.
BTW, I see that the FX channel has bought the
broadcast rights. They're gonna have to bleep the dialogue so much that... hm... maybe if we listen to the bleeps as Morse code, we may find out what's really going on...
When being weirded-out at night, sleep during the day and move at night.
I don't see how that would help much. Either way your in the woods with something scary. I think I'd rather be in the tent, at least you have some protection(at least you think you do). A lot of why this is scary is imagining yourself in that situation. If you were there, do you really think you'd want to hike at night? I wouldn't.
Ugh... City Folk.
--
Python
Python
It was a movie. Thats why it didn't scare some people.
--
Python
Python
I thought the three stars in this film were three of the best actors i've ever seen. Not once did it seem like they were acting. To me, at least, it seemed well done.
Adam
That SciFi channel special didn't seem to have any disclaimers or anything of the like that any part of this story was false.
I call it more of a Hoax, but it's definately art that strays "outside the box" of "fiction" that we'd like to keep it in.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Bah!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Remember also, that they were all nicotene junkies, and were jonesin hard for a smoke after the first two days.
REMEMBER, always pack extra cigs.
If you can't smoke them yourself, you can use them to bargain for your life.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I'm pretty sure I saw teeth, and also what looked like a bloody tongue, but then I was wondering how Josh could have called out like that w/o a tongue. . .
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
And do you know any REAL witches? If so, please change me into a newt.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Bwa ha ha!!!
Good one!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
3fold? Why not twofold, or fourfold? Sounds a bit arbitrary to me.
And if a witch turns me into a newt, how can that witch be turned into a newt three times? Once a newt, ever after a newt, I always say.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
-jafac's law
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Hiking, not camping. So their stupidity is still believable.
-----
The real meaning of the GNU GPL:
"The Source will be with you... Always."
Yeah, the landscape was definitly repeating itself. People bitch about them not following the stream, etc. It didn't matter. If they followed the stream, they would still get to the same log later. Kind of like characters running across a scrolling repeating background in a Hanna Barbara cartoon. Creepy
--
(sourceCode == freeSpeech)
Just as a side note, Spielberg didn't mean to do that with Jaws really. It made a better movie in hindsight, but he really planned on showing more of the shark in the beginning. The reason he didn't was because his shark animatron fscked up a lot, and he couldn't get all the shots with it he wanted in the alotted time. Cool, huh?
--
(sourceCode == freeSpeech)
*SPOILER*
:)
...if your in the SouthEast Wisconsin area
would have to be the Theather on Downer street
in Milwaukee where thats the ONLY MOVIE THEY ARE PLAYING
(every hour they're open, to boot). And I
can't tell you how amazing it is to see it with a whole bunch of people ready to be scared out of their minds.
I do have a questions about the film. First of all I was scared out of my mind to the most primal sense of fear. And I was seriously affected for a while afterwards. I think the scarriest part of the movie is when they realized they were at the same fallen tree that they passed 15 hours before! Damn, I would have offed myself right then and there. What I wanted to know is whats with the rocks? And what was in that little package outside of their tent? Other than that, the film was exceptional and sooo much better than the usual hacker(you know... like the Net hehe) films or the self-aware ones (Scream, I Know...).
I do think that Jeanean Garaffalo would have been a better lead actress. Of course I think that about every movie.
i was pretty excited to see "the scariest movie since the exorcist"..watching the bwp, i kept waiting for it to get scary..unless you are afraid of the dark, and things that go bump in the night, there is nothing to frighten you in this film..
go see american pie, the best film this summer
I loved the Blair Witch project. Amazing movie, very unique, extremely powerful, quite impressive.
But.
I am incredibly disturbed by the complete and utter lack of attention being given the lead players in Blair Witch. While I fully accept that directors can be shortchanged in the media spotlight, Mike, Josh, and Heather did an *amazing* job.
First, these three acted excellently, with far more convincing performances than you're likely to see from most. Did anyone for a second not completely believe their *confusion*, their distrust, their pure fear? The directors did an outstanding job creating an environment in which the actors could shine, but we should not ignore the fact that these actors did shine, quite outstandingly.
They also spoke a damn nice script, considering their was no script to speak from. Again, the directors did beautifully defining scene outlines, but as Hollywood has much trouble learning, good storyboards do not a compelling story make. Edited with oscar-worthy aplomb, the cast's dialogue, while hokey at times, reflected the nature of stranded, real people in the middle of a disturbingly surreal environment.
Speaking of the editing, have we forgotten that the filmwork of the entire movie was also executed beautifully by these three? Granted, the footage would have worked *awfully* without the amazing work of the directors and editors, but done right their work was critical to the success of this film.
I don't want to take away from the stellar performance of the directors. But Heather, Josh, and Mike deserve more than they're getting.
Of course, there's a reason they're being left out of the loop(for now): The marketroids want people to believe the movie is real.
This happens to be a good thing.
Now I know this is going to make some of you yell and scream, but the fact was if I could have seen this two months ago with absolutely no prior knowledge, I would have been scared out of my fucking mind. Suspension of disbelief is far easier when there's no disbelief to suspend, and while it's somewhat dishonest, it's dishonesty in an environment where the entire industry is built upon creating the most convincing lies possible. Arnold Schwartzenegger is not a cyborg creature sent back through time, and Shitbrick didn't get it on with Stiffler's Mom.
Blair Witch bent the rules. Consider how much more they could have broken them. They could have divulged that BW was fake in September(imagine how pissed you'd be!). The way they did it, everybody going to the movie sorta heard some people saying it was real and some people not--not altogether perfect, but a giant aid to suspending disbelief and a huge contributor to the success of the movie.
If one of the big studios tried this, they'd hang us out to dry with their ability to simultaneously assail the public with their "this is a true story!!!!!!" message, unrebutted, on all media fronts. There would be no doubt, no undercurrent of truth. It'd be so overdone, so disastrous-in-retrospect, that the studio would have no choice but to attempt to suppress any news that the original movie was fake.
I don't have much more faith in the Big Studio's plans for harvesting Net sentiment. Blair Witch and The Matrix have set the standard for what makes an excellent movie site. (The Matrix comic strips, incidentally, are required viewing for any Matrix fan. They add to the movie immensely, and increase my respect for the universe they've developed immensely.)
If the Studio's can actually express more originality than they could press onto the Celluloid into the web site, great. I'm just afraid of fake web sites, fake web rings, and most of all, fake "o i saw this movie it r000led O MY GOD JOHN DOECAPRIO IS SOOOOOO HOT!" manufactured 15 year old geocities pages that are really hacked together by some marketroid committee.
What do they have to lose? The worst they could do is discredit the Internet as a medium for movie discussion...which hurts them, how? If they can't own it...destroy it.
I know not everybody in Hollywood thinks this way. I know that there are some very hard working and ethical people out there.
I also know that there a very real chance that the three actors/screenwriters/camerapeople will get shortchanged by a media looking to move on to some new summer flick. This must not occur. Sooner or later, the Blair Witch Three need to be recognized for their excellent work. It's only fair.
I've talked long enough. What do the rest of you have to say?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
First of all, how many cities was this movie playing in? I heard just a limited number and I was in Toledo OH when it was.
After not being able to see it for a day after being sold out, we got to see it Sunday. I was a wee bit dissapointed with the outcome of our waiting and our money.
I have to give it credit for being weird with the 16mm camera and all, but I think the movie just lacked. I won't spoil anything, but the ending was terrible and left tons to be desired. Just a quick note that after the movie, everyone stood up and like looked around quietly. Most were moaning, laughing, or bitching. One person yelled "MIIIKE!!" which made everyone laugh. But that mood should tell you something.
I have to say that it was a bit scary with not knowing what was going to happen and all, but after all that waiting, wondering, and thinking, the outcome was poor and didn't really do anything for the movie.
Those are my thoughts. Does anyone know if this is real.. I know it probably isn't, but I've heard on a radio station claiming it's real and stuff.
--
Scott Miga
it wasnt scary. i had heard all the hype and bull$hit surrounding the whole movie for the past month and when i finally saw the movie it bored me more than eyes wide shut. i would NOT recommend paying $7 for this movie, get it on video and watch it in your basement at 2am...maybe just maybe then would it scare someone. I dont know what was supposed to scary....SPOILER.... the sticks shaped like people? the little kids running around the tent?? yea, that stuff is fscked up and if it actually happened to me i would be scared out of my mind, but it wasnt really happening to me, i know it was all only a set up.
oh, yea...i hear they put hallucinagens in their water to f-ck w/ them even more...hehe, pretty cool... =]
Global warming is good for you!
I saw it over the weekend... And BOY was I sick (no alcohol/drugs involved). The jerky, bouncing, amateurish shots brought me to the brink of hurling before I was 15 minutes into the movie. I spent most of the movie with my eyes closed. I can't say I missed much; both my friend and I thought it was one of the lamest movies ever. Over-played, and really pretty boring for all the hype. I've seen better footage from those "funniest home video" shows.
Okay, I think I have an explanation for the stick figures.
Remember the mad woman who was interviewed beforehand? She said the Blair Witch had hairy arms and legs, and was wearing a shawl... she raised the shawl and she could tell 'it was female'.
The largest stick figure has grass and weeds tied into the arms and legs. The stick figure is the blair witch, with her shawl open.
From the comments here I assume this is nothing to do with the current British PM and his relationship with Mrs Thatcher? Regards, Ralph.
From the comments here I assume this is nothing to do with the current British PM and his relationship with Mrs Thatcher?
Regards, Ralph.
I think that is the part that freaks me out most of the movie. What would cause a young, strong, able bodied man to stand in the corner like a child while his companion is killed.
All of the answers are pretty disturbing.
ccording to my wife (who, unlike the characters in the movie, actually read How to Stay Alive in the Woods, following a stream doesn't always get you to civilization; sometimes the stream empties into a pond that is even harder to navigate around.
While this can be true, the chances of reaching some form of civilization (a trail, a road, a town) still outweigh ignoring it outright. Especially if you're part of a group of morons who throw away the map.
Unlike the first poster, as a former Scout, I didn't find it too unbelievable that someone would know to lay down a tarp but not be able to follow a map. In my Scouting experience, about 1/2 turn out to be excellent woodsmen and the rest turn out to be somewhere between "barely competent" and "fucking incapable". I thought the movie was justice against the fuckwits who would rather start fires and carve their initials in trees than learn how to select proper camping sites and use maps.
No major spoilers here; all things you've probably already heard, but if you haven't heard anything then I recommend getting completely off this page and go see it before anybody spoils anything for you.
I wish I hadn't heard so much about it; I think it would have had more of an impact on me.
It was interesting to watch them break down, and the final scenes stayed with me (and still flash in on me every once in a while, even when I'm not thinking about it). Haunting, I would even say.
I also liked the way that they didn't explain anything too much. No need to show us the reasons, physical or metaphysical, for the things that happen every night. Too many movies have to explain everything.
Overall, I liked it, but I won't see it again. It's very predictable, but set up, shot, and acted very well. And those last scenes...
The movie gave me a headache from the home-video-esque footage. It was kind of jerky, and the first hour wasn't that great, IMHO. I think there was alot more hype for the movie than it actually deserved (surprise!).
;)
The guy who created and directed it is a local around here, and he used his parents' life savings to create it. Unfortunately, his parents hated the film.
-Dave
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
I saw something about this almost 2 years ago. I guess it was the tapes that this movie was based on. At the time I thought it was scary as sh!t and really wondered what happened to them. (Now I know this was all fictional but I still don't want to see it.)
Today's English Lesson: Oxymorons
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
First, for those of you that haven't, go read the real story. This movie's a nice fiction, but it's just that. When you're done with that, you migth like to read this article (even if it is on Salon). I'm not sure I quite agree with all the negative things said in it, but it's a pretty good response piece.
Also, regarding the compass... if the group was actually moving south all day the second day and if they came back to the same log across the creek they'd seen the day before, it's quite possible that this is not because of any witchcraft but because of a perfectly natural phenomenon. There is a lot of lode stone in the back country of Maryland, Pennsylvannia, and West Virginia, which would make compasses pretty useless (when in close proximity to it). (Well, at least, there was at the time that Mason and Dixon put the southern border of Pennsylvania through.)
You'd think that this would be an effect that any outdoorsmen with half a clue would know about, but as others have noted, these three weren't portrayed as the sharpest knives in the cutlery tray. Still, if you're pretty clearly walking around in a circle, get a clue...
Do you have a
SPOLIERS!!!! GO AWAY!
There were some indiscriminate bits in the bundle of sticks. I saw a nose and some teeth and stuff, but others have seen other stuff. Regardless, it was Josh parts. She didn't tell Mike, at least not on screen in any rational manner. By the time they'd made it to the house, they weren't really rational anymore, so it's understandable that they were holding out hope that it was still someone messing with them and those weren't Josh parts.
Yes, that was Mike standing in the corner. He had plenty of time to move into the corner after dropping the camera. Why he stood there is totally unexplained. Supernatural powers, frozen with fear, whatever. What's important is that what made him stand in the corner while waiting to be killed is *unknown*. That whole scene in the basement has no rational explanation, so no matter how much you try to understand it, you're not supposed to and never will. It's all based on fear of the unknown.
Same thing as above. There is no explanation for the stick figures in the trees. It's the total lack of any explanation of their purpose which makes the scene in the woods so powerful and keeps it powerful. Even now you're thinking about the figures and if they have any importantce. Would having it explained to you be any better? I doubt it.
Remember, whenever you feel that something in the movie is not explained well enough, or if it feels incomplete, that that was the point of it all. The fear of the unknown is very powerful, and although you can try to ignore it, there are some things that we can't ever truly understand.
I was hoping that one of the spoilers would say something about the "project" part of the plot, which I assume is where the film gets its nerd interest?
:-)
Info please!
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
I wish I could remember the name of that fake documentary film about the end of the world in a nuclear holocaust ... And I vaguely recall one that had something to do with exposing some failures in some sort of radioactive plant, and another I think about some space mission.
;-)
Evidently they had a huge impact on me.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The movie sucked. Period.
I couldn't look directly at the screen for the last 20 minutes for fear of getting sick. Apparently I missed some of the best parts...
Jamie McCarthy
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
Druidism died out about a thousand years ago, and was revived somewhere in the last century as a romantic bit of British nationalism. It was only one stratum of historic British faith, which includes Norse, Teutonic, and Roman beliefs, and various forms of Christianity from the Roman era on.
"Witchcraft", historically, was defined as the practises of baptised and confirmed Christians who had turned against their faith, which usually involved malicious pranks, poisoning family members, promiscuous sex, and worshipping the Devil. Their purported spellbooks called "grimoires", or grammars, are an interesting hodgepodge of Latin-like gibberish, borrowings from the Cabbala, folk charms of love, prosperity, and revenge, and (sometimes) home remedies more fanciful than practical. There is no mention in them of anything that could be construed as an organized system of beliefs, no Gaelic holidays, nor any deities outside the Christian pantheon of angels/demons.
"Wicca" is a purely 20th century phenomenon, which was largely invented in the 1940's by Gerald Gardner (with help from Aleister Crowley) who claimed that his "Book of Shadows" (cobbled together from Greek, Egyptian, and Masonic sources) came from a woman named Dorothy Clutterbuck, whose coven had kept an unbroken chain of belief from the Paleolithic times onward. Since then, his ideas have undergone several layers of revision, the most important of which was the shift in focus from the Horned God (concieved as a phallic hunting deity, similar to Pan) to the Green Goddess (originally a sex/fertility goddess but now concieved as a Virgin Mary-like figure -- celibately parthenogenic and a "wounded healer".) As practised now, it bears no likeness to any historic or anthropologically recognized strain of nature worship: while "native" animism is usually concerned with bribing, tricking, or placating a variety of gods whose nature is capricious at best, Wicca's response to its near-monotheistic Goddess is more akin to pity.
"True" Wicca is neither dark nor mysterious, yes: if you consider the current version to be the true one. Mostly, it's largely indistinguishable from most liberal Christianity: their ideals are to hold services, be nice, and feel guilty about the environment. Since the heyday of witchcraft in the late 60's and 70's as an excuse (by lapsed Christian young folks toying with blasphemy) to celebrate Halloween and full moons (by getting nekkid, high/drunk, and screwing to loud music) Wicca has been reborn as an excuse (by lapsed middle-aged Christians toying with going back to church, on their own terms, of course) to celebrate Halloween, Christmas, and May Day (by holding ersatz group therapy meetings with the a few Renaissance Faire trappings thrown in). While most Christians will readily own that there have been other members of their faith that have been less than nice people, Wiccans will become enraged at the mere suggestion that any of the historical witches hurt so much as a feeling.
Part of the story hinges on just such a sentimental view of nature worship, and of nature itself. When the kids go to the woman in the trailer park, they are most certainly meeting someone who would have been called a witch in the day: she's old, lives alone, comes on as more than a little schizzy, and surrounds herself with a grab-bag of patriotic and religious symbols (a flag, a Bible, a rosary...) that are most probably not being given their usual meanings. (She also has a gate of bound-together twigs, similar in technique to the effigies found in the woods, and spoke at length of stones as well. Hmm..) Heather doesn't recognize this: apparently, the old woman wasn't up enough on modern witchcraft to invite her in for a nice hot cup of estrogen analogues and a chat about the latest developments in eco-feminism. The dolls and rockpiles would be perfectly understandable to many animists throughout history, and even a few modern ones: these kids are going to be sacrificed to propitiate the gods angered by their profane intrusion on sacred ground. (Their verbal profanities probably were the deciding factor: you just don't swear in church.) If this sounds a far cry from the activities of your local Spiral Dance Drum Circle, it should: as I alluded before, most real nature gods (including fairies) are petty, vain, tricky, capricious, and mostly, downright nasty.
As it befits them. As we see in the film, nature is not, as we like to think, a gentle, caring, mother: she's more like a drunk housewife with PMS. It's dark after the sun goes down. It's cold. There's little food readily available, it's dirty, and you may have to get your feet wet. There aren't even any cigarette machines! When I think about how many Gen X'ers I've met who claim that they would like to go off and live "in nature", implying that all that's involved is a couple of purchases at the local trendy wilderness gear shop (campfire espresso pot, anyone?), I think about Heather's speech before the flashlight. It took only a week to turn a post-modern womyn, well-schooled in every stereotype of the nature-worshipping witch and nurturing Earth Mother, into a weeping, remorseful wreck. I don't think that's anything you can find in Starhawk.
teleny, friend of cats.
Well, I was speaking in a traditional sense. However, *some* Buddhists have a pantheon, some do not. It is not true, I would submit, that all "pagans" follow the creed of Celtic Wicca. Thank you for the clarification.
teleny, friend of cats.
1) His eyes and tongue, and some teeth, if I recollect rightly. The fact that you can still hear him scream coherently makes me think he's already dead, and leading them on. 2) He's bewitched. 3) It seems to refer to the "Wicker Man", a Celtic custom of making a huge basket and setting it aflame with a man inside. They also suggest crucifixes, with their implied flavor of sacrifice, etc. A major point is that this isn't what's expected of witches-as-peaceful-nature-worshippers, instead this is ...something else.
teleny, friend of cats.
In other words, if it's all sweetness and light, why do you have this compulsion to prefix the word "Shadow" to everything? Celebrate the Eve of All Saints' Day (OK, Halloween, er, Samhain...) when it's dank and dark? The Goddess was a hot babe when I knew her, now she's the Drama Queen of Guilt. And where is the Horned God when we need him? While girls are still swooning over Lestat, the group that should be giving them support is counselling a new chastity, where it's a source of pride to be a lesbian, and a shame to be in love with a Man.
Witches have given themselves a wussy stereotype that has little to do with real, Dionysian paganism, and everything to do with trying to return to the prissy narrowmindedness of The Little Church on The Corner...on their own terms, of course.
teleny, friend of cats.
was 'man bites dog'
/.
but i still loved blair witch. .
saw it twice to catch everything
it would be pretty boring to watch it
again. .
i'm suprised this is just now being hyped
on
there's a really kewl fan site at:
http://tbwp.freeservers.com/
they have a pretty good faq on the movie
the ghost of chance
I've been waiting to see Blair Witch since April and I was blown away by the movie. It lived up to my personal expectations. BWP was the best independent film in a long while. I love to see such minimal films do so well. They successfully blurred fact and fiction. The theater was dead silent for the last 10 minutes. I will see it again! The directors/actors/etc.. defineately deserve the support. They had me shakin' in my boots.
People have become too analytical to the point that the "voices" being ghosts doesn't even occur to them because we all know "ghosts don't exist." Pretend they do and you would understand the film much more.
I myself had trouble falling asleep this weekend. The movie kept coming back to me when I was lying there in the dark.
You think that's bad, you should try seeing it then go directly home and try going to bed.
I kept seeing little kids hand prints on walls all night long as I tried to get to sleep.
I must admit that I got suckered into it like a lot of other people. They did an extremely good job promoting the movie as being the real documentary work of the three students who disappeared. The show that aired on SciFi channel helped tremendously to create a spooky atmosphere around the film. They did a great job with it, though there were a few points that made me think twice.
I loved the whole storyline and the historic references, though a lot of the historic appearances linked with the Blair Witch were all pretty much ridiculous and easily explained.
There were a lot of things which just didn't make sense. The fact that Mike kicked the map into the creek, well... no one, even in that situation, and that scared, would ever do that. That was just dumb. Anotehr thing... Why the hell did they run out of the tent when something was outside hitting it from all sides? What if it had been right in front of the door ready to kill them? Also... when they were walking south... and somehow went in a complete circle, even though they were looking at the compass, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY LOOK UP AT THE SUN?!?! I walked away from it the first time (without having read the credits all the way to the point where it mentions the entire thing is a work of fiction) and I thought the kids were just plain stupid. I also thought that Josh was the one who hit them in the basement of that house.
That reminds me.... Just how did a three story, modern house, get built in the middle of the friggin woods without ANY roads or pathways leading to it? Houses don't just appear in the middle of nowhere. Also... the basement of that house looked a good 75-100 years older than the rest of the house. The kids' handprints and the writing on the walls was interesting... but what was the deal with that? There were no kids there. That wasn't Rustin Parr's house because they said that the people in the town burned his house down.
*shrug*
Another thing about Rustin Parr, the witch supposedly told him to kill those kids, yes, but it wasn't the witch who told him to have one kid face the corner while he killed the other one. So why was Mike facing the corner when Heather got hit? And just how did Mike get back up after being knocked out like that?
Knowing that this was a fictional movie now, I really have to say that those three kids were portraying a bunch of mildly retarded film crew members. They did a good job making the movie, they tricked me once, but they did still make some mistakes. No one is ever going to be able to pull something like this off again.
--
Gabe Ricard
Gabriel Ricard
Obviously, some people liked this movie.
It was campy and predictable. Friday the 13th had a less predictable plot. And why was it about a Witch when they ran into the Hermit's house (which was burned down and they magically did not see during the day)?
People keep calling Heather "Ann" and "Mary" and call Mike "Matt". If you people supposedly like this movie so much, how can you keep screwing up names?
And how do you get over all the inconsistencies in the movie? Stay awake for two days, no bloodshot eyes. Run out of food after two days, but have enuf film for 8. See your friend's body parts and hyperventilate, but don't drop the camera. What a load of shit. They should have called the movie "Snipe Hunting", at least us (ex) boy scouts would appreciate it more.
Rob Nelson
ronelson@vt.edu
As to the bundle tied with Josh's flannel shirt - My friends and I agreed that it was probably Josh's tooth necklace... From what we remember, it made the most sense. I'll be going to see it again this afternoon, though, so I'll look again.
This
I love Man Bites Dog... its the only film I own on video and thats only because its not on DVD yet. Quite gripping with very few down moments... but disturbing? nah...
F /...
Iron Man Tetsuo, now that is a disturbing film in almost every way possible.
---
Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OS
--- I do not moderate.
The thing about the moving of the camera is that you just can't sit too close to the screen. I went to see the movie on friday, and I was about five rows from the back of the theater. That way I was able to watch the movie bouncing around, and still know I wasn't moving. The reason people get sick from this movie is that they sit too close, and all their eyes see is the jittery camera, while their ears tell them that they aren't moving.
"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
I decided to check out the IRC forum, and it's an obvious fake. Dan and Ed, the directors, supposedly came onto the channel. Ed immediately posted: "I'd like to start this off by announcing the launch of the site for our next movie. Please visit www.richent.com for all the info." Don't bother to visit that site, because it's a nasty porn site; the big splash screen says "Welcome to Steamy Dumps!"
;) I'm rather upset, though, about the totally dishonest chat: boycott scifi.com!
I hate to admit that I got suckered into seeing this dreck, but I've put that behind me now.
/. peeve #274: The word is neither "walla" nor "whala", it's voila. Phonics is a tool of the devil.
Although maybe a step or two above in quality.
--
i saw it a couple weeks ago, and everytime i see a commercial or hear a discussion of anticipation for it since then, I still get the chills. I though the movie was fantastic. Definitly one to cause heart palpitations.
For those of you who didn't like it, makes me kinda curious; did it not scare you? If so, what kinds of movies do? I think this was up there with the exorcist.
comm...
I concur. It wasn't the cat-jumpin-out-of-the-closet kind of thriller, it was much more creepy than that. I didn't jump once seeing the movie, but the whole last half, the short hairs on the back of my neck were up. that was one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen, and it gives me the chills just thinking about it, and I think about it a lot. I'm never going camping ever again.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Children's voices followed by tent shaking, blue slime, and bundles of sticks tied with flannel containing body parts "come with the territory"? Where the hell are you camping...
At the beginning of the movie, they were talking about an guy who killed a couple (7?) children. He made them face the wall while he killed them, because "their eyes were watching him." So you were supposed to see him facing the wall and associate it with the kids (notice the bloody prints on the walls?) getting killed.
I enjoyed watching it. I thought the actors and
actress were actually quite good and believable
in their roles.
Oddly enough, however, I didn't find it as
scary or frightening as I had hoped, especially
the events leading up to the climax.
Also, there were a couple of things that were
irritating but probably limitations of the choice
of presentation: their constant giving up, sitting
down in the grass, and complaining about how lost
they are. I guess, though, that's better than a
whole movie of video shots of them walking and
complaining.
Despise these things, I still liked the film.
Stuff I've read said that it was teeth. That's pretty much straight out of the directors' mouths (the description, not the teeth =) ) As for why they kept expecting to find him...well, they did hear him screaming, and teeth don't mean that he's dead yet.
That was Mike in the corner, as per the legend with the children. That's why that scene messes with me so much. At that moment you see him in the corner, you know the other victim in the room is going to die. And then she does.
As for why he just stands there -- I think at that point, he's not really himself anymore -- doesn't have any will to fight back, just like the men who were disembowled at Coffin Rock. They were alive when they were tied up, but for some reason didn't resist.
blairWitch.reallyFuckingWith( theKids ) There may have been some more symbology there -- to me, it'd at the very least just be *really* spooky.
Andrewpooptruck
SPOILER
Great concept. Poor execution (no pun intended). The actors simply became annoying very fast. I was under the impression this film was supposed to scare people. It did not scare me. I did laugh at a few lines, but nothing made me scared. About the closest the director came to scaring me was when they unwrapped the one bundle of twigs to see what was in it. But the girl is shaking so much (to demonstrate her own fear of course) that the image doesn't hold still long enough for me to be sure what it is. I'll go back and see "Eyes Wide Shut" before I bother with this one again.
-- Some people say they can tell the time by looking at the Sun, but I have trouble seeing the numbers.
My basic reaction to the Blair Witch Project is that I wish they had told a better story. But that's such a basic and general purpose piece of advice that it almost seems silly to recommend it. Yet so many movies, including this one, would do so much better to remember it.
For those of you who have seen the film, have you told anyone about it? Did you have anything to say other than "These kids, you see, they get lost in the woods looking for the Blair Witch, they're making a documentary, and, um, all this scary stuff happens. But I can't tell you how it ends."
But if you have seen the poster ("a year later their film was found") you know they didn't get out alive. I don't see that there are any spoilers possible with this film because nothing happens beyond some kids being stupid and freaking out and dying.
Why is The Blair Witch Project is so successful? Let me reveal just how old I must be with the following.
People, particularly "kids these days", the ones who go to all those movies, are afraid of the woods. They are also tired of "Oow, what an ugly monster, but not as good as Aliens." The youngerly can relate to seeing other youngerly panicing. And Hollywood's gloss gets predictable.
So put a bunch of panicy kids in the woods, don't show the monster/witch/whatever, use--er--innovative camera techniques that don't look like Hollywood gloss, and I can see why it is a success.
I admire that the film makers realized that what isn't seen is often more frightening than what is seen, however, I wish they had spent more time trying to tell a good story instead of merely trying to be scary, because a good story offers its own suspense.
One thing that can drive an audience crazy (in a good way) is when they know something the character on screen doesn't. When this be something dangerous to the onscreen character the result can be a powerful "Don't do it!!!!"
The problem with Blair Witch is that, being filmed by the characters themselves, there is no way we can see things they don't also see. There is no way we can see the metaphorical knife being raised behind anyone's back. Or is there?
I suggest that two things could have been done.
One would have been to take advantage of the fact that they ran their video camera so much and let them leave it on when they don't intent to or to let them look up over the camera at something else as the camera (and audience) catches something the characters themselves miss.
The second idea would have been near the end to have the camera dropped...and picked up. It could have had a smoother or at least different style of operation. It could have moved in a searching way that would have completely reversed the audience's previous identification with the moving camera. A character could have turned, looked at whatever was now holding the camera, and been completely mortified. The very turn of events would have been so scary that no extra extra emoting would have been needed.
Add to that some careful thinking about how to tell a good story and this film could really have been worthy of all the hype and success.
-kb, the Kent who doesn't pretend to be good at telling a story, but he knows it can be done better than in The Blair Witch Project.
I kept hearing people saying stuff like "this movie is extremely scary", etc. etc... so when I went into this film I expected it to be similar to some of the cheesy mainstream horror flicks we've become so used to (I Know What You [still] Did Last Summer, Scream, etc.). Boy was I wrong.
The wavy camera motion really gives the impression of a "first-hand" perspective of this brave group of 3 fictional filmmakers. You're one of them. When they get mad at one of the group members (like after the missing map segment) you get mad at that guy too. When they're running, so are you. At the final scene (I won't give anything away) you're part of the action.
Weaving the viewer right into the action is a different flavor of horror, and left me walking out of the theatre feeling a lot more entertained than I have after a whole lot of movies.
I got very annoyed at this "film". After an hour of watching three refugees from "The Real World" screaming at each other I walked out.
It felt as if it had been made by a couple of guys on a lark (the point I guess). The dialogue was embaressingly ad-hoc, and no character development was detectable to these jaded senses.
The group I saw it with had mixed reactions. Two thought it was hilarious, two hated it, and one thought it was 'chilling'.
My suggestion - wait until it comes out on video. You won't be missing anything.
I felt the point of the film was to get the makers exposure (and make a shit load of money on the side). They certainly succeeded.
What was *your* point?
The premise was OK. The acting was good. The execution sucked. The ending sucked.
I am a pagan. I am not a wiccan, but I have friends who are. Witches are NOT evil supernatural beings. Witches are usually great people because of what they believe.
If you believed that everything you do will come back to you threefold, how likely would you be to hurt someone?
For those who are ignorant about wicca and witches, I guess that the thought of some solitary witch wreaking havok and spreading chaos through the forests of Maryland can be terrifying, for me it's not.
I think that the irrational fear that they faced along with their stupidity caused Josh to flip his wig and he killed the other two at the end.
They were rich kids, you mean to tell me that they couldn't have afforded a GPS device? And what kind of moron goes out into unknown woods without a firearm of some type? (maybe my perspective on this one is skewed because I'm black and was raised to be wary of rednecks) They should have had at least a machete, what if they had walked into a wall of jagger bushes?(western PA dialect shining through)
Why could they not just follow the stream? In the the eastern US if you follow a stream you're going to hit the Mississippi sooner or later. Granted, starting in Maryland, it would have been later but there would have been a small town within a day or two's walk, even in October.
This movie was not "scarry" it was not "chilling" it was not "haunting". It was about three rich white kids who loose their marbles out in the woods because they were ill prepared.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>I felt like hitting them..
The movie sucked, don't be mad at those kids for pointing it out.
>A movie isn't scary anymore if you know what the monster looks like..horror movies now-a-days spend 10 minutes building up to the scary part so when it does happen, it isn't scary anymore.
A movie can be scarry once you know what the monster looks like, it stops being scarry when you know that the monster can be beaten or at least escaped.
Alien was a prime example of this. Ripley knew what the creature looked like, yet it was still scarry until she survived.
>In closing, to all those aol warez-trading, 2600.com reading, rap-listening, windows 2000-awaiting, gory horror movie-liking punks, get a clue..the nothing in blair witch is 10000 times as scary as the something in your favorite horror movies...
Now it gets personal you espresso drinking little bitch. I concede, my head is not as pointy as yours. I'm not as Gen-X Chic as you, I don't sit around in coffee shops drinking cappuccino and pondering why and how the short haired metallica differs from the long haired metallica.
>in my opinion, the 3 greatest horror movies are:
1. blair witch
2. event horizon
3. the exorcists
The Exorcist was an excellent piece of work. As was The Omen, and Night of the living dead. those first two on your list scarcely deserve shelf space at BlockBuster.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
>'m sure I'm bound to offend some people here but I truly believe that if you didn't like "The Blair Witch Project" and/or get scared .. especially from the closing moments ... then you have lost the ability to fully use your imagination.
Too bad I couldn't imagine that the movie didn't suck.
I was too annoyed by how whiny and bitchy Heather was to enjoy anything. The two guys were just freaking stupid.
/Spoiler
"He he, i kicked the thing in the river, ha ha ha ha!" Sheer idiocy. OK, you're out in the woods unarmed and virtually alone. You head wierd noises all around your tent and you do what?
1. Shut the hell up and be still.
2. Shut the hell up and look around real stealthy like.
3. Make a bunch of f*cking noise, and shine BIG BRIGHT lights out into the total darkness which draw bright lines across the darkness to your exact position.
Most thinking people would do either 1 or 2.
Can you IMAGINE why some morons wouldn't?
WTF were you sooooo scared about? You never saw the witch. You never saw any evidence of her being there. All you saw were some sticks tied together and three piles of rocks. Oooooh, scary!
Watching BWP was like watching a porno on Cable. Everything except the money shot.
I want my $8.00 back
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
For the most part, I agree with your post. However, I would like take issue with one thing you said at the very beginning:
"Anything that isn't Christian is pagan, including such non-witchy faiths as Buddhism and Confucianism."
As an athiest with zen buddhist inclinations, I don't believe Buddhists are pagans. To quote websters, a pagan is:
1) a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient Rome)
2) one who has little or no religion and who delights in sensual pleasures and material goods : an irreligious or hedonistic person
Buddhism certainly doesn't qualify as definition 1, nor does it meet the second half of 2. In fact, Buddhism is the opposite of this.
Anyhoo, I just wanted to clarify that a bit. The rest of your post is thorough and well thought out.
-zeno
Come on, he leaves mysteriously, making little noise.
His stuff is covered in goo.They keep following his screams.
And they definately hear him in the basement. When they get to the origination of his screams, who's there? One "person," the witch.As far as the horse-hair stuff, it could have been an exaggeration (that's the whole point of interviewing townspeople, they exagerate things).
Oh well. I bet you can't guess what to remove from my e-mail address!Mark Prindle, the most underappreciated genius on the web.
I just want a battery like the ones they had for their cameras for my laptop...
The movie WAS actually filmed on just 16mm and NTSC video camera.
Remember, film students have access to fairly good VHS and Betamax cameras.
That's why this movie will make a huge profit since it cost pennies to make.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
Er, it's a MOVIE. Not real.
Fake. Bogus. Phoney. False. And NOT based on a true story.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
The audio was from the DAT.
The 16mm Mike had at the end doesn't record sound. Mike had a DAT recorder around his neck most of the time.
The video camera was recording sound...
But then again, it is only a movie and they had other sound people doing the sound. The cast and crew included more than just three people. Just look at the credits at the end!
Also, take a look at the IMDB: http://us.imdb.com/Title?0185937
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
All I can say is if there are any dark woods with a utility road within a few miles from your theatre, GO THERE.
It's the most awesome experience to go see the movie and right after it drive into the woods and turn off the engine and the lights in the car.
I did that to my friends when we saw it (we went to the 12:35am showing on Saturday). One of my friends was really freaking out by the dark woods with the wind causing the trees to sway and light to bounce off the various metal objects dumped in the woods.
- Hugh Buchanan
- Userfriendly.com
The map was bogus. It was meant to get them lost.
or so i heard.
-Z
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
I am inclined to believe it was the lower half of Josh's jaw. She didn't tell Mike, that is a debatable decision. On one hand he might have lost it if she told him but on the other hand he probably wouldn't have been so overeager to find Josh. Notice she was a lot more reserved in her movements around the house which explains how Mike easily got a few seconds ahead of her.
:)
It was Mike standing in the corner, this goes back to the killer (wasn't his name Pratt?) forcing one child to stand in the corner while he killed the other. If you accept the idea that Blair could rip out the intestines of all those men on coffin rock then forcing one very irrational and scared man to stand in a corner isn't much of a leap.
There are some interesting theories I've heard about the end that I'd like to throw out. Who was the killer? I don't think it was Blair, remember Pratt heard voices that told him to kill the kids. What if Josh had been possesed like Pratt? That would tie it all in nicely and fits the history. If not what happened to Josh? Another idea is less supernatural, what if Josh and Mike where in it together, remember their conspiratoral laughter after the map was lost? These are not as well supported as the obvious but allow some interesting twists. For all we know, the lights could have come on and everyone yelled "Suprise, happy birthday"
Oh and I will never, ever go camping again.
That is for you to decide. The thing I like best about this movie is that it relies on your imagination (which is why many hate it). Read through the posts for other people's interpretations but realize that there is no correct answer...
She had a whole list of things the characters would have done if they'd been marginally intelligent campers:
- Leave a "flight plan" with friends, and a note under the car's windshield wiper, saying where they would be and when they were expected back.
- Bring provisions for at least twice as many days as they expected to be out there.
- Bring signaling mirrors.
- When lost, light signal fires.
- When being weirded-out at night, sleep during the day and move at night.
- Don't enter an abandoned building (not because it might be haunted, but because you could fall through a rotting floorboard and break a leg).
Granted, this continent is crawling with undergraduates who really are stupid enough to go on a camping trip and neglect all these safety precautions. But it's much harder to empathize with horror-movie characters who are so careless about protecting themselves. If the characters had done everything right and still gotten zapped, this would have been a kick-ass movie.send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
- As campers, the characters were inept. (I posted details of the mistakes they made in comment #85, which of course contains spoilers.)
- The movie spends a lot of time focusing on the characters talking about how scared they are, rather than letting the things that scared them speak for themselves.
While I was nonplussed by the movie, I hope it makes a lot of money -- it might make subtle and gore-free horror movies become trendy in Hollywood.And judging from other people's reactions to the movie, if you don't know anything about camping, the movie will give you a good scare.
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
I went with a couple of friends. What sums it up to me was that once we got out we went directly to the video store and rented "Psycho" to calm us down some. :) The other thing I noticed about it, everyone I went with said they got nauseous during the movie. I think the reason I didn't was because I play quake with freelook on.
Pound! Bang! Bin! Bash! is this a shell script or a Batman comic?
I really should say that the movie was quite excellent before I start here. It stayed pretty true to the occult in how it dealt with The Blair Witch. I'm not going to spoil anything for anyone, but it was really quite a fascinating story, and the way they portrayed it was really well done. I like the idea of having the actors film the movie. I heard the writers left bundles in the woods for the actors to pick up each day for instructions, so they actually hiked through the woods throughout parts of the filming, which led to the actors being genuinely frightened during the making of the movie.
:)
The actors themselves gave a performance worthy of award in my opinion. Those who haven't seen it yet should see it and allow themselves to get into it. People who sit in the theatre and shrug it off are robbing themselves of a good experience. I hope this really opens up people to the occult community in certain ways, making people more aware of the myths that surround us and how beautiful and mystifying they really are. See the movie.
"It's here, but no one wants it." - The Sugar Speaker
The warning may be unnecessary, but I'm not sure what I'm about to write :)
...
:)
:)
Thoughts on the Blair Witch Project:
This movie is definately one of the best horror movies that I've seen in a long time. It does so many things right that most modern horror movies do wrong. In fact, calling the Blair Witch Project a movie is wrong. It is a film. There is a difference.
Some of the more striking things about the movie:
1) The lack of music: we're so used to hearing background music (even when we don't consciously notice it) that it makes it all the more eerie to realize that there is none. All you can hear is the actors and the world around them.
2) The role the audience plays: a good friend of mine put it best I believe. What he said was this:
"the movie has seven characters. heather, the director. mike the sound guy, and josh, the cp-16 camera operator. then there is the DAT, the handicam, the cp-16, and the witch.
*we* play the role of the dat and the cameras. "
What is so interesting about this fact is that we never get to see exactly what is going on. Unlike most movies, it is not told in the 3rd person Omniscient. We're a very limited third person, almost a first person (as the role of the cameras and DAT). Things happen, the three main characters react, and yet we barely get to see what they're reacting to, if at all. We don't know what the heck the noises are out in the woods. We have no idea who made those rock piles outside their tents. [sure, we have some guesses, but so do they, and ours are no better than theirs]. We don't know where Josh went. There are even times where the cameras and sound are blacked out, and we are left only to guess what happened while we were away. The point is, we are in some ways a part of the story, but only as a powerless observer. We couldn't help them no matter how hard we tried or wanted to.
3) The realism of acting: this is one of the finer points of the movie. I have seen at least one review berate the amount of obscenities thrown about, but realistically, what do you think YOU would be doing in that situation? The realism comes largely from the fact that almost all of the movie was ad-libbed. There were a few key turning-point scenes that weren't, but the rest was done on the spot. The three main characters were given a GPS, the cameras, and supplies, and left out in the woods. The crew stayed far away most of the time. The crew didn't even tell the actors when they were going to do stuff like noises. Sure, the actors knew they had to happen sometime, but they didn't know when. This helped make a lot of the fear a lot more genuine. Had I been doing this movie, I would have been scared shitless myself
All in all, this movie was incredible. It didn't scare me as much as I thought when I saw it, but it was creepy nonetheless, and the final scene is still vivid in my memory, even though I saw it last friday. Those who dislike this movie have a high likelihood of being the type of person who only likes gory horror movies, and dislikes more subtle, and psychological films.
Rating: *****
Go see it. It is good. But for those of you prone to motion sickness, consider some dramamine beforehand.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
It looked to me like (at least) an eye, and some other "bits". Maybe a finger. Very few pieces, anyway, no more than four, all smaller than a hand. Did she tell Mike? Hmmm, that was difficult to tell. I assumed that she didn't. Until the "confession". That made me think that Mike knew. (Of course, watching the confession, I thought that Mike had disappeared, and she was all alone, but that's another discussion.)
It looked like Mike to me. I haven't read anything about the movie, so I know none of the fake "folklore" surrounding it. But it looked to me like he ran down the stairs, dropped the camcorder, then froze in place; too stunned by what he saw to move. (What he saw, we may never know.) And Heather was a good (very tense) 30 seconds behind Mike. Normally movies don't scare me, but my blood was pumping good as she ran down the stairs....
Well, to outdoorsmen, piles of 3 are signals from other hikers that there is danger ahead, but I don't know of any (common backpacker knowledge) reasons for the stick figures or other piles of stones. Oh well, just another unanswered question.
All in all, the best horror movie I have ever seen. (This from a huge Hitchcock fan!)
Another non-functioning site was "uncertainty.microsoft.com."
The purpose of that site was not known.
I didn't see anyone else post links to these, so here are:
The Blair Witch Project FAQ
and the companion
The BWP Spoiler FAQ
My $.02, the buildup could have been scarier (I've been more terrified in the woods before), but the payoff was stunning. Read the Mythology page before seeing the movie (blairwitch.com).
F.O.Dobbs
honestly?
no, it didn't scare me.
though it did come about as close as any i've seen.
what movies do scare me?
none.
ever.
which is REALLY frustrating.
i think i know why, too.
in a book i'm reading now,
there is an intro about predicting the outcome of the story.
it says that any who try are either very wise,
or very foolish,
and either way,
it spoils the story.
i think it's right, roo.
-Tannin Kal
Okay, so if you saw the movie, you know how it ends. But, *what* happened? I thought about it long afterwards, was it the ghost, or something less paranormal, but equally deadly.
I saw the movie with my sister, her daughters, and my friend. My friend didn't like it, my nieces didn't sleep that night, my sister was spooked and thoughtful, and I was just thoughtful and spooked. However, she had better thoughtfulness than I did. Go figure.
Anyways, here is a small recap of what happened:
Heather, Josh, and Mike go hiking to look for "the old cemetary" which they never really found, unless you count the clearing with the piles of rocks as it. Slowly the realize they are lost, because of Heather's assurance she knows the way, when she doesn't. Eventually, they stumble upon another clearing with human effigies made out of bound sticks hanging from the trees. Heather cuts one down to take with her. At night, for sure lost now, they hear things at night when they camp, seemingly all around them. Between being lost and scared, the three start to bicker and eventually argue and fight. After several more nights of sounds outside the tent, the worst comes when the tent is assaulted by what sounds like playful children who quickly run off when chased. After that, the trio decide to take watches at night. One night, Josh disappears. Next day, Heather and Mike search, yell, but do not find him. They camp the next night alone and they heard Josh yelling for help, upon waking the next morning they find a tied bundle of sticks with strips of cloth from Josh's shirt. Later, Heather opens the bundle of sticks alone and finds what appears to be a tongue inside. She privately freaks, but her and Mike continue on. The next night, they hear Josh again, this time Mike runs and follows, with Heather close behind. (Filming of course.) Mike finds the house, goes inside, up the stairs, down the stairs, ends up in the cellar, Heather follows, both die. (We presume.) End of movie.
Now, what exactly happened? My sister's thoughts on the issue, assuming that the witch *was* real:
Josh was not kidnapped, per se, but was possessed instead. Think about these few things: 1.) He was the first to hear the sounds at night. 2.) His hear is the only gear to have the "oily substance" all over them. 3.) He started talking weird after the first few nights of sounds, talking about "being distanced" from the world and such.
Maybe, much in the same way that Rustin Parr was "possessed" when he killed the children in the 1940's. There is never any proof that it is *Josh's* tongue in the bundle of sticks, it could be an animals or another victom's. The ghost, using Josh, lures the other two to the old house where they are needed so she can Josh can perform the unholy rituals the ghost needs to survive. What happens to Josh afterwards? *Somebody* had to bury the film footage to hide it, and I'd be willing to bet that he is still out there, somewhere...biding his time to do more of the witch's bidding.
Plausible? It makes a strange sort of sense, actually, but who knows? Our only other theory had to do with Bun Bun from Sluggy Freelance.
First off, the movie was showing in 3 of about 10 major theaters in my area. All 3 were sold out for 7, 9 and 11 or midnight showings on Friday night. So, I saw it in the middle of the day Saturday, in a very croweded theater, with it being 105 degrees outside. Even after having seen all the trailers - I got the chills during several scenes. Especially that last scene. I must concur with the general idea that it was haunting.
But, I also must say, the only reason that they could pull this production off is that it is a low budget film. No special effects, just classic Hitchcock style directing.
Also, it was familiar. There were no famous people, and the stars weren't necessarily extraordinary. They were ordinary college students that you would see in the local grocery store. The woods were familiar - the same woods you take a hike in on a weekend afternoon. Their reactions were real, human emotions, similar to the reactions most people would have. It felt real and it was that realism that made it good. It's a realism that could not be achieved with lots of money spent on special effects or famous actors.
All in all, I have a very high opinion of this movie, but the amount of hype somewhat diminished its appeal.
How old are you? Not to attack age or anything, I am genuinely curious to see if it is to a difference in the quality of effects that were used - none as compared to modern movies, or if it is something more cultural, as in, do you watch art movies to begin with?
**************
:-)
***SPOILER***
**************
I first saw the movie about 3 months ago, when the VCD was floating around, and I liked it better on the little screen than on the big screen. Had more of a "amaturish" feel to it..
And yes, I did go see it in the theater this weekend, so "boooo!" to all you VCD nay-sayers..
Of course, there had been no promotion for it in the states at that time, so we had no idea what it was until we watched it. I think that added to it a bit, also..
In any case, the supa-hype kinda ruins the film a bit, since you know it's fake before you go into the theater. Admittedly, you'd have to be a bit of a complete idiot to think it was real once you saw the ending (where I was yelling "give me a break! that sucks!"), but still..
The movie was very predicable, except for those figures made out of the trees.. what the hell was that about? That was the one part I thought really really creepy. The rest was good, but not great.
Even so, it scared the hell out of my friends, who watched the VCD with me.. That was probably the best part of the flick.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
***************************
******SLIGHT SPOILERS******
***************************
The movie was... decent. It was spooky. I was definitely edgy while watching it-- kinda nervous, but not scared.
The movie was, I'll admit, absolutely predictable. It followed a standard cookie-cutter "hey-let's-make-a-horror-flick" template. But let's be fair-- all scary movies do that.
The ending sucked. It just gave no closure. And not only was it the most predictable part of the movie, it was the least well-done. Of course you expect to see Mike standing in the corner just before you hear a "THUD" and see the camera fall to the floor.
I will say, though, that the movie was better than most horror flicks. Why? Because no matter how unbelievable the characters (there were a few times when they became really campy), I somehow felt a connection to them that was stronger than with any other movie.
Is the connection there because of the first-person perspective? Maybe, maybe not. Is it because of the acting? A little. Is it because of the fact that there isn't a shitload of eerie pipe organ music and a bunch of guys with weapons? Perhaps.
I can't recommend this movie to anybody but a few people who really like horror flicks anyway. The film makes a single, novel innovation. After that, it's just a horror flick.
I'd like to see some more films of this type, but BWP is sort of a one-time only deal. Which sucks-- this movie could have been great. It just needed a little more work-- maybe the same guys who came up with the idea of doing it all in first person should have done a little bit more of the same with their script.
I think how much you know about the movie contributes a great deal to how scared you are by it. I saw it in New York on its first release day, I believe it was Friday a week ago. I was walking down the street next to the theatre and one of the people coming out said it was the scariest movie he had ever seen, and that he was NOT going to see it again no matter what.
After hearing something like that I had to see it, I got in line and bought my tickets for the only show availible, 12:30am. As for how much I knew about the movie my brother (the true movie affictionado) had told me only the little 3 film students go off in the woods bit. I went in thinking it was real. Left thinking it was real, and didn't sleep until 5am when the sun was nice and up. I dislike horror movies because they are usually filled with bad lines and gore and just not funny. This was different. I've done a good deal of camping. Thinking about the movie now I think it did a great job suspending the reality, why didn't they follor the stream? how did they carry all of josh's gear? How come they didn't bring a signalling mirror/more food...etc. But leaving the theatre I wasn't thinking about that. I was still haunted by the last few images of the movie, and I live in the city. If I were even close to a forested area I'd have been scared shitless. See the movie, thats all I have to say, well acted and scary.
And I couldn't identify.
I know I'm going to get hell for this, about how I'm not 'cerebral' or 'imaginative' enough for it. My imagination was going throughout the entire movie, but rather than occupying itself with filling in the holes in the movie it was occupied with imagining how it could have been better and imagining how to improve it. Saying you need 'imagination' to appreciate the BWP is like saying you need 'imagination' to understand (insert name of crappy film here) in order to fill in the gaping holes in the plot.
Back to identifing with the characters. If you identify with half-stoned, moronic, unintelligent, bickering college kids with grating personalities and a vocabulary of about four words then you'd love the movie. I couldn't identify them, and so I couldn't put myself in their shoes and thus I didn't care about their fear and so finally I wasn't scared.
Summary of the movie:
"Fuck fuck fuck you lost the map fuck we're lost fuck *scream* *thud*" end of movie.
This movie was great. I was literaly on the edge of my seat. The best part about it was that they kept building the suspense through the _whole_ movie. In films like Scream, the bad guy pops out every 5 minutes and you get to let off a little steam.
I think this one will be even better when it comes out on video.. it's be more personal.
** spoler **
I'm not sure, but I think that the witch (or whatever it was) was messing with their sense of direction and/or the terrain. Remember they followed a creek for a whole day and came back to the same log bridge?
HA! Same here!-I wasn't sure if that had anything to do with it, but I play Quake and Q2 every night, sometimes up to 4 or 5 hours at a time...Guess I just needed someone to say it first to verify my theory-Everyone else was sick though...
Hey... thats the truth. No matter how much they hyped it up on the web, its still crap. Crap crap crap! Not scarry at all and kinda hard to take all that fake scenes.
I saw it at 0am on Friday.
Later on in the afternoon I heard on accessholywood that by now the movie had made $6Mill. and it only cost $25000. And all that before it was released nationwide. On only 31 screens.
Which would explain why we got there at 23:40 on thursday and had trouble getting seats...
Anyway on saturday nine of us went camping. On sunday six of us had breakfast for by that time the rest were gone... creepy!!!
B.
"Josh?" "Josh??" "JOSH!!!"
"I'm so, so, so, so, sorry."
"I'm afraid to close my eyes, I'm afraid to open my eyes"*rapid-nostril-flare*
--
--
"In Cyberspace, no one can hear you be sarcastic"
The only people with small brains are the people who thought this was an entertaining movie. Someone standing in the woods and shouting, "F*ck! F*ck!" is not my idea of a cerebral film. The lack of intelligence, in fact, serves to make it barely more interesting than that home movie of your grandmother's retirement party.. and just about as scary. Puhlease. This film never really goes anywhere. The ending is a relief. It can't forget about the Blair Witch disappointment fast enough.
There was a movie out in 1997 called "The Last Broadcast" that has so many similarities to the Blair Witch it's gonna make some lawyers lots of money.
InterneTV Film
More 'proof'
A friend of mine also studied with Lance (one of the filmakers) and it seems the makers of "Last Broadcast" are currently reviewing their options with lawyers. What makes them so sure they have a case?
The Last Broadcast people are also from Florida and studied above the Blair Witch guys. It is known the Blair witch crew saw the Last Broadcast and allegedly re-edited their fledgling film in lieu of the footage they had seen.
The premise of the last broadcast is so similar I'd urge any of you to try and get hold of a copy. Murder, woods, found footage all the same.
You heard it here first!
I've not seen the Blair Witch project myself. I want to re-rent the last broadcast first. I don't want to detract from the Blair guys at all - well - Ok yes I do. Credit where credit is due for "such an original storyline and concept" etc.
~~~~~###--Stresspuppy--###~~~~~
*** SPOILERS ***
:)
OK, there are a lot of people that didn't like it because they didn't understand the movie. I admit I didn't understand it when it ended, but 10 minutes afterward went I was talking with my buddy outside the theater the ending hit us both and it freaked me out.
First of all, that was Mike in the corner. Remember the story about the old man that killed those 7 kids in the woods? He would put one in the corner while he killed the other, because he "felt them staring at him."
God, that was freaky when we realized it.
The thing in the bail of twigs is Josh's tooth and I am pretty sure that she didn't tell Mike about it.
The sticks in the woods were weird, I didn't quite get that, maybe it really was a witch and not the old man, or something paranormal.
The stones (three piles) was probably representing the three kids.
Mike was an idiot. (kicking the map in the river...)
OK there are two things that I didn't connect. The little kid screaming and the shaking the tent the first time. What was that little kid scream? (that freaked me out) and what was the blue slime on Josh's stuff. I know it was signaling his doom, but what was it?
I was on edge the entire movie, and thought that it was really well done, especially the way they decided to film it (virtually sans scripts) to fully get the fear experience.
Well, those are my thoughts.
~jumex
"Your 'Gin n'tonic Futon Brain' sure makes you smart!"
"That's 'Positronic-photon Brain', you idiot!"
"Your 'Gin n'tonic Futon Brain' sure makes you smart!"
"That's 'Positronic-photon Brain', you idiot!"
I thought the film had a great idea behind it and they pulled it off very well. It was a real nail-biter for me. Imagining being in a tent at night with those weird noises all around, and then the bit with pushing on the tent...yikes! Even hours afterward my thoughts kept returning to the movie and I'd get shivers.
On the other hand, my girlfriend was totally unimpressed. She was bored and, as an experienced camper, she thought it was silly how they reacted to being lost in the woods. I did think it was odd how they spent so much time each day standing around bickering instead of getting the hell out of there (by following a stream would be a good idea). And the final scene confused me a little until later when I remembered what the hermit back in the 1940's said about his method of killing the kids -- having one stand in the corner, eyes to the wall. Ugh, I'm getting spooked again.
But what's with all these people getting ill from handheld camera scenes? Never bothered me. I don't get it.
> That _was_ Mike in the corner, but he was
> (supposed to be) hanging from a noose, dead.
Don't agree with you there. He came into the
basement max 30 seconds before Heather. If he
was hung in the corner, he would still be either
struggling or at least swaying. However, he was
perfectly still.
Therefore, I reason he was just standing in the
corner, alive. Remember the story the old guy
told at the beginning?
--- witty signature
I saw a preview of the movie, with interview and all this other crap. The movie it self is based on a "True story" but the fact was that the acting student pulled a big stunt, so later on they could sell this movie. CNN found out the fraud behind it, I don't have the link.
I ate my tag line.
I ate my tag line.
-=Ellis (D)25=-
Noisy Dumbasses can kill this movie! I saw it early on video tape on big screen TV (no, it wasn't pirated and no, I don' t know how they got a copy) with a group of about 15 people or so. Everyone got very quite as the weird stuff started happening and it really allowed you to individually get into the film.
I then saw it in the theater. Some people cannot just shut up and watch a movie. Making wise cracks at inapporiate moments can yank you back out of the film and remind you that are just watching a movie. This is probably why some people think it's the scarist film they've ever seen and others think it's a joke.
Atmosphere is everything!
Other than that, I thought it was a great idea for a film and was excuted perfectly. Hopefully this will get Hollywood off it's ass and thinking again.
--
InstantCool
SIMPLY THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF "WITCHES" RETARDED
Your the one who is too retarted to understand that the witch was just a legend, nothing more. It could have been a serial killer that lived in the woods, an old hermit or dozens of other possible things, upon which the legend of the witch had been based. You don't need to believe in the supernatural to appreciate and be scared by this film.
I'm pretty fly for a white guy
cryptdox said:
2. The camera work was absolutly shitty. It made my head hurt just looking at it. Of course, I look at computer monitors all day, where things don't move around too much. But at least they could have rented one of those mini-SteadyCam things. It was just really amateurish.
To which I reply: Are you really this much of a complete idiot ???? The film was supposed to look like it was shot on a 16mm B/W camera and a camcorder, done by a group of students with no budget. What the hell would a group of poor students be doing with an expensive and heavy stedicam rigg while hiking through the woods ?
Gawd, your a complete retard.
I'm pretty fly for a white guy
I went to see the movie the other day with some friends who i consider to be very good judges of movies. They loved it, i loved it, but on the way out, we overheard some kids(15-16 year olds..i'm 20)joking about how they want their money back. I felt like hitting them..
The kids wouldn't know true horror if it bit them on their FUBU wearing asses..This movie kicked ass without special effects, famous actors, or even a physical monster....these kids grew up in the age of gory, predictable horror movies where the actors lose all common sense and the monster, cheesy as all hell, lives despite a gross incompetence and the heavily armed good guys...
A movie isn't scary anymore if you know what the monster looks like..horror movies now-a-days spend 10 minutes building up to the scary part so when it does happen, it isn't scary anymore. Another thing about horrors movies of the past is that the actors never seem to be truly afraid, where as blair witch actors and actresses were shitting themselves everytime the sun went down.
In closing, to all those aol warez-trading, 2600.com reading, rap-listening, windows 2000-awaiting, gory horror movie-liking punks, get a clue..the nothing in blair witch is 10000 times as scary as the something in your favorite horror movies...
in my opinion, the 3 greatest horror movies are:
1. blair witch
2. event horizon
3. the exorcists
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
Some AC said:
[...del...] wrapped in the bundle of sticks was Josh's tounge and or teeth. Because the night before they heard a man screaming [...] like how most people scream with their tounge cut out.
I saw a tongue as well and some type of bone, possibly a molar.
I respectfully disagree that Josh was screaming "as a man with his tongue cut out". I could clearly make out words: "Help" for sure and others as well. Curse my shallow memory. :-) Anyway, if Joshua had no tongue, then we would have heard only hollow moans.
So why, you ask, can we hear Josh clearly?
My theory, heretofore unseen in the other posts, answers this question: the Blair Witch cut out Josh's tongue and tooth. She then magicked these to speak on their own. When Heather and Mike hear Josh calling out to them, it is the disembodied voodoo-tongue calling out for help.
Union Yes! Member of Technical Workers' Local 101010
anticypher said:
For anyone who has been camping regularly, or was in the scouts, the stupidity seems a little far fetched. But if you remind yourself these are wanna-be film makers first, and probably have never been camping more than once or twice in their lives, then it works.
I believe Heather said her "favorite thing to do on the weekends was to go camping, but maybe not anymore", or something to that effect.
Union Yes! Member of Technical Workers' Local 101010
I meant to hit Preview darnit! :-(
Sorry for the eyesore all.
Union Yes! Member of Technical Workers' Local 101010
*possible spoilers at the end*
ok I liked the movie. Saw it Saturday afternoon. I really wasn't scared. Not scared at all. I was tense the whole time. Nervous. Kinda like Alien or Aliens where you are waiting for something to happen and you don't nessecarily know what, but not actually scared. The best billing I can give this movie is that I actually wanted to leave. I didn't want to be there. Which was a good thing about the movie. As for it being predictable I have to disagree. OK looking back you can see what was gonna happen, but at least I couldn't quote the lines before they were said - like the normal set of horror flicks.
*possible spoiler part*
But my god I have to laugh at these people. I mean the things they don't know about the woods were astounding. Simple things like reading maps. Bring more than 1 map. Bring more than 1 compass. Use lighter packs. Lights at night kill your sight. If you are scarred of what happens at night then clip glow sticks (or phosphorescent patches) to you clothes and walk with those at night, and sleep during the day. Travel in one direction was good. But along the creek would've been better.
Oh and BTW there is no Blair witch.
-cpd
Pass on if you didn't see it; this has spoilers.
The ending, I thought was brilliant. It's how a nightmare is supposed to end. Nightmares don't end with the bad guy losing. My nightmares end with the bad guy winning.
As far as everything else, there were some really funny moments like when Mike said, "They can't be rednecks; they aren't that creative". There were also some moments you thought were just too unbelievable like that Josh knew enough to put a tarp down under a tent before you pitch, but didn't know enough to follow a stream downstream to civilization (I'm an ex-boy scout; I notice these things).
Though the scene with her (I forget her name) with the camera in her face was a bit staged, the look of horror (the "What was that?" look definately had the "is it coming for me" color to it) at the end of her soliloquey did give me goosebumps.
The morale: if you knew anything about camping, you would not believe the story, but it still will give you the willies when you reach the end.
It seemed that, on purpose, they used the audio from mike's camera and the video from the girl's camera as she went to the basement. I thought it was a good effect.
There is plenty of civilization on the Oswegatchie. Before you'd hit the swap, you would hit a couple towns, some roads and a dam, no?
http://www.tupperlake.net/rotaryw.htm
For those of you interested in the cinema verite / fake documentary aspect of "Blair Witch Project", I also recommend finding a copy of "Man Bites Dog". I haven't seen BWP yet, so I don't know how deep the similarities are, but "Man Bites Dog" is a wonderfully, darkly witty film that is thought provoking and lots of fun.
Also, being a bit of a woodsman, prepare to disbelieve. A good portion of the movie I was asking myself "what kind of wimps are they?" I've spent a larger than normal amount of time in the woods though (I live in Colorado) and I've always operated under the assumption that I'm the meanest and most dangerous thing out there. That's the wrong attitude to have for this movice because you just sit there and think they are either really stupid or absolute wusses.
I don't watch TV, so I'm not sure what the hype is all about but my local paper did a review and then immediately said the whole thing was fake, I think it would have been a little more spooky had I not known that, it's still very well made and there are some very memorable images and some kind of spooky parts. A very good horror film.
It's not a new genere of movies, Man Bites Dog was the most recent "non-documentry documentry" I can remember. It's brilliant if done right, BWP just about nails it. MBD went way over the top to have a comedic effect. Worth seeing.
This is my signature. There are many signatures like it but this one is mine..
Ok, so when Heather opens the bag in the middle
of the bundle of sticks, she finds some bloody...
stuff. It's like a freaking Rorshack test (however you spell that)... Everyone I've talked to has seen something different. I saw a nose, a finger below the nose, and two eyeballs... I've talked to people who have seen hearts, parts of a mouth, teeth, brains... god... everything. What was in there???
--
RumorsDaily
Q: What was in the bundle of sticks?
A: Looked like a molar to me.
Q: Was that Mike standing in the corner and how did he get there?
A: The ghost did it. If you want physics, I can't tell you how it happened, but it *had* to happen that way because that's the way the old man offed the kids.
Q: What was the deal with the stick figures in the trees?
A: I don't know. But wouldn't you find it just a bit strange if you were lost in the woods and came upon a clearing with a lot of stick figures hanging from trees? There's something about the effort needed to make the figures (not much for one or two, but there were *many* in the clearing) that says to me, "Hey, there's some psycho out here who's either really bored or really obsessed. I don't want to find out which it is."
Void the Warranty
Did anyone get sick during the movie? I heard stories of people puking because of the jerky movement of the camera the whole time. I went to see it, and I was fine, but my girlfriend kept her eyes closed half of the movie. She walked out to the lobby, and they told her that if she got sick, she would be number 50. There were chairs in the theater covered with plastic because people had puked all over them.
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Personally, I *loved* Blair Witch... I will be seeing it a couple more times before it leaves the theater.
...
A friend of mine's sister (14 yrs old) saw it and didn't think it was in the least bit scary. She made the comment that it would have been a lot more scary if you had "seen the monster"
I've noticed this trend a lot... Older people tend to "get" the movie more.
actually, mike had the video camera. notice how it auto-focused on the dirt after it was dropped?
the video recorder was recording heathers screams from upstairs while we see the stairway from her perspective, thru the 16mm. as she gets closer to the basement her screams get louder.
I've reading a lot of fantasy lately and the concept of not knowing your foe is a very old trick, but this was the first time I've seen it on screen. Your imagination much better at scarring you than anything the producers could have shown. People always fear the unknown, I know I was thinking of all the "horrors" I'd seen in other movies and read about, that's what gave me problems sleeping. I'd like to see more of this type of directing in others genres.
Inside the bundle of sticks were Teeth. As the bindings for the bundle of sticks and the pouch that held the teeth were made froma plaid shirt that looked like Josh's, I assume they belonged to Josh.
That was Mike in the corner (the black hat). This point leads me to believe the entity behind the activity has some super natural aspect. Mike knew what standing in the corner meant, and would not do so wilingly. There was no time to prop him up if he was knocked out/dead, so the only thing I am left with is he was under a spell of some sort.
Figures in the trees? NO clue on them. Just damn creepy.
++++SPOILER+++
I too noticed the audio seemed wrong, until I was reminded:
Mike had the little video camera, AND the DAT. - it was the audio used for the 16mm. When he drops his video camera he also drops the DAT - when the view switches to her (up the stairs) the audio is still from his location , and you hear her screaming as she runs towards you, while seeing her running down to him.
This, along with noting that Mike was "standing in the corner" was an awesome and unerving touch.
Agreed, I saw this last tuesday here in Denver, and was seriously spooked out. One of its most redeeming qualities is that it was extreemly terifying without resorting to blood and guts type of film making. This film relied soly on its suspense, which it did a great job of creating. Not many movies spook me out as much as this one did, and I for one will not be doing any camping round here for a while :-(
Dan-
It was by far one of the best movies I have ever seen. I rank it right up with fargo and jaws. I dont think i'll ever go camping again. I'm almost positive it will be up for some academy awards.
--
|-_-| . o O ( bEef!)
Correct, they sent the 3 people in the woods for about 8 days to do all the filming and sound and everything.
What was in the sticks? Several possibilities or any combination thereof:
His teeth. So far, the most common answer, and I saw something that looked like the roots of a molar.
His necklace. Also possible, since I think there was something longer than normal teeth in there.
His ear. This was my very first reaction, but after a few seconds I started to think the shape wasn't quite right. Of course, depending on where you cut the ear, you could get some wierd shapes.
His finger(s). This was my second thought, and I think this one is actually pretty likely, since teeth aren't as long as some of the stuff I think I saw in there.
My take on the whole thing was that both the hermit and the witch (and whoever was out there in the present time) were all being controlled by some single entity. You can call it a ghost, a malevolent spirit, the devil, whatever you want; but I think that all of those people were just pawns being used.
I think the hermit mentioned voices or something like that (I don't really remember, correct me if I'm wrong).
Hello fellow Slashdotters,
As "Blair Witch" will only be showing here in Brazil in December (probably opening the week before Christmas, don't ask me while, this things just happen) I'd like to have a link or a nice summary (WITH spoilers). I'm your basic poop-in-pants when it comes to good horror movies yet I LOVE THEM.
Anyway, is there a single soul out there that can give me a good CORRECT spoiler of the movie or link me up to one?
Thanks a million,
Andre.
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
As for the plot itself, though..umm....I think I was hoping for some more resolution on a few things. I mean, when something's mentioned at the beginning of the movie, you at least hope that it'll somehow tie up toward the end. And more stuff was left hanging, then resolved. Sure, the argument can be made that it wasn't intended to be plot-based, it was intended to be more real life documentary...but it was fiction, after all, and the filmmakers are supposed to at least attempt to make me want to go see it, or tell my friends about it.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
(Remember the good ol' USENET days when you could stick a ^L in your spoiler posts?)
Now, I've got some questions about the ending that perhaps people can help me with. I just saw it like two nights ago, and haven't had a chance to discuss it with anyone, so I want to understand these bits better:
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
What witch, though? Is the whole idea supposed to be that the crazy hermit in the house, and the witch are two entirely unrelated myths that just happen to both be true and take place in the same location? I wasn't the only person to walk out of there saying "Ok, so, where was the witch?"
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
however, this was in a packed theater, with jackass's all around me talking the WHOLE movie...way to spoil it. I'm sure if I had been all alone in a nice quite and cold theatre, I wouldn't have been able to sleep for a week. I've never had an hour and a half go by so slow in my life.
See it with a girl, and watch them wiggle, scream, and cuddle beside you.
The SciFi Channel is running a special called The Curse of the Blair Witch. I waited until after seeing the movie to watch it, because I feared spoilers. However, I wish I had watched it first, because it filled in the backstory quite a bit and made things somewhat clearer.
The special is in the style of a one-hour documentary almost like that old Leonard Nimoy series, "In Search Of...". The story of the original Blair Witch and the other spooky happenings in the area is told by splicing together a bunch of (fictional) interviews. They talked to Burkittsville townspeople, Mike's brother, the sheriff, the town historian, and experts on witchcraft. By far, the most colorful character was a 1970s hippie-type witch that came from (fictional) footage from 1971. There are also (fictional) local news reports and clips from the movie. (Some of this is available on the BWP Web site.
The style of the special makes it seem just like a real news program, so unfortunately it won't do much to disabuse people of the misconception that the events of the BWP are real.
According to the _Curse of the Blair Witch_ special, the original Blair Witch was the influence behind all the freaky things that happened in the woods: the men killed in the search party, the 1940s child killer, and even more stuff. The final scenes of the movie appear to draw from several different legends, but the special makes it clear that they're all deeply intertwingled.
While watching BWP I was struck by the similarity to The Haunting (the original, black and white version). Both movies manage to be quite scary without any special effects. After seeing The Haunting a few months back I wondered if modern film makers could do anything of that nature. When I saw the ads for the remake I was almost certain the answer was no. But that's all changed now. BWP has restored my faith in the producers of horror movies.
This may contain light spoilers
First of all, you should look at the movie before you make judgments. There were *no* "witches" in the film in any respect. Nothing was shown on camera except for the individual characters (except at the beginning with the interviews from towns people), there was no "witch" or anything like that
Secondly, I just want to say that you are worse then the Christians, I mean at least they've been feed that crap since they were a child, but you chose to embrace something that has no baring in reality. As for the "negative" connotations as a witch, you shouldn't call yourself one. The term "witch" has a clear denotation and connotation, and neither have anything to do with the pagan religion, just like the "hackers" you seek to take a term that means something else to most other people, and change there minds (although in the case of 'hackers' they have a legitimate claim, although words can have more then one meaning)
I'd be willing to bet that those same "negative" connotations drew you to the religion, why not Buddhism, or Confusishm(sp?)? I'm willing to bet that you chose Wicaa because it was dark and mysterious. If you didn't want it that way, you wouldn't call yourself a witch.
Why anyone would want to believe something that clearly isn't true is beyond me, but knock yourself out, just don't bitch when you chose to call yourself something bad and people think of you in that way
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
the motion of the camera made me wanna puke, but at least it wasn't scary.
Some people get sick from quake and doom.
that dosn't mean there not amazing games
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
wasn't teh 'bad stepmother' in Cinderella? I thought Snow white had an 'evil queen'
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
The movie was trying to be as 'real' as they could. in 'real life' there isn't always an exsplanation. that they didn't exsplain everything is what made the movie frightening, you *didn't* know what was going on, it was terrifing.
yes, the ending was kind of short, but what were they supposed to do? were you scared during the film? I sure as hell was. The movie was about fear itself, not some stupid pseudo-mystic Bullshit
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Well, I know a girl who said she left the theater to throw up for a few minutes, I thought at first that it was just that she was scared. I did feel a little "off" but I assumed that it was just because I was so scared....
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
You come across these items in the forest that you suspect are witchery. Do you
a) knock over the rockpiles, take down and dismantle the stick figures, untie the bundle,...
b) treat them as some boundary to stay on the other side of
c) other counteractive witchcraft?
Not to bash any one's opinions or anything, but seriously, if you would have had a better preview of the movie, would you have watched it? The filming is terrible, the plot is dull, nothing ever really happens, the movie just ends with no conclusion. I realize this is part of the idea but really it made for a boring movie. I found myself dosing off and talking to people next to me rather than watch that irritating girl squeal and mess everything up, way too predictable. If this is a true story it certainly proves there are some pretty thick people out there. Anyway, it was still OK, but I would never pay to see it again, and probably not even see it again at all.
It maybe an excellent movie, but I'm hesitant to see it because of the behavior of it's marketers. They created fake fan sites to sell the movie, à la DivX, documented in this article at Salon. Pretending the movie is real is one thing. It's cute and only morons believe it anyway. But this sort of thing is disgusting.
the bundle was soaked in blood and contained Josh's tongue and (i think) his eyes. they were wrapped in a piece of Josh's shirt. She didnt tell Mike, at least, not on camera. If she didnt tell Mike, that would explain why he was rushing through the house looking for Josh, she seemed more hesitant. It was still pretty stupid in light of what she had found in the bundle.
That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away? Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps.
Mike went into the basement while she was still on the second floor filming the walls. My impression was that he was propped in the corner either dazed, unconscious, or dead. At first i thought he was taking a leak (he just looked like that's what he was doing). As for the kids, people do weird things when they are put in extreme situations like that, especially small kids. if the adult told them to stand in the corner and not look, i can believe a kid might actually do that.
What were all the stick figures in the trees? Did they have any connection to anything else we saw in the movie? I would gather that the piles of stones represented the dead -- 7 original disappeared, 7 piles. 3 of them, 3 piles. But all the stick figures were never really explained.
the stick figures were just occult symbology. they looked basically like burning man figures. also, when they found the large group of them, i took the smaller ones to be children, the more prominent ones that were in the center to be the characters, and the one that had leaves all over it to be the blair witch (she's covered in fur, so the leaves represented the fur).
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
i like the beginning. the first 40 minutes or so was good. however, there comes a point when you try to build too much tension and all you achieve is making it incredibly tedious. this movie finds that point and then keeps going.
by the end of the movie, i wanted to kill them.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Seriously, until the ending I was pretty pissed at the movie. I thought it should have been renamed "Three Children Lost in the Woods", simply because I could not take how stupid those three were acting. I just wanted to smack them.
Like most people though the ending really sticks with me. I keep getting flasbacks to it. Never been spooked by a movie before...
I hope this will cause a number of copy cats, because it could have been REALLY freaky if done right. With a bit of luck, somebody will do it right.
-=================================-
"Computers are mighter than the pen, sword and usually the programmer."
>>What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit? If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did. If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?
Everyone I've talked to so far has a different answer for what's in the bundle. I think she kept the bundle from Mike to keep Mike from freaking out any more than he already had. And there weren't a whole lot of parts in the bundle....Josh could've just been roughed up a bit, not killed.
>>That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away? Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps.
I think it was Mike in the corner. The build and jacket certainly make it seem so. Remember Mike had been whacked over the head as well, perhaps he was unconcious or under control of some sort. They weren't that close coming down the stairs. When it cuts to the black & white footage of Heather running down the steps, you hear the audio as if from the DAT that Mike has with him, and her screams are quite distant. Mike had torn down the stairs convinced he heard Josh, Heather took a moment longer to get started, and wasn't running quite as fast.
>>What were all the stick figures in the trees? Did they have any connection to anything else we saw in the movie? I would gather that the piles of stones represented the dead -- 7 original disappeared, 7 piles. 3 of them, 3 piles. But all the stick figures were never really explained.
I think they intentionally didn't count the stick figures in the film, but I'm willing to bet that there were 7 small figures and the 1 large "hairy" one (remember Mary's tale about the hairy old woman?). I think they were trying to avoid too many obvious 7 references. One that a lot of people I've talked to didn't catch: the house scene takes place during their 7th night in the woods.
"That's Tron. He fights for the Users."
Check out this lame blair witch page. It's actually pretty cool. Links to stuff, pictures, quotes. You can even guy the book and the soundtrack from it.
*some* spoilers ahead . . .
The most interesting thing, I think, about the BWP is some of the tricks that the directors used to make the movie so scary.
1) the use of no sound. i haven't seen this done since Kubrick's "The Shining." no sound is so much scarier than any cheezy music the directors drum up. hollywood really needs to catch up on this trick. it's just downright eerie.
2) so many things left to the imagination. you're own imagination (with a little help) is the scariest thing there is. the directors didn't try to give away everything, they just made suggestions and let us scare ourselves. in the scene with the bundle of sticks and bloody human pieces, all i saw were red chunks, but everyone around me saw what they wanted to: i've heard "it's his eyes," teeth, intestines, tongue, nose(?), whatever. personally i thought it was fingers, but you can see whatever you want to see.
You never get to see the witch. you're free to imagine her being whatever you want her to be: a big hairy cafeteria-type chick, or those two hillbillies from Deliverance. Spielberg (sp?) played around with this in Jaws, not showing the shark for the first hour or so of the movie, but eventually he broke down. BWP takes it all the way.
Even the scene where something was beating on their tent from all sides in the middle of the night. All I could imagine was 50 little dead kids surrounding the tent and beating on it with their fists. Creepy.
3) the breakdown of the human psyche. watching the characters slowly degrade was one of the scariest things to me. these characters weren't in control like some horror movie heroes. they were bickering, lost, fatigued, and scared out of there wits. listening to Josh and Heather fight and scream, or beat up on Matt for losing the map was pretty unnerving. I just found all the tension in the movie to be unsettling. alot of emotions that other horror movies just don't seem to invoke from me.
Obviously the use of the documentary style filming made it ALOT more realistic, (see KIDS), but with good editing and a great idea like this, these guys seem to have come up with my favorite movie for this summer.
1. The kids were fucking idiots. Maybe they were actually intelligent actors who were just playing the part of some stupid college kids. But, I doubt it.
2. The camera work was absolutly shitty. It made my head hurt just looking at it. Of course, I look at computer monitors all day, where things don't move around too much. But at least they could have rented one of those mini-SteadyCam things. It was just really amateurish.
3. There's something that I read in the hype of the film that is just bullshit: "It's shot almost entirely on digital film." No, it's not. It was shot with a camcorder. Maybe it's a "digital camcorder", but it's still a camcorder.
4. They spent $30K making the film (probably most of that in editing and the video to film transfer). Then, there was $10 MILLION spent on promoting the film before the first release.
It's a shitty movie that I could have done without seeing.
This is the only movie that has ever actually scared me. Most other horror movies seem too predictable and fake. Blair Witch was neither. The format was truly unique, and made for a great movie. 4 stars!
Overall, I liked the movie very much and if anyone out there is considering seeing it, try not to read/hear anything more about it--including the rest of my post here.
My wife and I saw the bit on Sci-Fi Channel a couple of weeks before it opened, and while it was great to get the backstory, it was also very obvious that the whole thing was a dodge (I had not yet heard anything at all about the film), though they did have us going there for a while. I particularly liked the staging of the old "newsreel" footage and the cheesy 70s "In Search Of" rip-off. They lost me with the circumstances under which the film and videotape were found, though, and the "local news" bits were obviously faked. Still, it was great that Artisan Entertainment (or whomever) went to the expense of putting that together!
On another note, I thought the whole thing was rather Lovecraftian--not in the over-the-top mind-paralyzing way of some of the C'thulhu stories, but more in the vein of The Rats in the Walls: we are presented with a first-hand account of horrorific events that leaves so much to the imagination--which makes things all the more scary as our own fears are magnified internally as opposed to being shown someone else getting disembowled for gore's sake. I'd like to see more such movies--particulary a good presentation of Lovecraft's stories themselves. (I thought Reanimator was good in a cheesy way, but I think a more serious treatment of his work is due.)
The film makers obviously put a lot of effort into making the story believable, and despite knowing otherwise, it was a very spooky movie!
[ insert your own witty .sig here ]
yeh, you would think they could sprung for one of those camcorders with the image stabilisation feature. .^
^.
( @ )
This movie was quite original. It wasn't frightening, because we've been shocked so often with the supernaturally gruesome and horrible that we've forgoten how to be scared of normal things. It's the first movie in a LONG time that I have seen that I could relate to. - ZEN
-Zen I'm gonna make the _world_ my bitch.
heather knows/believes that it's josh, because it has part of his shirt in the bundle or something. i don't think it really matters what part, but if i had to guess, i'd say tongue. it's made relatively clear that she doesn't tell mike, as she nervously tells him that she's "just cleaning [her] hands."
heather, who thinks all of this is her "fault", would have motivation not to tell mike, as he may get really angry with her after he is certain that josh is dead.
now, at the end, the audience and mike hear josh's faint voice coming from the house, so mike (not knowing for sure that josh is dead), goes into the house, trying to find him. heather is behind him, but yelling at him not to go so fast. mike is more convinced than heather is that there is hope for josh and runs faster, etc, etc. heather is just following him because she doesn't want to be alone.
***spoiler***
no, they went south all day, to come back to the same log bridge.
The point of all movies (or any other kind of art) is not just for exposure and/or money. I have an idea for a short film that I would love to be made. I would not care if I made any money on it (I would spend money on it) and I would not care if I got recognition for it (I would like credit though). Just seeing my ideas well done on the screen would be reward enough. Any recognition and/or money received would be gravey. Many many musicians make write and play music for no money and get little recognition for it. They do it for love of the art. Why does movie making need to be different. Granted, studios who spend hundreds of millions of dollars on movies are in it for the money, just like manufactured bands like backstreet boys and n-sync are likely in it for the money (or at least their producer is). But not everyone marches to the same drum in art-land.
Think outside your box of money. Life is richer out there.
you get better.
If you were to follow, say, the Oswegatchie downstream from High Falls, you'd end up in a huge impassable alder swamp. Oops.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
****Don't read this if you haven't seen the movie yet. It may just spoil it for you.****
I really enjoyed the film. I wasn't really scared until the last 10 minutes of the film. What I enjoyed more was the style of the film, being shot by hand and being so incredibly real. The actors and the actress were very good.
Do you think the directors told Mike to ditch the map? And do you think they told Josh that he would be kidnapped? I mean how else would he know not to scream in the middle of the night? I think making the film must have been incredibly difficult because if they gave the actors/actress too much information they wouldn't be truly scared.
I am also wondering if the scene were (I think her name is Ann) is taking to the camera and crying and you only see 1/4 of her face was scipted. I don't see how that emotion could have been conveyed with a script.
Anyway i loved the film. Someone earlier said that they thought younger audiences would not be scared by it. Well I'm 14 and i found it scary. I also find that gore in movies makes them less scary, unless used verywell, like the blood in phyco or the pecked out eyes in the birds.
Well, let me qualify that. Suspense is good, yes.. but suspense alone does not make a movie scary. The only movie i've ever been scared by was Psycho 2. Why 2 you ask? I'm not exactly sure why.. i think it's just because i saw the first one in black and white and no matter how good it may be, i've never liked a black and white move (well, except the stooges.. but everybody loves the stooges) much less been scared by one.
So why did Psycho2 and not this scare me? Easy. For those of us who arent gullible, a movie about witches, monsters, ghosts, or any other supernatural creature just isnt going to be scary. It may frighten you, but only in the same way that your friend yelling BOO after sneaking up behind you is frightening. Had you seen them walking up it wouldnt have been scary, and really you're just shocked, not frightened. Psycho was scary not because of what happened in the movie itself, but because it was completely possible. I have no trouble believing that out there somewhere an insane man who keeps his dead mother's corpse around may be running a hotel. The world's full of sickos and psycho reinforced that fact. Blair Witch was about some extraordinarily gullible people in a hideously unlikely situation. No group of amateur filmmakers would go wandering out in the woods that badly prepared and personally, even if lost out in the woods if i ran into the same things i'd suspect some jerk from the town was playing tricks on me long before deciding it was some evil witch.
Dreamweaver
"If a man hasn't discovered something he will die for, he isn't fit to live" -- MLK, Jr.
It was mike in the corner. It wasn't witchcraft, he was just taking a whiz.
sheesh. a little privacey please!
What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit? If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did. If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?
To me it looked like a tongue and some teeth. It was definitely body parts of some type, and most likely from Josh. She didn't tell Mike because he would have probably lost it completely at that point. I don't know why they were still looking for him, maybe because they felt they just had to find him and were not thinking straight. I mean, if it was his tongue, then how could he yell to them and call them by name?
That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away? Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps.
Remember the story of the hermit guy who would take two kids in the basement, stand one in the corner, then kill the other one? I think that was what that was supposed to be. Although I think Mike was already dead, or at least knocked out. I think Mike was running real fast and just got a head of her.
What were all the stick figures in the trees? Did they have any connection to anything else we saw in the movie? I would gather that the piles of stones represented the dead -- 7 original disappeared, 7 piles. 3 of them, 3 piles. But all the stick figures were never really explained.
On the documentary on Sci-Fi, they said after something happened in the past, like some babies dying or something, a ton of those figures came up in the river one day.
Ok, that's a little harsh... But seriously, you missed the whole point of the film!
The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
So...what *DID* happen at the end as everything started getting so chaotic? It seems that the camera shots we saw from mike and from ann were actually happening at the same time (And we just saw them separately...Ann's camera second?) That would explain all Ann's screaming you heard while mike was just staring at the wall....she saw something that we didn't see in the film.
But you never actually saw anything happen...was there a physical presence? Did the which have them do something to themselves? what?
What if it was Josh who was behind the horrors in the last scenes? Consider it. He was the one who heard cackling laughter the first night. Maybe he was possessed by the witch, just like the hermit? In his crazed state, he could have pulled out his own teeth(or used an animal's), created the piles of stones, collapsed the tent, thrown his stuff about the campsite, and gotten the others lost. He had the compass the day they circled back on themselves. Maybe he steered them all wrong and in a circle. If one is subtle about it, it is easy to do.
It would have been easy for him to leave when he was on watch and then call out to them in the night. The noises of the first night would have been animals, or even the witch, but I am convinced she possesed Josh just like the hermit. Remember, Josh was calling from the basement!
The corellation of piles of stones, to victims is easy to figure out. The recurring theme of the burning witch symbol maybe all of the victims over the years she has taken, or a kind of reverse voodoo doll created by locals. The largest figure of wood is easy to figure out if you recall the crazy woman's testimony to the film makers.
I am convinced it was all Josh being possessed by the witch.
Romanes eunt domus? People called Romanes, they go the 'ouse? It says Romans go home. No it doesn't. What's Latin fo
I'm 99% sure that the stuff inside the nifty little bundle of sticks was Josh's tongue and teeth. Heather should have have known what it was, and therefore when he was screaming in the middle of the night, she must have known it was a trick. Also, someone would have to have basketball sized nuts to go into that house, I'm talking balls the size of that "Crocodile Hunter" guy on Animal Planet. I think the movie was hella-sweet. People that complained about it should realize that this wasn't meant to be a mega-blockbuster hollywood release, it was meant to be something you see on IFC in between Skitzopolis (sp?) and Pi. Oh yeah, and the little kids handprints on the walls would have had me out of that house so frikkin fast you wouldn't believe it.
Hehe, the whole time I was watching the movie, the dude behind me was like "Burn the forest down!" "Burn the motherfucker!", and then at the end he was like "Burn the house down! Burn it!" it was pretty funny. Also, when we were leaving the theater we decided to go out one of those EXIT doors by the screen, you know, where no one else is leaving through? Bad Idea, appearently someone either thought the movie was hella-scary or really thought it sucked, 'cause they yacked all over the hallway. Pretty nasty pink colored too....
-- My neighbors dog has a four inch clit.
> BTW any Linux user could survive this ordeal if they faced the Blair Witch :) Yeah, she's only got curses - we've got NCurses.
~ Give me 101 plastic soldiers, and I will conquer the world.
First, my own non-spoiler review, then, utter spoiler answers to dmorin's questions.
If you haven't seen the movie yet, stop reading this instant, GO SEE THE MOVIE. I hadn't heard squat about the movie before going, and it rocked my world. It's certainly the most convincingly real ghost story I've ever seen, precisely because of how it was done. If the footage was contrived by moviemakers, they did an amazing job! If the footage _is_ real....
End review, begin **SPOILER** answers.
The stick-bundles were tied up with strips of Josh's flannel shirt. The little blood-soaked bundle that Heather found had several teeth in it. No, she didn't tell Mike: "I'm over here. Just washing my hands...." By the time they found the house, they were both barely rational as it was. Besides, it's possible that Josh was mangled but alive.
That _was_ Mike in the corner, but he was (supposed to be) hanging from a noose, dead.
The stick figures didn't really reference anything, but they foreshadowed Mike at the end. They did, however, spook the heck out of the campers and the audience. They prompted a large number of "oh my god..." from the audience; everyone's first clue that something's going _on_.
--------
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the United States of America.
An absolutely terrible waste of money. It was an unsteadily filmed, slow, boring, dragging film. There were several points at which I nearly stood up in the theatre and shouted "Get on with it!"
It seemed mostly like a badly made episode of "The Real World." Lots of whining, shouting, pointless arguments. Cheesy and predictable. I was unable to find a gram of sympathy for any of the characters, in fact I was almost happy when they were killed.
I went in with high hopes and expectations. I wanted a masterpiece of suspense.. I got three very stupid hikers screaming at each other and occaisonally crying. I feel violated that I paid $8.00 to see it.
Later,
Max
Not to burst your bubble, but Wicca/druidism/paganism has been around much longer than Christianity.
True wicca is neither dark nor mysterious to those who take the time to understand it.
I believe her point in this is that of stereotypes. and stereotypes of any kind are a bad thing (tm)
---The proceeding comments were not paid for by the following advertisers.
Yeah, the definition of pagan that was being used was the christian definition "Anyone who doesn't believe how we believe and needs to be forced to believe our way."
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In other words, if it's all sweetness and light, why do you have this compulsion to prefix the word "Shadow" to everything? Celebrate the Eve of All Saints' Day (OK, Halloween, er, Samhain...) when it's dank and dark?
I didn't realize that I did, if you are referring to my handle.. it's quite simple, something I've had since my BBS days back in the early 90's. I drove a 1988 Dodge Shadow with artwork of a Dragon ripping out the back window... I needed a handle for the bbs's and that is the one I chose. It had/has no religious impact on myself whatsoever. Conclusions were drawn without any questions asked or knowledge given... which is the point of my discussion. Assuming is a bad thing (tm). Was it not E.S.R. That warned us geeks to not speak of things which we do not fully know, because sooner or later someone will call us on it. ;)
True witchraft combines both the light and the dark, the male being the sun, the female being the moon. The fact that the most read/written about in todays world stems from the 'darkness' speaks nothing of the truth.
The celebration of All Saint's Eve is by tradition, when the veil between our world and the astral is the thinnest. It's at night.. the point there is? Night=evil? I think not.
Since I guess this is inevitable.. a bit of background on myself.. I was raised in a christian (Assemblies of God) home, going to church three times a week. When I was old enough to be inquisitive and ask the questions I was not supposed to ask, I chose my own path... with my own beliefs, a combination of what I was taught and what I have learned. Paganism is quite a big part of my views, the 'each one has their own path' is what drew me to it. I was married in a pagan hand-fasting ceremony, on the steps of a church... and in the day time no less.
There are some of course who follow evil, but there are also those that follow light.. but which is more interesting to talk about.. the good.. or the bad?
Ah yes.. and before you get some sort of evil connotations from my .sig... I am a third shift systems administrator.. quite literally, I do more work on the servers over night than is done during the day.
---The proceeding comments were not paid for by the following advertisers.
>>It allows the tension to build for an hour, because the human body really needs that much time for the adrenaline to kick in and power the "fight or flight" response.
Uhh if it really took that long, I think there'd be alot of dead cavemen (our proud predecessors) and I don't think any of us would be here. Adrenalin takes about 5 seconds to hit your CNS and jack you up. I guess you've never been in a fight before.
You know, I didn't here the "food" notice, but the second one you mention ("...fucking with us"), I remember that, and I the time, I was wondering what he meant - I believe I thought he meant the fishermen (or other locals) they met - and maybe that explains the food bit (though I don't remember that - I was probably too engrossed with the figures hanging from the trees)...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I think BWP is the best non-scripted indie film.
PI would have to be the best scripted indie film.
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This is very true - we sat back several rows from the front - and the edge of the screen was just at the edge of my vision. I didn't get sick, though - I guess I have played too many FPSs myself.
On the other hand, it could be because I had someone's head in front of me as a reference. I do know I have gotten sick when I played Dactyl Nitemare on a Virtuality 1000 (the ones with the huge Visettes - 1st Gen), and I whipped my head left, then right (and nearly broke my neck fromt he inertia of the helmet) to check the lag of the rendering engine - and boy was there lag! Made me very nauseous...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
I am truly amazed at all the rave reviews, especially the ones here on /. - I had presumed that most geeks would be more critical of this movie. Perhaps it's just my own inability to allow myself to be submersed in the film? After all, I arrived late and we ended up sitting in the third row. With all the unstable camera shots, perhaps those sitting further back didn't have to concentrate so hard on just taking everything in? I also went in with the (unfounded) knowledge that the director had dropped these three actors off in the woods with instructions to film everything and then started screwing with them. That's how he got such realistic performances from them. Maybe this ruined it for me right from the start.
/. is overwhelmingly positive.
I didn't like the ending. It had potential, but they didn't take advantage of it. It was kind of a dud. It looked like Mike was just taking a leak, and Heather just kept getting hysterical. I don't know about you, but it just doesn't frighten me to see people get hysterical and bumble around with a camera. Again..maybe sitting too close to the screen caused this. Or maybe my foreknowledge about the way the film was made didn't allow me to suspend my disbelief. After all, isn't that what movies are about, suspension of disbelief?
Also, understand that I go camping a lot. I wanted to be sympathetic to the characters because I have been there before. Admittedly, for me it was all in my head, but sometimes things just get creepy and you get spooked and rational though goes out the window. But, as someone has already pointed out, they seemed to have a combination of outdoorsman smarts, and city-folk naivete. Knowing enough to lay a tarp down, but not bothering to follow the stream out, or managing to go around in a circle even though they had a compass? Overall, I had the impression that this was way too contrived. Once again, my foreknowledge of the movie might have had some influence.
So, by now you've probably gathered that I didn't care much for the movie. And I've given some reasons that probably influenced why I felt that way. But the funny thing is, the audience seemed to agree with me. The audience seemed restless the entire movie. More than a few people left early, one even saying "Man, forget this" as he walked out. Bored like me? Presumably so. Sickened by the shaky camera movement? Perhaps. Too scared to go on? Doubtful. And at the end of the movie, there were boos and other forms of derision, and most of the conversation I heard on the way out seemed to be in agreement with my opinion of the movie - disappointment. Not a single member of the group I was with had good things to say about the movie. Hence my surprise that the general consensus on
To each, his own, I suppose. But am I the only one not into this film?
Hey, how'd you know I was lookin' at you if you weren't lookin' at me?
Sound is key to the night-time scenes where the terror builds. Try and find a theatre with a good
sound system. I would even think about asking for the infra red headphones they have for the hearing impaired in some places.
The theatre we went to in San Jose had a pounding disco next door and a few idiot loudmouths.
For YEARS I've been waiting for a movie that is truly scary. Blair Witch is very scary and stayed with me (and my dreams) for a very long time.
Why can't Hollywood listen to the people to see what we think is scary? It's like they think they know what's best and put out crap like the remake of "The Haunting". With a huge budget and all these special effects, it just wasn't scary at all. The original "Haunting" was MUCH more scary...because it DIDN'T show you anything. You only heard something...like that pounding on the door...then hearing it move down the hall.
Your imagination of something is more frightening than any special effect that they can dream up...which is why Blair Witch works and the remake of "The Haunting" falls flat.
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
er...the guy knows this. What part of his post made you think he thought it was real?
And no, the speech she made into the camera wasn't scripted. It was ad-libbed. People ad-lib in movies all the time.
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
Also, where did you hear/read that they spent 15 million on advertising? Not that I don't believe you, would just like to read the article...it sounds interesting.
But Lake Placid was terrible. David Kelly fell far when writting this piece of garbage.
Of course, I expected this for a long time. Where does he find the time to do anything? Between writing all of "Ally McBeal", writing almost all of "The Practice", getting "Chicago Hope" whipped back into shape and again writing for that show...and then boning Michelle Phiffer between all this. WHEN does the guy sleep?
--- "It's not enough that I succeed...everyone else must fail."
The directors were the actors (and the camera men, and the ...). There were three people, they knew everything about the movie. It was shot using a b&w film camera and a video camera.
The movie reminded me of playing make-believe in elementary school, I couldn't really suspend my disbelief because of the close connection between filmmaker and actor.
Was it just me, or did the resolution of the color camera seem just a little bit too good for some off-the-shelf NTSC video camera? (I mean, south park was 1110 lines of resolution, at the correct aspect ratio. If they crop to the aspect ratio on NTSC, we're under 400 lines.)
Oh...and I think there may have been an editing mistake in the last few minutes...(I haven't seen it a second time to verify, however). It seemed to me that the cameras switched hands when they were in the cabin (as one had the color, one had the black & white). I was working off of audio clues, though [assumed that the girl screaming so much wouldn't have been able to keep the camera still, and so, person holding the camera at the time was the guy, but that fit, as he was the one running down the stairs.]
I would guess that as it was trying to be in real time _every_ scene change should have been a change in camera, and so, should have changed from/to color.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Sure looked an awful lot like a nose to me.
(I personally, was expecting a finger or an ear.)
And I'm quite certain that it was Mike standing in the corner. The figure had his build, not Josh's.
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
[no spoilers here]
There was a review recently from a slightly jaded reviewer that he didn't "get it", but many of the people in the theater obviously did.
I would have to put myself in the group who didn't get it, but enjoyed the film anyways.
I saw BWP at a film festival, after having seen about 20 films in the week before it, so I was fully in Jaded Film Reviewer Mode. Even a sneak preview of Phantom Menace at that point wouldn't have got my pulse moving. When I walked out, I had been scared, but not as much as some other films have done. I did give the film some thought, which is my litmus test for a good film.
I did like the hand held camera style, it has been used effectively in only a few films before. Most film makers try to avoid it because audiences tend to get sick if there is too much natural feeling motion, and the film doesn't make as much money. It works to great effect here.
Most of the film is kind of boring, but almost every bit of it is necessary to set up the last 10 minutes. For anyone who has been camping regularly, or was in the scouts, the stupidity seems a little far fetched. But if you remind yourself these are wanna-be film makers first, and probably have never been camping more than once or twice in their lives, then it works. It allows the tension to build for an hour, because the human body really needs that much time for the adrenaline to kick in and power the "fight or flight" response.
What especially got me was the final 10 minutes, there was a kind of tension I've only seen in very few other films. Alien and Psycho are two of my favorites for creating fear when the camera is not really showing anything to fear.
BWP now is firmly in the realm of in the category of "sufficiently scary", and I would put it on my list of top 20 films to cause you to lose sleep.
I wonder what I will think of it after I have seen it a few times over the years. Time will tell.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
I thought it was the worst movie I had ever seen! My wife and I got sickened by the jittery camera (the WHOLE thing is filmed from a hand-held camera), and was bored through most of it. The plot was an interesting idea, but I think more people are enamored by the idea of an "alternative" film rather then by the film itself. It seemed like most of the people around me had the same opinion. Mind you, I'm open to a good alternative movie (i.e. Trainspotting), but this should never of been a major motion picture release. It's playing off of the trendyness of "alternative" and Wicanism. If you look at it as a movie, it SUCKS!!!!
We also saw the haunting and Inspector Gadget too, and thought both were better then this movie..
With regards to the final scene (made the movie, IHMO), Mike took off downstairs well in advance of Heather, who was hysterical and stumbling anyway. You saw with his camera (the B&W) when he got down there it was forcefully jarred from him and fell to the ground. I took from this that he was struck from behind in some way and maneuvered into the corner, leaving him either stunned or unconscious altogether. The scene just happened too quickly for anything else to happen, and he certainly wouldn't be standing there of his own volition. That scene still gets me! As for the contents of the bundle, my friends and I had a small debate about that as well, and we all came to the conclusion that there were definitely teeth in there, but in addition to that different people saw different things. Comments were made about eyes and personally I thought I saw a chunk of tongue.
I went into this movie expecting to be scared silly. The mystery around this movie was great. I really wanted to see it. I get to the theatre, then proceed to sit through an hour of crap. The last 20 minutes was really good(esp. the ending), but I almost walked out after the first 45min. An hour of bouncing camera shots of the back of people's heads just isn't very entertaining, or scary for that matter. Overall, it was an OK movie. The ending really salvaged the whole thing. I will say this, I saw the 11:30pm show and drove my girlfriend, who lives in the middle of a heavily wooded area, home after the show. I'll admit I was pretty creeped out driving through the middle of the woods.
-------------------------------------------- Don't hit a man with glasses, use your fist!
I'm not going to be scared because the director is politely asking me to be scared. Terror doesn't happen through osmosis. I'm going to "feel" what the actor's are feeling with no other stimulus of fright, you just can't rub me that way.
I was bored out of my mind the whole movie, asking my wife every five minutes when it would get good, surprised to find out that she wanted to ask me the same question.
There wasn't even a scene that might provoke you to be scared until the last 10 seconds, and even that was done so fast and with so ridiculously that I just sat there saying "Whatever."
The actors were very good, well, the guys were. The girl was kinda fake.
People who are scared out of their minds DON'T run up and down stairs and through the woods with a friggin' camera over their face. They just DON'T. Unless they all decided to have the cameras on constantly to document their impending deaths, I can only see a sensible person dropping the camera and the packs and hauling ass out of there.
Hey, kids, there was a STREAM there! The one thing in the entire forest that didn't look like the rest of the damn forest was a damn waterway and you semi-intelligent idiots didn't follow it down to where it opened up.
THAT pissed me off. The Haunting was better and even that was a pretty bad movie. At least it had abrupt loud noises... Geez!
My wife and I saw the movie over the weekend, and we left the screening (very crowded) wondering what all the hubbub was about. If I'd happened across this movie on IFC or the Sundance Channel without having heard anything about it, I probably would have thought "Well, that was interesting." As it stands, after 18 months of worshipful reviews and fevered word-of-mouth, the only thing I can summon is "That's it?"
I kept waiting for it to become frightening. "Any minute now," I thought, "it'll start kicking into high gear." That never happened. When you compare "The Blair Witch Project" with another ultra-cheap indie movie like "Pi," "Blair Witch" doesn't come close in either imagination or execution. Save your money, avoid the crowds, and rent "Pi."
Well, I don't know if my comments are really going to be spoilers to everyone, but I put that there just in case...
I was absolutely amazed by the movie. I have never in my life been in a theater and had it so deadly silent during a movie - and it was a LARGE theater, almost entirely full. After it was over, I saw a few other girls there in the theater crying, and a lot of faces that were pretty white and expressionless.
I myself had trouble falling asleep this weekend. The movie kept coming back to me when I was lying there in the dark. I think what made it so bad for me, and probably for many others, is the fact that you never see anything. There isn't some villan to see that will allow your mind to dismiss it as a movie. Nothing in there to let you go "naw, that was fake, it couldn't happen". This lets your mind keep it, and twist it around in ways that can't be done with a regular horror movie. I can't even remember the last time a movie has affected me like this.
I think the method of "acting" they used in this movie helped so much. I'd like to know how much of it was really real, emotion-wise. Because I've never seen anyone look quite as scared on screen as they did, and nothing in there felt fake. I can see why some people would have a hard time believing that it wasn't real.
I wonder if the three actors would ever go through this sort of experience again.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
>And I have been through that area in Maryland and it's NOT THAT HARD to get out of those woods.
The characters talk about that right in the movie. That they're in America, and that it's hard to even get lost, let alone stay lost. My own personal interpretation of them being lost in the woods like that, especially going in circles while having a compass, was that the "Blair Witch" was screwing with them, making sure they never left the woods. Not that they were just doing a poor job of getting out. I'd be interested in knowing if that was the intention of the movie, or if they meant for them to just be lost by themselves.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
>What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit? If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did. If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?
I think it was teeth. Bloody teeth in a bundle of sticks held together by strips of Josh's clothing. I wasn't sure when there was just the one, but when the moved it and you saw more, it looked a lot like teeth.
Enough to scare someone half to death, but not enough to mean the person was dead, or there was no hope.
---
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
Beware, if you haven't seen it, I will completely ruin it for you if you read this. So don't - you should definitely see it for yourself. I'll summarize: I hated it. Now, stop and go away. See it yourself.
The first thing I should say about this movie is I hated it cause it made me nauesous (sp?). It was a great idea to send three actors into the woods and tell them to invent the whole movie, but for those of us who get motion sick - wait till it comes out on video and see it on a small screen - you won't get so sick. People did vomit at some showings, my friends have told me. Ick.
If you're strong of stomach, though, I think the movie still sucks. I was more confused than scared. They kept running around, screaming and yelling - at what? Darkness and trees and stones on the ground just aren't that scary.
Three or four nights of build-up would have been good, but eight? Every night the same basically? Something needed to happen. And then they all drop dead in the end. Still no clue as to why? Mike standing in the corner for no reason except to remind us of a legend told at the beginning. I didn't get it. I hope very much that I missed something because of my queasiness, but I don't think so. I like to think Josh killed 'em all. That makes me feel better about it!
Anyway, more to the point, given the incredibly innovative tachnique to make it, and the fantastic actors, I could think of some great ways to make it a lot more scary. Most depend on creating some eerie imaging to go along with the high emotional content. Just a shadow would have done wonders to solidify the basic fear emotion. My favorite idea is having a humanoid shadow from behind a tree, but when they investigate, no one's there. Things like that would've helped. Really, I don't think lack of gore is the problem at all - for anyone. I think that you have to have _some_ idea of what _might_ be going on to be scared.
- Well, south didn't work. Let's try East! - The Blair Witch Project
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
The post was not censored. You read it, didn't you?
The negative 1 (-1) score is given to everyone who doesn't use a name of some kind. Nothing personal.
John
"Classic UFO's
OK, I didn't see it yet but who buried the film, etc and why didn't the people who found the film meet the same fate?
-What was tied up in the bundle of sticks?
I had a hard time telling because the screen was so grainy. The guy I was with said, eyeballs and a finger, and someone else later told me it was like a tongue and jawbone, or something. Totally hard to tell. But what was so hard about that scene to watch was that the camera was SO CLOSE to it all -- there was nowhere else to look except AT THAT STUFF and it seemed like forever before the scene cut to something else.
- Why was Mike just standing there?
I think it's a safe bet that at that point, starving, exhausted, terrified, no one would really be in their right mind. No sane person would have gone in that house. And I think that by the time Mike made it to the basement, total resignation to fate would have been possible. His character was pretty clueless from the start -- couldn't read a map (what a stupid prick to throw it away!), didn't really take the lead in anything...
- The stick figures could have represented all the victims the Blair Witch had taken over the centuries... maybe all the future ones as well, which is even more chilling to think about...
The principle of aggrandizement is the fundamental law of every government. - Frederick the Great
As a witch who only recently moved from Memphis and was part of the wiccan/pagan community there for years, I'm appalled you would say "anything to get on TV." The pagan community in Memphis and surrounding areas has fought for years to try to be respected by the general public who has stereotyped and persecuted them. Yes, I think assuming that the movie would start real life witch hunts is a bit over the top. I WILL grant you that. The movie is fiction and has little to nothing to do with witches, but the fact of the matter is that some people see it as a possibility that once again it might portray witches in a negative light. In a community which houses some of the largest southern baptist churches in the country, the witches and pagans in Memphis have had a neverending struggle to fight public ignorance about the truth about our beliefs. We don't go out of our way to get on TV or to get press but when given the opportunity, we like to share our feelings and beliefs with others because as a general rule we are overlooked greatly by society.
So yes, while I agree with you that they may have overreacted, don't forget the negative press and the religious persecution we have endured for years and will continue to endure with mentalities like the one you seem to house. Many of us have lost jobs, homes, friends, and family because we choose to believe differently that the so-called "norm"
Now, I for one LOVED the movie and it truly spooked me... I may never camp again.
Selena FireSinger
National Co-Director and PA Rep. for Pagans in Action Council for Truth
Member of Summerland Grove Pagan Church, Memphis, TN
Member of Sylverwood Circle, Memphis, TN
Representative of the Sacred Earth Alliance
-- Shadowcat
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
Okay, I'd like to reiterate that this movie is not about a witch, but about a woman who was falsely accused of a crime and banished from her home and her spirit seeks revenge for the wrong done to her.
Witches don't kill people. They don't spook people in the woods, and they don't put bloody pieces of people in flannel mojo bags.
-- Shadowcat
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
For the record, the term "witch" is used to refer to followers of the religion Wicca. Wicca is a nature based religion which recognizes the existance of a god and goddess. Wiccan or Witches strive to live a harmonious life with nature and others. The two main beliefs of Wiccans are the Wiccan Rede and the Law of Threefold. The Wiccan Rede simply states "An' it harm none, do as ye will" while the Law of Threefold is the fact that anything you put out into the universe - good or bad - will come back to you threefold.
Witches are bound by their religion to help others. It is against our beliefs to harm any living thing, which includes forcing someone to do anything against their will.
So the answer to your question is yes. I know plenty of real witches. In fact, I am one. And no, I can't turn you into a newt. Witchcraft has been stereotyped over the years into people casting spells on people to turn them into toads and whatnot. True "spell casting" is using the energy in the earth and in oneself to help achieve a positive goal.
We don't do circus acts and we don't frighten teenagers in forests at night.
If you want to learn more about REAL witches, you can pick up a book called "The Truth About Witchcraft Today" by Scott Cunningham in your local bookstore and probably through Amazon.com.
Selena FireSinger
National Co-director and Penn. Rep for Pagans in Action Council for Truth
Representative for the Sacred Earth Alliance
Member of Summerland Grove Pagan Church, Memphis, TN
Member of the Pagan Webmaster Association
-- Shadowcat
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
Excuse me, but you obviously didn't read my post. *I* had nothing against the movie and recognize it's not a "witch" issue. Others, however, feel it may cause negative press. I cannot be held accountable for other people's feelings.
And for the record, since when does ANY religion hold "bearing in reality"? And might I also add that it's not up to you to judge me. You don't know if I was raised Wiccan or not so don't presume to know my upbringing.
-- Shadowcat
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
I am not a "witch" because it is cool. In fact, I'm one of the people who discourages people from becoming part of it on a whim, thank you very much.
And if I went to the Middle East I'd expect intolerance. For a country supposedly founded on religious freedom I find it ironic that it's one of the most intolerant when it comes to people who are different.
-- Shadowcat
kageneko@kageneko.net
"I can roleplay. I can frag. I can PK while you lag."
*** MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD ***
*** READ AT YOUR OWN RISK ***
One of the best (and most objectionable) parts of this movie is the amount of effort put into the backstory. After I saw the movie I checked out the web page to see what else was there. On the site have the a timeline describing the Blair Witch legend from its supposed beginning in the late 18th century. A lot of the gaps from the movie are filled in by the site. The amount of effort put into it is staggering, including faked interviews with the child-killing hermit, police evidence film of the "found" tapes, and interviews with one of the mothers.
My biggest problem with the movie was that none of this material was included in the film. The site has footage of the hermit talking about the 'voices' that made him kill the children and his description of what sounds like the Blair Witch. This could have easily been included without loosing the documentary feel of the film (have Heather mention it, or show it to one of the guys). The house at the end of the movie is supposed to be his. The last scene of the movie takes place in the same cellar where the children were killed. Most people who I've talked to who saw the movie didn't get the significance of Matt standing in the corner till I told them. Any mention of this earlier in the movie would have made it twice as scary.
If you haven't seen the site yet, do so now. To put it simply: after I saw the movie I was scared, after I saw the website I was terrified.
Neal
Too lazy to come up with a clever sig.
I thought it rocked. The actors were totally believeable, and the style of it really drags you into the movie. I went to bed that night and was sure I'd wake up with rock piles around my bed . Every sound I heard while I was trying to sleep freaked me out. The only problem I had was that I went to see it at a big-name theater in Chicago for $8.50, when it would have been just as good (maybe better) at a small neighborhood multiplex. Plus, there were a lot of NOISY DUMBASS people in the audience, and you could hear the soundtrack of the movie playing next to us over the sound of the movie we were watching. Other than the atmosphere in the theater, it was an incredible experience!
-- All hamsters are mortal. Socrates was mortal. Socrates was a hamster.
I you want to see a really cool movie though, check out Run Lola, Run a new german flick making it's way across the country. You won't see it in Peoria, but should be at most towns that have some sort of art/indy theater.
Deepak Saxena
Project Director, Linux Demo Day '99
Deepak Saxena
"Computers are useless, they can only give you answers" - Picasso
Just a quick not about not getting out to civilization. They crossed the river, continued south and ended up at the SAME place they originally crossed the river from. This when they HAD a compass. I believe that was to show the Blair Witch's involvement in keeping them in the woods. Also, it is incredibly easy to go in circles if you don't keep your head on straight. All you have to do is come into an area you've been in from a new perspective and you can think its a new area.
TC
- We couldn't tell what is was that was wrapped up. The story would suggest that it was intestine but, there wasn't that much flesh to be intestine.
NO, she did not tell Mike. If you heard Josh calling for you, would you run?
- Yes that was Mike in the corner. He ran from the attic to the basement floor really fast and left Heather behind(hence the more intense screaming.) Why was he standing there???? That was the best part of the movie. Remember the story that the old man was telling in the beginning about how the man took the kids down in pairs and made one stand in the corner because of the "eyes"? No, it wasn't Josh, he's long gone. Heather was not right behind him going back down the stairs, thats why she was freaking out near the end cause she lost sight of Mike.
- Stick figures in the trees? They needed some symbolism that represented the icon for the title of the movie? Inexpensive corpses? Good call on the number of piles, I didn't catch that one.
-- Be wary of people standing in the corner in the basement... (that scene is still in my head)
I thought that this was one of the best movies I've seen all summer. My brother saw it the week before I did and said it was one of the scariest movies he'd ever seen, if not, the scariest. And I read the review in the Washington Post where the critic said it was the scariest movie he'd EVER seen. Now, that's pretty balsy for a critic to make such a superlative comment. So I took the gamble and saw it.
:)
***POSSIBLE SPOILER***
I really admired the concept of the movie, as my brother is a film student and the actors were completely believeable as college students. Seeing the whole movie unfold and seeing the characters break down was unlike anything I've seen before. This movie was an instant classic. The only gripe I have is that is follows the classic plot; it's just told from a different perspective. e.g. the characters don't use common sense! I mean, Why didn't they follow the creek?!? Or follow the sun? And I have been through that area in Maryland and it's NOT THAT HARD to get out of those woods. But, hey, you oughta see it. It's terrifying. Reminds me of a good 'ol campfire story...
BTW any Linux user could survive this ordeal if they faced the Blair Witch
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There was an article in our paper (Saturday's Las Vegas Review Journal for those interested - don't know if there is a link to it) the day after I saw it. I kept wondering if this was based on actual events or if it was a well concocted piece of fiction (kinda like the War of the Worlds sort of thing) It turns out that after the movie was pre-released in select cities a lot of people decided to go up to the City formerly known as Blair to inquire about it. Turns out that nobody in the town has heard of it and it was completely a work of fiction. HAD ME FOOLED!!! I went to the website and checked out the interviews and all of the extra follow up stuff that was there and really thought that this was based on actualy events. If I am wrong on this please let me know, but the article in the paper lead me to believe otherwise. If you could provide a link or newspaper article supporting this it would be coo'. :)
Excelent move though, I found it to be long, but it built nicely for the SUPER CLIMACTIC ending. 9/10 starts from me
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Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
There was an article in our paper (Saturday's Las Vegas Review Journal for those interested - don't know if there is a link to it) the day after I saw it. I kept wondering if this was based on actual events or if it was a well concocted piece of fiction (kinda like the War of the Worlds sort of thing) It turns out that after the movie was pre-released in select cities a lot of people decided to go up to the City formerly known as Blair to inquire about it. Turns out that nobody in the town has heard of it and it was completely a work of fiction. HAD ME FOOLED!!! I went to the website and checked out the interviews and all of the extra follow up stuff that was there and really thought that this was based on actualy events. If I am wrong on this please let me know, but the article in the paper lead me to believe otherwise. If you could provide a link or newspaper article supporting this it would be coo'. :)
Excelent movie though, I found it to be long, but it built nicely for the SUPER CLIMACTIC ending. 9/10 starts from me
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Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
This might be offtopic a little but I've heard (and read) that the directors actually got the cast lost out in the woods a few times in order to exploit the fear and confusion of the actors into creating a more believable screen play. Did anyone notice in the scene where heather is filming the strange figures hanging from the trees and then Mike screams "Hey get over here they left us food". Or when the three first hear the "witch" lurking around in the underbrush outside of their tent and Josh makes the comment "I thinks it's just them f*cking with us". just curious....thought it might be my imagination.
-z-
They were on the news stating this might lead to real life witch hunts.... bwahahhaha
anything to get on TV I guess
****SPOILER,SPOILER,SPOILER*****
First off let me say that I thought the movie was excellent. Ever time I put myself into the shoes of the people in the story, not the actors, I can feel my skin crawl. It was that good. No other horror flick ever made me feel that. However there are some gapping omissions in plausibility. As mentioned in other posts they didn't exactly act like lost hikers. They did not even read those outdoors books that she so carefully showed the audience in the beginning. They of course should have had more maps, compasses, common sense and weapons (machetes at least, to poke through the tent at who ever was shaking it). Of course the movie would not have been nearly as good if they had been the polite, intelligent and calm hikers everyone wanted them to be.
Another point, I know why mike was standing in the corner (as referenced by old hermit and kids story) but isn't it a little absurd that he would just obey someone or something who tells him to stand in the corner and turn around after he's been through this whole orderal unless he's in on it? Does this mean Josh and Mike intended to kill Heather by lurring her into the basement, freak her out and club her? Is this revenge or just plain homocidal behavoir? I do mention josh because I do remember hearing him destinctly in the woods even after the little package was delivered. BTW the house was superbly decorated with those hand prints and witch-writings, kudos! I love movies like this because they lend themselves to a lot of dissection and thought.
(2C)||(!2C), That is the question.
I can't believe I'm hearing all these bad reviews from /. readers. I too saw the movie in an atmosphere of nay-sayers but I know a well acted scene when i see one. Is it that hard to appreciate a good movie if it doesn't have Will Smith or Jackie Chan? Didn't you feel for the characters as their situation became more and more grim? I suspect that most of the nay-sayers didn't get to see the movie with the correct attitude and atmosphere. i would recommend seeing it again. No popcorn, no soda, just the freakin movie.
When this movie comes out on video (assuming that the neanderthalic 9/10 of the population doesn't lynch the filmmakers) I challenge any nay-sayer to rent the movie, turn off all of the lights in your house, and watch the movie BY YOURSELF! This ain't no Freddy's gonna get you flic, it's not only scary for a few seconds, it WILL scare you (if you have a brain). We'll see how scared you are when your drunk friends aren't there to assure you that it is not really happening.
My take on your questions:
1. Considering whatever was in the bundle of sticks was bloody and wrapped in Josh's shirt material, I think it is save to assume it is a piece of Josh. Personally, that fleshy mass in the clothe looked like a tongue, meaning that the witch had Josh and he was probably still alive (though not well) and he could not yell for help. I think I saw a tooth in there also.
2. I think that was Mike in the corner. Perhaps he had been hyponotized by the witch to stand there (voodoo magic and what not) or if he was knocked unconscious she could have simply propped him up against the wall.
3. I think the stones were graves for the 7, and symbolic of graves for the 3. The stick figures are just classic voodoo stuff.
-a
well, this is half true. there were 2 directors behind the scenes, but they didn't do too much execpt for leaving clues on what to do nexy at various drop sites. i have also heard that they were in contact with the actors via walkie-talkies, but i can not confirm this.
kts
the directors probably told the actors either before hand, or at one of the various drop sites. i heard in an interview that the directors had scripted something out for "heather" to say, but they said that she modified it a bit, and the pointing the camera on herself and saying it was all her idea.
kts
Firstly, I saw the movie and loved it, because it is so creative and no one has ever made anything like it. Getting to the point, there is no blair witch legend. Not to mention, I'm almost sure there is no blair witch. Three film students never went into the woods to do a documentary. This is how the movie was made:
There are some minor spoilers ahead:
The three people were actors, of course, and they went into the woods to do this movie. However, this movie is done like no other. What happened is that they went into the woods, and followed a specific trail, which the directors had already traveled. They left director's notes along the way. THERE WAS NO SCRIPT! The actors took the directors notes, read what had to happen, and then made up their own script. They filmed it with their two cameras, and when they were done with the movie, the director edited the tapes to make a movie out of them. I hope everyone understands that. In other words: Heather Donahue should win best actress! : )
Here is the minor spoiler:
The things that make noises in the night: can you guess who did them? That's right. The directors crept around the woods at night and did everything.
Synopsis: The Blair Witch Project is an absolutely astounding movie, and could be my favorite movie right now. And for all you movie critic people: there can be no error in cinematography or anything that has to do with the camera because it is totally amatuer. It's really cool. Oh yeah. EVERYONE should to go to http://www.blairwitch.com before they see it. It makes you understand it a LOT more. : )
Blair Witch Rules!
Winged Plum
Don't use the Microsoft Explorer's Digital Compass
If you have any friends with overactive imaginations, or if they tend to believe in flaky fantasy stuff (especially, say, the sort of wannabe goths that like to pretend to practice witchcraft and such), a good trick would be to put a pile of rocks somewhere where they would see it after waking up.
Also, if anyone happens to be camping in the near future, wake up before anyone else in the tent and go outside and make a bunch of piles of rocks (same number as there are people) for everyone to find when they get up.
I suppose you could also get up early, gather a bunch of sticks, and tie them toegether using a strip of cloth from your own clothing, and then hide in the woods and watch them when they find it, but that might be going a little too far.
I think there will be plenty of Blair Witch-related practical jokes played in the coming weeks.
I don't see why many of you though this movie sucked so badly. I see tons of movies and I though it was pretty damn good. What do you expect of a horror movie. It was a little off the norm, but it was different. What other horror movie did a lot of people go see? Scream. Why? Because it made fun of the same old shit you see in every horror movie. Some stupid people running around getting killed by some unbelievable senario. If you don't like this movie I don't see how you could like any horror movie.
People, their what's for dinner.
One word: Overrated.
I saw the movie in Mass. It has been sold out for every single showing at the only theater that it is apparently playing in in the Northeast (?) since it opened every day. An employee of the theater gave a little speech before the movie started warning us about motion sickness due to the shaky camera work. Apparently, several people did have to leave due to sickness. I know it sucks for these people, but I got a good laugh at this.
I am 22 (about the age of the actors) and like to go camping. At certain points in the movie, the reactions of the characters to little details were exactly the reactions that I would have had. Down to the specific things that they said. However, this is only to small details. There were definitely things in the movie that I thought were unrealistic.
I was scared and haunted by the movie. I enjoyed it for that reason. As for the movie being geared towards an older crowd, I don't think so. I like gore in horror movies, but I am not scared by the gore. I *AM* scared by a haunting kind of movie like the Blair Witch Project.
That style of writing you've cultivated is just about annoying.
You sat through that whole movie and didn't absorb the fact that the character's name was Heather?...
If I was sitting in the last row it would have been great...
The day started off well. I took my 4-year old to see Inspector Gadget while my (39 week Prego) Wife and her sister saw Run away bride. Then Wife and I went into Blair Witch (while sis-in-law and son saw Tarzan). Out of habit we sat in the 3rd row from the screen. This is a SDDS enhanced, curved screen in a AMC 18- screen theater. The Story was great, it did play like the hype made it sound. IE... Three kids alone in the woods kinda thing. The problem I had was the Jerky camera movements for 88 Minuets made me violently ill. Both the wife and I had to step out of the theater at least once apiece to keep from "Chundering on the pacific with a techmocolour wave" (that means Barf). I hope it plays well on the small screen (hehe CRT small) Ill let you know tomorrow *WINK* *WINK*
I saw blair witch last night... gotta say it's a love it or hate it flick. BUT watching it.. not a SINGLE person left the theater till the film ended.
I won't add spoilers, but will tell you this. Film runs only like 1:30 mins, but expect the best parts in the last 20 mins and a slow build before that.
The reality of the fears the actors had was incredible and the hype and mystery the flick has gotten has been impressive. There were still ppl in the theater that didn't know the flick was fiction. PR did a damn find job.
okay.. here's my take on it...
stones: first we see 7 piles (and 7 kids were originally killed), then we see 3 piles (representing the 3 college kids) i kinda take it like a sign that ppl are going to die.
the guy in the corner: it's mike. mike turns the corner then gets attacked. at that moment josh stops screaming. as heather comes down the stairs and turns the corner mike is standing in the far corner, she just realizes what is happening and screams as she is hit. remember: "i couldn't handle the eyes watching me, so i made one child stand in the corner while i killed the other"
make any sense? by the way.. did you catch a glipse of the noose in the house when they first entered? how about the handprints of the kids on the second floor?
I saw it at midnight this Sat. The theater was packed and sold out which was quite a shock since this is the local art theater and they never sell out on any film. The three young actors they picked did a really good job. I felt they acted quite naturally and made them much more believable. Although certain points in the film did get a little long in the tooth with me I think it was a great effort considering the highly limited budget. The ending was great!
i was scared out of my mind
but a few people i was with
had to ask
"What was that thing she found?"
"what's with the rocks?"
"what was the thing about the tree?"
"Why did so&so disappear first?"
"what was going on in the last scene?"
sigh. they werent scared because they didnt get it.
jesse
monkeys.
It sounds like your intentions involve a little more than watching "goosebumbs" rise.
i went to the boundry waters (big canoeing/camping area in northern minnesota... very isolated from civilization) and you can be assured that when the tent almost collapsed b/c of the wind or when it sounded like things were moving outside of the tent i was damn scared
The movie got sold out for all its showings this weekend by Friday evening. No chance to see it. Pretty amusing, actually, I didn't think it was that hyped.
I hear it's short. I think I'll wait to get tickets during the day.
I had two different people drag me out of my cave this weekend. In short, I saw the damn movie twice this weekend. In shorter, I didn't plan I seeing it at all!
... that and showing the ticket cherk my freaking ID (evidently at 27 I still don't pass for 18 :-)
The part I liked best was hearing all the morons afterwards the saying "Duh, I didn't get it"
*******Spoiler***********
ok, i was the only one in the the movie theater to
laugh the entire movie. Anyone else out there, please let me know.
first point of humor in this waste of a film. if you ever get lost in the woods and you find a creek/stream....YOUR NOT LOST ANYMORE! also- only morons could walk for a day in one direction (as per the compass) and not know that in order to get out you turn your silly ass around and walk a day again.
second point of humor: what the hell is up with them telling her to turn off the camera so many times? don't know about the rest of you, but if something/someone was screwing around with me like that i would defiantly NOT be filming!! just couldn't get over that...course i have yet to see the original footage so maybe they were a little free with their artistic license on this rendition......help me out with this one??
finally- going through film school i could see how a person would eventually come to the realization that the world is a hard place to make a buck as a would be director...i could also see how three kids with (a little excess abstract thinking and too much time on their hands) could come to the conclusion that if the were to somehow, well....lets just say FAKE!! their own disappearances(deaths)....and lead the general (and overly gullible) public into thinking that it was due to some witch; well- they could make it to easy street.
i went to the movie expecting something a lot different. thought that i might see some of the original footage, some of the investigative reports and then some of the artistic remake-
overall, good movie for humor and future horror development, (the other comment about the lack of music in the background was right on the money), but if your bighting off on the legitimacy of the movie- get out of the gene pool(here's a tip on how to do it....go out into the woods)
boo
great minds often encounter violent opposition from medocre minds. -albert einstein
Saw the movie. I thought it was a little hyped, for the movie I actually saw. It was original, but was lacking in its lack of explanation or visuals.
What kind of movie scares me?
8mm scared me. Acutally, it scared the s*it out of me. The reality that there are people that sick in the world scares me much more that some made up witch any day.
If you haven't seen 8mm, rent it on an empty stomach.
Of course Hollywood will now turn out some high-budget films which try to look like $30K films (and largely succeed at that part), but they will surely be even worse than the typical slashfest films.
I saw a documentary the other day on the Sundance channel which showed everything people went through trying to finish their independent films and get them seen. Wow, it's hard! Something that became fairly clear is that truly good films are typically done by really good writers who happen to be really good at directing as well. Directors who attempt to write (e.g. Lucas: Phantom Menace) are not usually so good. Directors who maybe aren't such good writers but who are really good at adapting a story to film can turn out really good stuff also. Then there's Hollywood. They typically hand their $100 million budgets over to directors who are absolutely clueless at writing/adapting materials. Why? Insanity, surely. Just look at the Fifth Element. Absolutely pathetic story, which the director then turned into an even worse movie (same guy? I don't remember. A pox on him and his heirs!). We will surely see high-budget crapfests imitating the Blair Witch Project now.
I thought that the movie was okay, but I was REALLY bored while I was watching it..
It kinda sticks with you though, and every so often it just pops into my head..
And if I hit submit fast enough, First Post!
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Those that enjoyed it seem to have truly felt like a member of the party lost in the woods. Those that didn't think it was great (like me) never got sucked in. Sadly, I laughed most of the way through it, and I was prepared to be truly scared. I wonder why some (my brother-in-law) were so engrossed, and I never could get into 'the zone.'
I'm 23, not into gore, not into freaky stuff...
the movie was good, very very very very low budget. The actors were believable, the plot sucked. The ending sucked. I was not scared, I did not chew my fingernails which is a common bad habit of mine during a suspense movie.
These were stupid college kids, maybe they didn't understand the woods, I keep telling myself that, trying to believe maybe they had two brain cells to rub together...
ever thought... maybe a witch could fool a compass? I'd have killed mike when he dumped the map...
go watch it...
The price we pay for immortality... is death. Narnia The Great Fall
not the style or anything.
just the bouncing camera.
I had to leave twice and spent the second half
of the movie not looking at the screen.
On the other hand, i have really vivid mental
images of what i did see...
The thing that sticks with me the most is at the end when mike is standing in the corner facing the wall, man i could not get that out of my head. And as for the acting top notch and you were right, i saw an interview with the actress in the movie and she said that most of the time she was generally scared, sometimes she really didn't know what was outside that tent. Freaky ehh?
THX
"This chair be high, says I"
I think that the use of the web as a marketing tool, as utilized by companies like Haxan (www.haxan.com) and Stick Bus (www.stickbus.com) is going to bring about quite the little paradigm shift...Hell, Stick Bus is getting global exposure for a film that cost them only $200!
I cannot believe I wasted an hour and a half of my life, not to mention something like $7 watching that movie. I would have just left, but I make it a policy not to walk out of a movie I paid for, in hopes that it might actually get better. As far as being scary? Please. It was about as transparent as "Scream". I wish I'd brought a booklight and a good book with me.
---
Bill Woessner
National Instruments
Quantum linguistics: Until you looked, this message was in Spanish.
What makes the Blair Witch Project such a good film has little to do with the suspense instilled in the viewer, nor is it (The Blair Witch Project) a terribly revolutionary vehical for horror. Instead it is am insanely great take on how our modern society actually copes with the mythological. What was so interesting to see in the film was the manner in which these overly educated teens, completely aware of their predicament (one notable difference from the traditional horror film constructions) continued to depend upon technology for their solutions. Hiding behind the second-hand view of the camera was a defensive mechanism for the characters, who it seems, have great faith in the protective nature of reporting. That is, as the students proceed into the witch's home[den] (one presumes) they obviously derive some confort from the fact that a recording of the events will both absolve them of any wrong doing (as in the case of the tearful apology to the party's mothers given by the director) or perhaps even to provide retribution. Somehow walking out of the theater I couldn't help but remember the feeling of helpfulness I had after the R. King verdict, knowing that the visual transcript of what happened was available, but yet being unable to exact the justice so obvisiously called for. In the end, I think the most powerful message available in the movie is the uselessness of modern solutions in dealing with the unknown.
-m.d.
I saw it this weekend. Cool. But, I wasn't scared. At least not until .....
... that made this film, I say, "This film rocks".
I hope that a huge chunk of the $28 mil. that the movie made this weekend goes to the actual film makers. To the writers, directors, actors, camera and sound men and women, grips,
The fact that no two snowflakes are identical should tell you something important about God's will.
I thought the movie was just alright.
If I wanted to see the Real World I would've watched MTV.
SPOILER ALERT
I found the film extremely effective as a full-on assault on the audience's sense of comfort. I've found that most people equate being scared in a film with being startled, i.e. by a gross effect or a killer jumping out of the shadows to shrill music. The startle factor of "BWP" is very low, thereby not "scary" to a lot of young people.
"BWP" crawls under your skin with a sense of dread. You meet three very appealing young people and watch them break down psychologically and emotionally. These kids could have been my friends, or me, and that's what's so unsettling. And the ending...I've never seen the proverbial "snuff" film, but I imagine those dark and dingy basements look much like that.
And then after the movie, piecing all those little bits together. What the insane old woman said, how the guys died on coffin rock, how the children were killed by the hermit. What *may* have happened to those three filmmakers is so horrifying, so terrible, so *painful*...that I don't want to think about it anymore.
I saw the movie opening night at the local art theatre with the local art cinema crowd, and the discussion afterward was highly technical (budgets, logistics, etc). I saw it *again* this Saturday at the local gigaplex with whole squads of teenagers. There were whole groups - girls and boys - who were visibly shaken, some girls were crying, and some didn't leave for a very, very long time.
Say what ya want, the movie works.
After a friend told me "DON'T GO SEE THIS ALONE", I was expecting it to be at least a little creepy. Maybe years of camping in the woods (tents are for city-wimps!) has taught me that strange noises and bundles of sticks come with the territory.
Points for an original way of presenting a "horror" movie. Points for the actors for generating believable hysteria and fear. BIG minus points in the "believable scenario", "common sense", and "basic self-defense" departments. All in all, I was not impressed. I'm glad I didn't pay for this one.
Study everything, you'll find something you can use - Jason Bourne
*POSSIBLE SPOILERS*
First, I didn't think it was all that scary until the last five minutes. But the last five minutes were outstanding. However, it was hard for me to enjoy it because:
1) I was physically sick by all the unstable camera motions. My friend afterwards rushed to the bathroom to puke. My other friend was just as nauseous. I spent the last part of the movie just listening, and not really watching.
2) The fighting between the three got really really annoying and really old really fast. They were all acting like stubborn babies. Yes, you can say if I were lost in the forest, I'd do the same, but did we really need to see all the bickering?
3) Plain stupid mistakes. The throwing away of the map. Um, yeah, why didn't he just commit suicide also? Oh, and backup plans? Like informing someone if they didn't return by X days to launch a rescue? How about leaving markers along the way?
Now, if the whole movie had been just like the last five minutes, I would've been happy (and scared). But alas, the rest of the movie ruined it for me.
Incidentally, I was reading some other bulletin boards, and the main argument against those who hated the movie was: "Oh, you just don't have any imagination. You have to imagine what's going on." Um, excuse me, I don't recall on my ticket stub any prerequisites to watching this film. I fancy myself as to having a great sense of imagination, but it's up to the movie to provoke that sense. This movie just didn't do it for me.
I'm sure I'm bound to offend some people here but I truly believe that if you didn't like "The Blair Witch Project" and/or get scared .. especially from the closing moments ... then you have lost the ability to fully use your imagination. .. probably not helped by living near the woods in rural VA ;-) ;-) (probably not good to dis cgi in a tech dominated forum ;-))
I had a fair idea about what I was going to see although I had heard the ending was breathtaking and avoided reading any spoilers. I sat back and let my imagination run with this movie and by the closing shot I was completely on edge. Sleep was not easy that night
I've been a horror fan for many years now and have not been scared watching a horror movie since I was a young teenager. Blair took me back to those early teenage years with full force.
If you are planning to see this movie for the first time avoid spoilers, and go into the theatre with an open mind. Sit back, relax and let your imagination weave its magic. The final scene will lurk in the back of your mind for a long time.
It is true there are no special effects, there is a lot of bitching and fighting between the protagonists, and all the really scary stuff takes place off screen however what the human mind can conjure up as happening off screen is far more horrifying than anything fully rendered in cgi and shoved in your face
I can get into the shakey camera work...
I can get into the student documentary look...
I liked it for about the first 30-40 minutes,
but...
WHERE IS THE REALLY SCAREY STUFF ???
No, I'm not talking about cheese-ball FX, but
rather something that does a head-job on your
emotions.
BOY THOSE HANGING TWIGS WERE SCAREY!!!
or
THE KILLER PILES OF ROCKS!!!
I honestly thought that the filmakers took about
half an hour to tie up some twigs and then hang
them, because they were originally making a
student film with no time or money to spend on
creating better ominous looking props.
It was obvious near the end that they were
running out of ideas, and figured they could
end their magnum opus in an abandoned house
that happened to be around.
OK, so how what would I do to make it scarier ?
First have the whole thing happen in one long
unending night, where the main characters are
pleading for daylight to end their suffering.
Next, drive both the characters and the audience
mad with the screams of their missing friend
being ruthlessly tortured without mercy...
(This might be a bit much for the audience,
but it would make the film more unnerving)
Next, have the main characters panic and run
about in the dark, terror stricken, not knowing
wheather they were running to or away from the
unseen menace. This would hasten the eventual
full breakdown of the main characters.
The filmakers really blew the opportunity to
shoot some fly by the seat of your ass menacing
chase scenes, where the characters are too
afraid to stop running.
Next, change the little twig-bundle "present"
from a piece of scalp, to a bunch of bloody
teeth. (i.e. The Witch likes to do a little
freelance dentistry on the side.)
Next, have their bloody, beaten, toothless
(You might have to find an actor with false
teeth to do this on the cheap!) friend return
to their camp, and tell the others in mumbly
words that they're all fucked, and that the
night is young and that more fun is in store.
...Anyways, I could go on, but these are the
kind of scenes that would have me cringing in
my seat if they were pulled off in a realistic
way.
Personally, I felt that I was sucked in by all
the hype, and was hoping to be scared shitless
by some new enfant terribles of the cinema.
As far a a recommendation for a better scarey
movie, here's two that did it for me in the
past:
"Cries and Whispers" by Ingmar Bergman
"Eraser Head" by David Lynch
(Also made on a peanut budget at the time)
Also, some of the old "Night Gallery" TV
shows were pretty freaky little numbers.
- DG
I just got back from BWP and behold! A chance to warn others before its too late. This is a fine example of an ultra-hyped product with no intrinsic value. I wasn't expecting a lot from this movie but I was expecting a least a scary flic -NOT. No witch, no suspense, certainly no plot. Just a lot of very, very jerky camera shots which really detracted from the realism since not even the most amateurish film crew would forget to use a tripod. (They're out documenting witch-like things in woods and all the shots are hand-held). This movie was the pits. It was torture to watch this movie. I did not like this movie. I would not recommend ...etc, etc.
This movie is about three argumentative whiny people. When they weren't bickering, it was kind of fun to watch