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I'm watching The Blair Witch Project on Netflix right now and I'm reminiscing about the first time I saw it. It was 1999, I was 13, and I saw it on its first day in theaters. I hadn't been spoiled by the countless parodies that would follow the release; the only thing I knew going in was that it was a fake documentary that had been well received on the independent circuit. The movie terrified me. In every scene shot at night, I was literally on the edge of my seat because I had no idea that I would never see the titular character. I fully expected that, at any moment, some horrible spirit of the deep dark forest would pop up and scare the poo poo out of me. That never happened, but the mysterious incidents that occur throughout the film - the sounds of branches snapping in the middle of the night, the laughs of children as the tent is attacked, the fate of Mike and Heather - were more than enough for my teenage imagination. To this day The Blair Witch Project is one of my favorite films, along with classics like The Seventh Seal, The Big Lebowski, and Apocalypse Now. I know we have a horror thread but since it's now the twentieth anniversary of those three students disappearing in Burktisville I wanted to make this thread on the week of Halloween and talk about the movie. Regardless of anyone's opinion there's no denying how much this film changed the landscape of cinema since its arrival at theaters. Did you enjoy it, think it was okay, hate it? Talk about it in this thread.
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Oct 28, 2014 04:31
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 12:44 |
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TheJoker138 posted:You missed a real opportunity by not calling this "I threw the map into the river." Went for the creepy instead of the funny, rookie mistake. But honestly, the interviews in the beginning are some of my favorite scenes. It's all BS but it feels very authentic, like the Blair Witch legend is equally valid as the tales of Bloody Mary, La Llorona, etc. MantisToboggan fucked around with this message at 05:33 on Oct 28, 2014 |
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Oct 28, 2014 05:25
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weekly font posted:
I completely agree. It's also a great response to the question that a lot of critics have about the found footage genre: "Why do they keep filming in this horrible situation?" Obviously that explanation doesn't work for some films but in context it seems like having a camera would be a good psychological defense mechanism. Does anyone know where if the mockumenteries they made to promote the film are on a DVD or Blue-Ray? I've only owned the film on VHS way back in the day.
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Oct 29, 2014 14:35
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MisterBibs posted:One of the weirdest thing in rewatching the movies was how wishy-washy the (for lack of a better term) backstory the film has. There's two competing mythologie at play in the background: you've got the Rustin Parr stuff and the Blair Witch. I'm sure the two are more intertwined in supplemental sources, but within the scope of the movie it could be either. Because ambiguous plot lines are pointless ones, it refocuses the viewer's attention on what matters: the three people and their personal tragedy. Rustin Parr claimed an old woman had told him to do it; an interviewee mentions it in the beginning of the film. The two stories seem pretty connected to me. Unless I'm missing your point? Crackerman posted:Speaking of creepy touches - I love the fact that in the Curse of the Blair Witch documentary they have a segment about finding the crew’s cameras and stuff under layers of sediment that have been undisturbed for centuries, under a house that hasn’t been there for years. That documentary and the website were so well done. They were designed to promote the film obviously but they really added a lot of flavor and backstory too. In the fifteen years since The Blair Witch was released there's been a lot of viral marketing done in a similar vain but most of it has just been... marketing.
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Oct 31, 2014 16:19
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Ah, you're right.
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Nov 1, 2014 04:25
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| # ¿ Apr 23, 2024 12:44 |
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Yup. It was designed by Todd McFarlane for the Movie Maniacs toy line. It was never intended to be used in the movie, thank god.
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Nov 3, 2014 19:04
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