"I agreed to a scouted-out project!"
October 30, 2014 4:47 AM   Subscribe

The Dissolve's "Movie of the Week" on this week leading to Halloween has been The Blair Witch Project, which it describes as "the most widely despised great horror movie". They discuss the legacy of the film fifteen years after its release and the future of the genre that it helped to create: found-footage horror. And where are the people who made it these days? Heather Donahue is growing pot. Josh Leonard is still acting (Michael C. Williams less so). And the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez seem to want to catch that same lightning in a bottle, but with very underwhelming results.
posted by AlonzoMosleyFBI (90 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
And the directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez seem to want to catch that same lightning in a bottle, but with very underwhelming results.

Actually, Sanchez's Lovely Molly is very good -- well worth checking out if you're into melancholy, character-driven horror. No one seems to much like Exists, though.
posted by eugenen at 4:57 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


I don't get the hatred for this movie, which we discussed recently on FanFare. It's one of my three favourite horrors (the other two being The Orphanage and The Others, which probably speaks to my dislike of gore and special effects). I saw The Blair Witch Project on DVD (or maybe even on video) several years after it came out. It wasn't the best choice for that evening because I had been on a bus that got into an accident that day. I wasn't hurt but I was thrown from my seat. I thought it quite a decent horror movie considering it looked like it had been made with pocket change and no special effects, and I found it scary, much more so than many movies that had been made with much larger budgets. I regretted watching it on that particular night though, as I had a hard time sleeping afterwards. I wasn't what I would call in a frightened state, but I think the bus accident shook me up more than I realized and the movie added not a little to that unsettled feeling.
posted by orange swan at 5:11 AM on October 30, 2014 [5 favorites]


Still never seen it.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 5:14 AM on October 30, 2014


I don't get the hatred for this movie ...

Some of it is more hatred for its influence in spawning the whole found-footage fad specifically and also the last fifteen year's love of shaky-cam in general.
posted by octothorpe at 5:24 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


I liked BWP quite a lot, even though I first saw it at home, long after the hype had run its course and the whole "found footage" conceit had been spoiled.

I'm a fan of the "found footage" idea, but it's really hard to pull it off convincingly, and keep it working, especially when it's built into a big-screen movie. I have to wonder if the big screen is the wrong venue for FF works? YouTube seems to be a more appropriate venue for FF works, as it allows you to more-of-less maintain that amateur/real conceit. Take, for instance, how convincingly real the Slender Man project was (at least in the beginning).

And, yeah, a lot of the look of FF is wayyyyyyyy overused, and often incorrectly. Isn't it Paranormal Activity 3 that uses the in-home security camera shots? It's interesting, but ultimately not real effective, primarily because it's on a big screen.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:30 AM on October 30, 2014


I actually liked The Objective a lot. Very Delta Green.
posted by Artw at 5:43 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I haven't seen PA3, but didn't they basically copy that security footage thing from X-Files? (And didn't they in turn copy it from Andy Kaufmann?)
posted by lodurr at 5:44 AM on October 30, 2014


As in the really crappy security cam bit from the really crappy X-Files title sequence?
posted by Artw at 5:46 AM on October 30, 2014


I was the only one of my architecture-school-too-cool-for-school crowd who genuinely liked BWP and was scared by the ending.
posted by signal at 5:46 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


(Which is not to diss them. Copying is a fine tradition, after all.)
posted by lodurr at 5:46 AM on October 30, 2014


> "Some of it is more hatred for its influence in spawning the whole found-footage fad specifically and also the last fifteen year's love of shaky-cam in general."

I went to see it shortly after it opened and the MOVIE THEATER USHERS were literally yelling at the crowd not to go in, shouting that it was terrible and we were wasting our money. There was an extraordinary backlash against it long before there was any indication that it would have a legacy.

I liked it.
posted by kyrademon at 5:46 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


artw: honestly i was hoping someone could help me figure out what, but no, not that. I'm just sure it was there somewhere, but I've never gone back and rewatched like some of my old x-phile friends.
posted by lodurr at 5:47 AM on October 30, 2014


Count me among those who had no idea there was such a backlash at the time. I watched it at around 3am at a houseparty where everyone else fell asleep just as it started. Scared the piss out of me. Then watched it again about 10am the next day with a bunch of us in bed having tea and toast. Significantly less terrifying.
posted by ominous_paws at 5:49 AM on October 30, 2014


IIRC my GF at the time I watched it (on video) didn't care much for it. once I got into it and let go the sense of watching something ironic, I really enjoyed it.

The retroactive hatred explanation is accurate, I think, but only as far as it goes. I remember a lot of people telling me how awful it was. That's actually how I first heard about it: 'this movie is awful.'

I think the immediate problem was that it was just so vulnerable to critique for being all about the irony. It only really worked as horror if you took it seriously, but it was so hard to take seriously if you were tuned-in to the zeitgeist.

It became impossible to replicate once the first parodies showed up. It was like pear wine: only really there for a flash on first tasting, then you basically have to wait a week and open a fresh bottle to get that hit again -- and even then, you may not.
posted by lodurr at 5:53 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Lodurr - Maybe the one where an evil computer takes over a building? Has lots of security cam shots, also some of the most unintentionally hilarious technobabble ever.
posted by Artw at 5:54 AM on October 30, 2014


To repeat what others have said it worked really well watched with the right mindset and setting - watch it with a bunch of baboons and everything that happens pre-explained and you'll get nothing.
posted by Artw at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2014


mmmaaybe. i'll check it this weekend on netflix. do you recall the season? have to be later than 4, because shaenon garrity's through season 4 in her recaps* and I don't remember that.

--
*which are fucking awesome.
posted by lodurr at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


For a really good more recent fake documentary/horror I really recommend Lake Mungo.
posted by Artw at 5:57 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


Terrible computer one was S1. I'm actually watching them in order right now and suprised the thing didn't get canceled by the beginning of S2, but I guess the mythology stuff was more interesting back then.
posted by Artw at 5:59 AM on October 30, 2014


The first time I saw it it scared the pants off me, that terrifying final shot! But in addition to the rewatch value being low ( once you know how it's going to go down a lot of air goes out of the movie) there was also this MASSIVE blacklash campaign combined with over saturation and like, three hundred billion cheap unfunny parodies and satires of it and the whole damn thing became gained by association.
posted by The Whelk at 6:02 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


(that being said, as I said in FanFare, it completely changed the genre and lead to the modern Internet marketing mode. Highly influential.)
posted by The Whelk at 6:03 AM on October 30, 2014


Ah, looks like Ghost in the Machine. Totally don't remember that. Maybe I blocked it out.
posted by lodurr at 6:05 AM on October 30, 2014


I remember so many people who really liked it and were scared by it when they saw it, and then two weeks later were already like, "THIS IS A TERRIBLE MOVIE."

I didn't like it very much when I saw it, because I'm not a horror fan generally and I don't buy the conventions of the genre, and because the shakey cam made me ill. (Also the girl shouting all the time was really grating.) But I still think it was a clever conceit and (if you can suspend the disbelief) scary. My sister clutched my arm all the way to the parking lot, it scared the bejeezus out of her. You can't replicate the scariness of the first viewing, but that doesn't make it less clever, IMO.

I'm not sure if the people who went from terrified to terrible in two weeks were mad they got scared by something so simple, or if it was just cool to dislike what other people liked, or what.

So on the suspension of disbelief -- they're lost in the woods, they find a stream, and I'm like, "OH GOOD, a stream, they can follow it downstream and know they're not wandering in circles, and eventually it'll join up with other streams and turn into a river and there are cities along rivers, if they haven't crossed a road before then!" but of course THEY DON'T DO THAT. And like I get that the conventions of the genre mean that even if they tried they'd keep coming back to where they started, but my brain thinks this is dumb and won't shut up about it. This is why I don't really watch horror movies -- either I can't suspend disbelief so they're too dumb, or if I can suspend disbelief they're way too scary.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:07 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


> I thought it quite a decent horror movie considering it looked like it had been made with pocket change and no special effects

Another pro vote for BWP. I've even forgotten where I first saw it (but it must have been at home on VHS because I seldom go to see stuff in real movie theaters because it's so expensive.) It was like stumbling on something astonishingly good on youtube made by dedicated amateurs on zero resources. The sense of being absolutely trapped in a deteriorating collective mentality and seeing beyond doubt that those kids are NOT going to be able to pull themselves together enough to turn around and get the fuck out of there... It was like being stuck in a dream state in a small boat headed over a big waterfall and it's far too late to do anything about it, even if you could make yourself pick up a paddle and try, but you can't even do that much, all you can do is stare at the approaching point ahead of you where the river suddenly isn't there any more and go no... no... please no...

And the further sense that if there actually were such a thing as irresistable mental deterioration caused by malign magic, it truly might feel just like this.

And all without the smallest speck of ketchup.
posted by jfuller at 6:15 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


I always imagined Blair Witch Project would have been great to see before it was discovered for big release and given hundreds of thousands of dollars in makeover for its sound effects. Maybe I could have suspended disbelief if I didn't have Dolby noises coming from wherever and it was just an intimate grainy/shaky film experience.

That said, I thought it overachieved for a micro-budget film. The acting was not perfect, but I did get the impression the director was saying: We can only afford one take or less.

And by the way, the mythology behind was in part because of the creepy "documentary" they broadcast (SciFi Channel?) to promote it.
posted by dances_with_sneetches at 6:27 AM on October 30, 2014


Maybe I blocked it out.

Your memory was probably erased by data travelers, electro wizards, techno anarchists. But not phone phreaks, they are specifically off the hook.
posted by Artw at 6:27 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


but of course THEY DON'T DO THAT.

Well, of course not. They'd come back to the same point and immediately know something supernatural was up for sure, at that point in the movie there has to be SOME ambiguity.
posted by Artw at 6:29 AM on October 30, 2014


I remember so many people who really liked it and were scared by it when they saw it, and then two weeks later were already like, "THIS IS A TERRIBLE MOVIE."

horror movie opinion is created by the same sorts of adolescent and permanently adolescent boys as video game opinion. i think this conventional wisdom was formed precisely because BWP was scary without any of the gore/punishment tropes.
posted by ennui.bz at 6:35 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


After the success of Blair Witch, these guys were given a prime time Friday night on Fox to do a modern take on Leonard Nemoy's "In Search Of" from the seventies.

I was the producer/director on one of these 8 hours, which never aired in the end. I could tell an amazing story about this.

It was an interesting exercise in Hollywood throwing money at guys who stumbled into massive success, hoping to cap it again. Having never run a tv series before, it was a roller coaster ride for these guys. They had enough power to get it produced out of Florida instead of LA. With a writer's strike looming, they did no pilot, just started making episodes. Wow.

One of their strengths turned out to be internet viral marketing more than narrative filmmaking.

It was also interesting to see them have to sue Artisan to get paid right, which brought them 7 figure settlements on top of all the money already distributed, I think. I hate to think of what unsuccessful directors have to go through if these guys printed hundreds of mils and still were getting nickled and dimed.

I think they just had the right idea at the right time, and caught a big wave.
posted by C.A.S. at 6:37 AM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


"Curse of the Blair Witch" had the effect on me of setting up too-high expectations for the actual movie. I still prefer the mockumentary.
posted by kimota at 6:37 AM on October 30, 2014


One of the things I thought it did well was convey that sense of claustrophobic clusterfuck that jfuller alludes to, and the very naturalistic, almost ad lib feel to the acting helped with that a lot. I felt like they were just workshopping and taping it, then editing it together later.

Which at the time I saw as a way of working around the conventions of the filmic genre, which basically require that people be selectively stupid. in written fiction, you get more mental state, and you can understand more fully that they don't follow the stream because they are ignorant, exhausted city kids who just didn't fucking think of it because of the stress they're under. (Kind of related to "don't think about hitting the guard rail.") Some people got that from it, others didn't; I'm not sure that's so much a failing/not-failing of the filmmakers as it is that it's just really hard to convey mental states in film without coming off as too tell-y.
posted by lodurr at 6:38 AM on October 30, 2014


Book of Shadows has a goth eating an owl. That's really all that can be said for it.
posted by Artw at 6:39 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


I always imagined Blair Witch Project would have been great to see before it was discovered for big release

Yes, this is true. I saw this on video during the Sundance film fest where it showed. There was that word-of-mouth buzz about the movie that promoters can't pay for.

I and the people I saw it with spent an hour after the movie was over just talking about it. It left us all with a creepy feeling.

I saw it in a main-stream theater later. I thought it was still pretty creepy. Other people thought it was ridiculous.

They changed the ending for the wide release. It was a bit clearer. The first time I saw BWP the ending was more head-scratching.
posted by hot_monster at 6:42 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I saw it in the theater, which was pretty full even a couple of weeks after it's initial release, so I ended up in one of the front rows. That was probably the worst place to see it, I've never experienced motion sickness from a movie (or video game) before or since. I couldn't even watch it near the end and was so bored by it I really didn't mind. Had I not been with a friend, I'd have walked out early.

I guess being the first "found footage" virally marketed movie makes it notable, but I don't consider it a must see by any means.
posted by inthe80s at 6:45 AM on October 30, 2014


I'm pretty sure a lot of the immediate backlash against the movie was from people who felt "tricked" after they found out that the movie wasn't real, and then felt embarrassed that they'd been tricked. It's totally one of the best horror movies of all time.
posted by interrobang at 6:46 AM on October 30, 2014 [7 favorites]


The ending is great, as they don't show anything. They leave it to your imagination what's there, inspired by the performances of the actors in that scene - which means your mind is free to summon up all manner of demons to fill the void, and they're frightening because they're your demons in particular.

The Conjuring did this in one scene as well, just showed a dark corner and the actors reacting to something in it - most terrifying part of the movie.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:49 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Call me the Mefite dissident in this post. I went to see it on or near about opening day and walked out considering it one of the worse movies I'd ever paid money to see. At the time, I thought a fair number of people actually believed in the conceit that it was "true" found footage and were wrapped up in the myth that what they were watching was indeed something that had actually happened.

Myself, I found it impossible to sympathize with the characters in the film, a detestation that grew as the movie did with every action they took that propounded my sense of, "Geez, these people are idiots!" At the point when the map was sent into the creek off camera, I was pretty much, "Can the witch show up now? Please?" There's a current commercial now airing (I think even with Justin Long!), in which a group of teens/20 somethings have an opportunity to run to an idling car to get away from a killer or into a creepy house or a shed full of hanging chainsaws. Naturally, they run for the shed, dismissing the car as the most insane selection of the three - and that's how I felt about the movie as I watched it.

I spent a lot of time as a kid and then teenager playing in woods that looked extremely similar to the ones in the film, so perhaps my comfort with the setting reduced the effectiveness of the movie's attempt to raise the tension and suspense. My then girlfriend, who had grown up in similar circumstances, came out feeling the same way, as well. The only thing that gave me any type of creepy vibe was the very last shot and that was way too little too late.

So yah, count me as someone who wasn't impressed, wasn't scared, and in the name of Count Adhemar, found the movie completely wanting.
posted by Atreides at 6:55 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I went and saw it one summer night in Iowa and afterward a bunch of us went to play tag in a cornfield. It was the most delightfully scary evening I think I've ever had.

A few days later I moved alone into a new (old Victorian) house, several days before any of my roommates were scheduled to arrive. I went in search of the basement laundry room and - to my horror - realized that someone had decorated the stairs to the scary, creepy basement with handprints. Fearing that I would find Mike in the corner, I went and stayed with a friend until the rest of my roommates arrived.
posted by Elly Vortex at 6:56 AM on October 30, 2014 [8 favorites]


I enjoyed it, but kept getting constantly pulled out of the movie by the characters always having the camera running. Too silly I thought, no one would do that.

In this age of selfies, I wonder though...
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:59 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Saw it in the theater the weekend it was released because my wife is a huge horror fan. I thought it was suspenseful up to a point but by the third act the characters were so irritating I was rooting for the witch.
posted by Ber at 7:04 AM on October 30, 2014


No mentions of the website, which was what made it so amazing to me at the time. It appears to have had a 10th anniversary reboot if you want to go see it! I never believed it (reality is never that straightforwardly narrative, also the army would've just burned the woods down if they'd found something like this, not turned it into a movie for wide release), but I loved the way it could scare me anyway.

I don't see a lot of horror movies, but the one that also seems to be an obvious, if higher-budget, successor is Cloverfield.
posted by emjaybee at 7:08 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


FWIW the best weird-shit-in-the-wilderness story is Algernon Blackwood's The Willows.
posted by Artw at 7:10 AM on October 30, 2014 [7 favorites]


I saw Blair Witch both in the theater when it first came out and then later on DVD, and I found it far more effective on the small screen (although I liked it and thought it was effective on the big screen as well). On the big screen I thought it was scary, but on the small screen I thought it was absolutely terrifying. Of course, I made the mistake of watching the DVD alone in a house that was surrounded by a large wooded area, so that probably explains some of it, but I've talked to other people who had the same reaction regarding big screen versus small screen.
posted by holborne at 8:05 AM on October 30, 2014


I basically cannot be scared by anything ghost-related, but this movie was so frightening to me. The horror really comes from the idea of being trapped in a nerve-wracking situation with foolish, petulant, useless friends who are making everything worse, while also being foolish, petulant and useless oneself. That's the kind of misfortune that could easily befall me any day of my life. At least evil ghosts are fictional.
posted by two or three cars parked under the stars at 8:09 AM on October 30, 2014 [9 favorites]


The only thing I knew about Blair Witch when I saw it were that it was a financially-successful horror movie. After seeing it, I could not think of any reason for its success. A complete waste of time -- mine and the makers of the thing, too. If I had seen it in a theater, I would have been demanding a refund.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 8:10 AM on October 30, 2014


i saw this on video a while after it was released. full disclaimer, i have a very easy time suspending disbelief when it comes to movies. not sure if it's a gift or a curse, but suffice to say i often like movies that turn out to be widely dismissed (this is one of them).

the super cool thing, is that around six months after it was released in the states, i was in england, visiting a friend, and he asked me, almost in a hushed tone, "do you know anything about the blair witch project?" it had not yet opened in the uk, but the pre-release propaganda had started, and there was the same buzz over there as there was leading up to the release in the states. it was funny to see him so truly curious, and remember when we, in the states felt that same way, but then knowing that right around the corner is the overexposure, and backlash.
posted by rude.boy at 8:12 AM on October 30, 2014


> every action they took that propounded my sense of, "Geez, these people are idiots!"

What it conveyed to me at all those same points (especially the escape hatch offered by the creek) wasn't "idiots," it was "impaired." As a (virtual) member of the party I could see that some of my friends just weren't playing with a full deck. But the effect of that was to make me feel I must go onward with them if they did; saving just me by abandoning them would be wrong, such a wrong choice that I couldn't choose it. "I'm not quite as bad off as they are, maybe when we come to whatever's dragging us toward it I'll be able to see something I can do. And if not, fuck it. Sooner face whatever it is together than live with knowing I saved myself by dumping my friends when they were helpless."
posted by jfuller at 8:21 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


My main interest in BWP was The Blair Witch Chronicles, the spin-off comics series that it spawned, and that mainly because some of the stories (which tied into the BWP background to greater or lesser degrees) were drawn by Bernie Mireault, a comics artist whose work I've always admired but who has published sporadically. (Mireault was an early collaborator of Mike Allred, and also was part of the Matt Wagner/Joe Matt axis back in the day.) As for the movie itself, I liked it for what it was, and noted with dismay the sequel, which I didn't bother to see because I saw it as following the Twin Peaks progression: something weird and wonderful and utterly unique, slowly turning into a parody of itself.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:22 AM on October 30, 2014


I saw this in the theaters opening night with my sister and brother-in-law, knowing little about it (which is always my preferred way to see movies; low expectations). My BIL is the best to watch funny or scary movies with because he is really emotive.
We were already in MD, so the next day we decided to drive to Burkittsville, since we didn't have anything better to do. To call it a town is super generous, but it made for a decent way to pass the time. That night we dropped my brother-in-law off at this conference in a reasonably rural area and, since we were running a few minutes late he had to run off to his first meeting. We decided to stack some stones in his room and put a stick figure on (or maybe under, I don't recall) his pillow. We weren't there for his reaction but his bunkmate said it was amazing.

Lastly, the day after that (now 36 hours after seeing the film), I went on a 10 day backpacking trip in West Virginia. All in all it made for a nicely packaged fortnight. I still love this movie, but am hesitant to watch it again since I'm not a stupid 18 year old anymore. Now I'm a stupid father of two.
posted by staccato signals of constant information at 8:33 AM on October 30, 2014


I saw this on July 26, 1999 (before it went into wide release), at a theater in the Village (NYC), and found it (according to my Week-at-a-Glance) effectively chilling, though the friend I saw it with was unaffected. I never for a moment believed that the events were "real," and found it hard to credit the fact that anyone did, but I enjoyed the simulation (hand-held camera, etc.). Of course I had no idea it would spawn "the whole found-footage fad specifically and also the last fifteen year's love of shaky-cam in general" (to quote octothorpe), and I wouldn't pay to see it again (though I might watch it if I happened to catch it on TV). But it was a fun movie, and I don't get the hate either.
posted by languagehat at 9:24 AM on October 30, 2014


I don't think it's entirely fair to blame the Transformers movies on BWP.
posted by Artw at 9:26 AM on October 30, 2014


Saving Private Ryan on the other hand can have a lot of shakycam blame hung around it's neck.
posted by Artw at 9:27 AM on October 30, 2014


I saw the movie when I was about 14, and it scared the crap out of me. I had the complete opposite reaction as Atreides, from the experience of playing in very similar kinds of woods. To me, that made it all the more realistic. If I came across these inexplicable piles of rocks and stick figures in the woods, I'd be kinda creeped out. If I then got lost in the woods, I'd also be all, wtf, we're in America, how is this even possible? And if my friend was an idiot who couldn't read maps and therefore kicked our only map into the river, I'd be pissed. It was all so believable, in a way that movies with lots of special effects can never be. Nobody was a ghost, nothing flew through the air or went against the laws of physics in any way, nothing even jumped out at you. It was just normal people doing normal things, but shit just kept getting creepier and creepier, and the situation just kept getting more and more desperate. I don't know how I would react if I saw it for the first time today, but of all the scary movies I watched around that time, BWP is the only one that I still have fond (or rather, what's the opposite of fond?) memories of.
posted by gueneverey at 9:29 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


We found weird shit in our woods all the time, also porn.
posted by Artw at 9:31 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Right when the backlash started, there was actually a great article in The Washington Post Style section about how they filmed it-- the actors had relatively low contact with the crew (they had instructions and stuff, but were rarely directed per se), the crew would do scary things to them that the audience couldn't see (the super shrill "what the FUCK WAS THAT! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!" scene where all you see is black was when a member of the crew dressed all in white and ran through a field), and their irritation and petulance was not entirely acting.

Also, add me to the list of people who found that last shot TERRIFYING.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 9:42 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Well sure, there's weird shit in every woods. If they had cited inexplicably placed household appliances as evidence of the ghost of an angry laundromat owner, I would have been significantly less impressed.
posted by gueneverey at 9:45 AM on October 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Our local wood legend was that the woods were haunted by a decapitated nun who was searching for her head, which had been pit in a bag and nailed to a tree. If you saw the nun you would die! If you found the bag and looked in it you would also die!

Not quite sure what she was doing with all the porn though.
posted by Artw at 9:48 AM on October 30, 2014 [8 favorites]


GPS. They had GPS and got lost. Whu?
posted by jetsetsc at 9:56 AM on October 30, 2014


It's kind of amazing nobody put a melon in a sack and nailed it to a tree in those woods, but we genuinely didn't like to go in there - only as a shortcut of desperation or if we were being chased by a farmer or something.

(We got chased by farmers a lot as some of our shortcuts involved a certain amount of crop trampling)

There wasn't much reason for a nun to be in the area either, no local abbey or anything. We did spot the low, crumbled brick remains of a building in there, which seemed spookily out of place.

I think it's a housing development now.
posted by Artw at 10:05 AM on October 30, 2014


Then watched it again about 10am the next day with a bunch of us in bed having tea and toast. Significantly less terrifying.

Yeah context and who you are watching with are big things with horror, I've found. There have been times I've watched what I consider the scariest movie ever (The Changeling) in the wrong place with the wrong people and they basically laughed at it. Potheads giggling and fighting over gummy bears completely ruined the effect. Other times, you show it to people and they'll freak out at the sound of furnace turning on and everybody's really into it.
posted by Hoopo at 10:21 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


*nicker-snort-clop* hhh-H-OR-SE--H-A-I-R-rrrr *clop-nicker-snort*
posted by lazycomputerkids at 10:43 AM on October 30, 2014


Yeah what is it with porn mags in the woods? I probably would've made it until 14 or so without seeing a naked woman if it wasn't for the porn mags we always found in the woods. Is this some creepo's idea of passing on wisdom? A public service? Or are you just walking along with a Penthouse and *whoops* you drop it there under that tree? It's not like I found copies of The Atlantic in the woods. This woods-porn combination has to be deliberate. That's the real mystery here.
posted by dis_integration at 11:00 AM on October 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


It's an invitation...
posted by Artw at 11:17 AM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


OK, that's not making it less creepy.

wait...i see what you...
posted by lodurr at 11:24 AM on October 30, 2014


I saw it on video with friends few years after it came out. I knew there was a contingent that made fun of the shaky-cam and low budget back when it was a phenomenon, but the word-of-mouth we heard going in was that it was the scariest thing ever. To accompany it we got the American "The Ring," which I thought looked like one of the usual crappy fall horror movies.

Well, we all thought "Blair Witch" was boring as hell up to the final sequence, which manages to build some actual tension. And "The Ring" really creeped me out. Not the jumpy parts like the crawl out of the TV - I always argue with people about this - but the weird videos, the phone calls, just the atmosphere of it.

So that's my "Blair Witch" backlash. Honestly the found-footage concept has great potential. But the execution is terribly written and paced, like they weren't even trying, and no, that doesn't make it more "real" to me. And that's how I feel about most of the imitators. A person I fortunately love very much had me watch Paranormal Activity number... 3 I think a while back? She really likes these things. Man they do nothing for me.
posted by atoxyl at 12:00 PM on October 30, 2014


If it's not clear, I'm not exactly a gorehound either. Well, discomfiting, body horror absolutely, and gore movies can be funny but slashers are not scary and only rarely interesting. I like the slow creepy stuff. But something about the way BWP approached that just utterly failed to engage us as a bunch of teenage boys staying up all night. And I can't think of a more definitive test of a horror movie than that, so I don't think I'm going to revisit it.
posted by atoxyl at 12:16 PM on October 30, 2014


I did hate and still hate BWP. The people are ridiculously stupid and completely unsympathetic. AND NOTHING EVER HAPPENS. It's a movie with no actual events. Horrible.
posted by yesster at 1:25 PM on October 30, 2014


I've never really understood the 'nothing ever happens' critique of almost anything.

Of course something happens: they get lost, and loster, and losterer.

Whether it's something interesting is a matter of perspective. I have a friend who likes to say something similar about literary fiction. ("Stories about paint drying in Connecticut.") But at least he doesn't say nothing happens.
posted by lodurr at 2:20 PM on October 30, 2014


Not the jumpy parts like the crawl out of the TV - I always argue with people about this

I'm with you. That had to be the weakest part of the movie for me and gave it a silliness it didn't need.

Paranormal Activity number... 3

yeah, if you're going to watch one of those, watch the first or second. I don't think it really needed a sequel, let alone 3 or 4 or 5 or however many we're at now. The first two were decent found footage type thingies.
posted by Hoopo at 2:31 PM on October 30, 2014


GPS. They had GPS and got lost

I thought there was a pretty strong implication something supernatural was going on with navigating the woods in addition to their general incompetence.
posted by Hoopo at 3:26 PM on October 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


My first reaction on seeing Blair Witch was: this movie would've been nothing without the internet. It wouldn't even have been direct-to-video. It's a piece of crap attached to amazing marketing.

Also, how credulous are some people? Believing the hype that it was 'based on a true story' I could maaaaaaaybe understand, but I had conversations with people who were into the idea that the whole thing was the real deal. I'm like: you really think they'd start showing straight-up snuff movies in cinemas?
posted by um at 4:55 PM on October 30, 2014


Well I managed to see the movie without hearing anything about it except like the blurry QuickTime "trailers" on the Internet and like I was confused that it was based in a real life case of kids that went missing or something, so when I did see it I was pretty rattled by it ( cause you don't cut to pure black in the middle of a huge movie theatre, unlike previous postersI think being in the surround sound theatre environment was important , it looked sillier on a small screen.) but I also think it goes back to the idea that the movie and it's visionary marketing campaign was like a gun you can only fire once.
posted by The Whelk at 5:01 PM on October 30, 2014


I think the Blair Witch Project is great! This is the most genuinely Lovecraftian film ever made. It echoes many of HPL's tropes (the old book, the woods, the desperate investigators, the abandoned places, the hillbilly cults and the interrupted first-person narrative: "Look! The window---!") It's not about grue or gore; it's about discovering oneself caught in the grip of a power that cannot be explained. What is the "Blair Witch," but the shallow, simple name we give to a force beyond our understanding?

I thought one of the best moment's in the film came when the crew interviewed the old woman in the trailer. Her description of "the witch," ("she was covered with hair, like horse hair") was so at odds with the traditional expectation of a "witch," that it gave her story verisimilitude.

HPL's stories often ended with the narrator going mad. I think we see this in the Blair Witch Project with Heather's increasing denial and hopelessness.

Many critics said, "show us the witch." This misses the point entirely. "The witch" is a construct of our fear of the unknown. It's the "explanation" we use because we can't accept the truth: the "witch" is unknowable and beyond our understanding.

You really need to check out "The Curse of the Blair Witch," which is an extra on the disc. It puts the story in perspective. Something really weird happened to these kids. Something that some deny (the critics) and some just can't explain (the fans). I hate to put this so bluntly, but the haters of BWP have a very narrow vision of what horror is. It's never about the monster; it's about the people trapped with it.
posted by SPrintF at 8:10 PM on October 30, 2014 [6 favorites]


SPOILERS ahead for Blair Witch Project.

My amusing BWP story: My friend Jeff and I are in separate colleges. He emails me one day: You gotta see this Blair Witch Project! It is the best movie of all time! So scary! I go to the theater and see it. I get motion sick, it's pretty creepy, I get freaked out, but not the best scary movie ever.

I IM him when I get home: Yeah, um, sure, good movie I guess. Not so scary, though.
Jeff: What about the fire extinguishers and stuff? That was a total surprise!
Me: Um....fire extinguishers?
Jeff: Yeah, the girl goes into the house, she starts going downstairs, then BLAM! the theater doors open and dudes wearing masks run in with fire extinguishers and shoot them off! Then you see the end of the movie while being covered with fire extinguisher foam! I totally didn't expect that and it made it so scary.
Me: I think your theater just got pranked
Jeff: I dunno we should make [mutual friends] go too make sure

And he now refuses to see it on video.
posted by holyrood at 8:24 PM on October 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


I don't get the hatred for this movie

I saw it when it came out, experience the hatred firsthand, and understood it immediately, based on who was doing the hating. People went expecting a horror movie. You have to understand that in 1999 that meant something, something very specific. There were tropes. There would be a recognizable, obvious evil thing, people would be murdered in grisly ways, sex was death, etc. - the sort of things Scream did such a good job sending up. The Blair Witch Project gave you none of that: it's the complete opposite of A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, horror-wise. A whole lot of bros walked into BWP expecting cheerleader titties and a good slashy time, and got yelling people in the woods for an hour. To them it wasn't scary, because it didn't meet the definition of what cinema scary was. It would be like if you'd only watched James Bond your whole life, thought all spy movies were like that, and then walked blind into Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or a showing of the last Prisoner episode.

Now, I'm not saying the only people who dislike this movie are complete rubes - there's plenty of other reasons to be unhappy with this film, some of which have already been mentioned. But the sheer hatred as I've experienced it is directly related to what I've described.
posted by Palindromedary at 11:04 PM on October 30, 2014 [5 favorites]


+1 for BWP. Why it's reviled now - see the TVTropes article "Seinfeld Isn't Funny".
posted by lon_star at 3:02 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


People went expecting a horror movie. You have to understand that in 1999 that meant something, something very specific.

I think this is right - before BWP, if you wanted intelligent horror, you needed to make it a science fiction movie. Supernatural horror since the early '80s was all sexual politics morality plays - unless it was also something else. Event Horizon, Alien 3, Delicatessen... and these were often panned because they catered to horror and suspense instead of the science fiction premise, but didn't bother with the usual supernatural horror baggage.
posted by Slap*Happy at 5:11 AM on October 31, 2014


Jeeze, there is a lot of pretentious hating on the type of person who doesn't like this film going on here. Never change, metafilter.

Half of it is people thinking it was retroactively hated for bandwagoning reasons that Aren't Legitimate, and half of it is people thinking that the backlash at the time was because the people were rubes who expected something dumb and formulaic or whatever.

Now, i haven't seen it in years. I think i was like, 14 when i watched it. I'm going to rewatch it soon, because my partner never saw it.

But, i think people who don't like it are getting tarred with a really unfair brush here. At the time i saw it, i was deep in to watching weird word-of-mouth movies i'd hear about online, and from the nerds at the video store a block from my house. I had already seen the original japanese version of ring/ringu, and a whole stack of other stuff like that. It was presented to me not as a Horror Movie, but as some weird off the wall indie thing i might like.

I went in to it expecting something weird, and possibly vaguely insufferable. Sundance film, sound of my voice sort of stuff. A weird movie that if it starts being bullshitty, is 100% invested in straight facing its own bullshit. Those can be good, i can be fine with that.

And... well... I pretty much thought what several people have already said above, about the characters just being insufferable and completely non-relatable, and the whole thing just deflated really quickly for me. I didn't have some objection to it not being torture porn, and i'm not some bro who expected some cookie cutter horror movie.

I know people above making those claims qualified them by saying they knew everyone wasn't like that, but this is like... almost some kind of film nerd holy war. The two sides are really, really polarized for some reason. Either it's something that you're supposed to like, or it's Complete Shit, and both sides are really bunkered on that. The people who think it's good tend to really shovel hard on the "it's primarily peasants who Didn't Get It who don't like this".

While i agree there may have been people who went in expecting something else, i don't think this was some Disco Sucks thing. I mean, i guess i'm biased because i didn't like it... but maybe it's just not a very good movie, and the problem doesn't exist between the keyboard and chair?

The weird thing is, this movie will endlessly get more attention than other really fucking good stuff that came out at the same time. The US version of the ring is scary as all fuck and not a cheerleader titty friday the 13th type movie. If i wasn't so tired, i could probably think of several others from that time period too.

I get that it did some stuff for the first time, but i don't think any of the stuff was anything interesting or redeemable. I can't for the life of me think of a found footage film that hasn't sucked(i went to one of the paranormal activity sequels saying i was going to drink until it was either good or startling, and almost had to be airlifted from the movie theater). And while i don't think you can blame shakycam on it, i think you can blame shakycam in any fucking horror movie that has a scene in the woods. I swear, almost every horror movie i've seen since then where it cuts to people running through the woods basically plays homage to it. Really?

I also think it's a bit unfair to other movies coming out at the same time to say it somehow redefined what was ok for a horror movie to be. That was happening organically on its own, anyways. that late 90s/early 2000s time period was like some new hollywood era for horror movies anyways.


Fuck, i don't know, i just have a bone to pick with the fandom and haters of this movie. It's not as awful as some people say it is, but it also isn't brilliant. I feel the exact same way about fight club.(although with that one, i probably hate the fans a lot more. maybe more than i hate the fans of anything)
posted by emptythought at 5:31 AM on October 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


... most genuinely Lovecraftian film ever made.

That's a nice observation. I didn't know any Lovecraft to speak of at the time so I thought of it as more in a Charles Brockden Brown vein (and maybe a little like Manly Wade Wellman).
posted by lodurr at 5:42 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


A whole lot of bros walked into BWP expecting cheerleader titties and a good slashy time, and got yelling people in the woods for an hour. To them it wasn't scary, because it didn't meet the definition of what cinema scary was. It would be like if you'd only watched James Bond your whole life, thought all spy movies were like that, and then walked blind into Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or a showing of the last Prisoner episode.

For a long time, the top position on my 'scariest movie' list was occupied by Blow-Up, solely because of the (SEVERELY understated) climax to that one sequence where he thinks he's Figured It Out. I had a pretty hard time sleeping after I watched it.
posted by lodurr at 5:45 AM on October 31, 2014


... but then, I think The Day of the Jackal is one of the finest thrillers ever made, so what do I know?
posted by lodurr at 5:58 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Another voice saying the US version of The Ring is a favorite just because of the feeling of oppressive dread that fills every inch of that movie - there was never any hope this was going to turn out okay for anyone.
posted by The Whelk at 7:03 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Massively undercut by the cursed video being a Maralyn Manson video.

(The secret flaw of the Japanese version is "depends on everyone turning out to be psychic")
posted by Artw at 7:34 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


You really need to check out "The Curse of the Blair Witch," which is an extra on the disc. It puts the story in perspective. Something really weird happened to these kids. Something that some deny (the critics) and some just can't explain (the fans). I hate to put this so bluntly, but the haters of BWP have a very narrow vision of what horror is. It's never about the monster; it's about the people trapped with it.

If an extra is required to make the movie better understood, then the movie failed at it's mission to properly convey its message or perform its purpose. I don't hate the movie, but I definitely didn't like it at all for a number of reasons, a few that I at least mentioned way back at the start of the post. I have no preconceptions of what horror films are or must be, so those expectations were not weighing me down in the least.

I do appreciate that there are plenty of folks who love the film and it's interesting to see the level of analysis by which fans of the film apply and delve into it. That's awesome. None the less, it's kind of silly to paint this broad landscape of haters based on two simple premises, 1) they thought they were getting the next Slasher pic (which it wasn't advertised as anyways) or 2) they thought it was real found footage and the anger they developed later on came out of embarrassment for being had. People had and will have different interpretations of what happens in the film and how they relate to it, it's just how things work and it's not because one side obviously knows a masterpiece when they see it or the other side knows trash when they see it.
posted by Atreides at 7:47 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm another one who loved BWP, and thought it was scary as hell. Another thing I loved, though, was how thematically tight it was, with so many moments and lines building to a single statement.

These are well-off, healthy American kids at a good college. No one gets lost in America. Anything they look at through a camera– including those hicks with their wacky superstitions– is something they are above.

And then it all breaks down. All their convictions, all their defenses, everything that they thought protected them, it all turns out to be lies. The GPS doesn't work. The map (the original navigation technology) doesn't work. And the cameras can't seem to capture the thing that they *know* is out there. It's like a perfect Greek drama, showing how hubris leads to a terrible fall. And knowing how the film was made, all credit goes to the directors' careful editing.
posted by ThatFuzzyBastard at 7:58 AM on October 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


Atreides: If an extra is required to make the movie better understood, then the movie failed at it's mission to properly convey its message or perform its purpose.

That sounds great, and I generally sympathize with that view -- it's the antidote to a lot of apologia for abject crap that skates by passing itself off as Art And Therefore Unassailable.

But it only goes so far.

If for example Palindromedary and SPrintF are correct that the hate stems from narrow definitions of 'horror' on the part of the audience, then it's not necessarily either the film's or the filmmakers' fault that it doesn't work -- it just has the "wrong" audience.

BWP came at a time when this type of horror -- which was once the norm -- had been replaced by explicit shock value horror. Some of that explicit shock value horror is well-made, and it largely broke into the mainstream as a result of marginal cases that are both shocking and subtle. But by the late 90s, horror was, as Palindromedary noted, what Scary Movie was going after.

If BWP could be spawned onto innocent eyes today, I think it would get much less backlash. We've had a renaissance of subtle horror since it was released. But it's hard to know, of course, how much of that was due to things like BWP...
posted by lodurr at 8:12 AM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I hate to put this so bluntly, but the haters of BWP have a very narrow vision of what horror is.

I don't really *need* so say this again, but just no. I didn't think I was going to see the witch, I thought I was going to see intelligently crafted psychological horror. I got a gimmick that fell flat.

I mean I'm not really invested in it being the worst thing ever, but it stood out because it got so much hype - it really is one of my most memorable instances of being disappointed in a movie.
posted by atoxyl at 1:00 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Book of Shadows has a goth eating an owl. That's really all that can be said for it.
That's all that needs to be said for it... I think almost anything could benefit from having a goth eating an owl in it.

I first saw BWP in a decent, really dark cinema soon after it was released in the UK and thought it was really effective. Possibly because I have a thing of finding dark woods inherently scary. I remember as the lights went up a guy sat on the row behind me just muttering 'Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!' to himself so it wasn't' just me.

Seeing it again on tv it's never been the same.

I was surprised, earlier this week, to see Eduardo Sánchez's name in the titles for The Intruders that was being shown on the BBC here (turned out, once you got past the novelty of John Simm doing an American accent, that it wasn't all that good)

Oh and my grandfather once found a dead body in his local woods... happy halloween everyone and pleasant dreams!
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:21 PM on October 31, 2014


I thought I was going to see intelligently crafted psychological horror.

[shrug /] I thought I got that.

If I've learned anything about narrative art, it's that my perception of what constitutes 'realism' is often quite different from that of someone else.
posted by lodurr at 4:17 PM on October 31, 2014


If I've learned anything about narrative art, it's that my perception of what constitutes 'realism' is often quite different from that of someone else.

I wouldn't say that realism was the issue. Or not the lack of it. My idea of "intelligent psychological horror" is Rosemary's Baby. For me this sort of thing requires very controlled pacing, immaculate direction, writing and acting and Blair Witch doesn't really have any of those to my mind. Honestly it's probably fundamentally pretty difficult to do that in the improvisational approach of BWP. Probably the most basic failing is the writing. There's so little to the characters, it's hard for me to get invested in their stories, which makes all the squabbling in the woods kill the tension instead of building it.

So a lot might be more a style that doesn't work for me - though I can think of ways to do it better - than necessarily a bad movie, but it felt like a bad movie to me at the time because I had elevated expectations.
posted by atoxyl at 7:10 PM on October 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


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