November 3, 2000

10:16 PM

The results are in. Blood and gore killed the video star. Laughable, eh? That $40K and a bundle of sticks could out-perform $10M and Hollywood's bottomless ketchup bottle?
posted by ZachsMind (6 comments total)

I am hoping though that despite this, we do hear from the unknown talent again, preferably in vehicles that take better advantage of their abilities. Well except for Stephen Barker "Not only am I principal for the William Shatner School of Overacting but I'm also a student" Turner.

Kim's a babe.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:23 PM on November 3, 2000

Sometimes talent is more than money.

If this actually does anything, it will make the studios even more attentive to the unknown talent, not less. Consider the lesson: Unknown talent hits a home run. Major studio strikes out.

Who would YOU want to send up to bat next?

posted by Steven Den Beste at 10:32 PM on November 3, 2000

Big-budget movies aren't made with the intention of being *good*, but with the intention of making a *profit*.

The whole idea of a Blair Witch sequel (especially without the original people who made it) was an utter cash grab to begin with. Odds are that the studio execs knew from the get-go that if they threw ten million into a bad movie with the Blair Witch name on it, they'd make their money back and then some after the theater run and video rentals and sales.

So in that respect, I believe Blair Witch 2 will be totally successful. Just not the way the people who liked the first one would prefer.

The major studios aren't as dumb as you'd like to think.

F.
posted by frenetic at 11:20 PM on November 3, 2000

People liked the first one?
posted by daveadams at 10:20 AM on November 4, 2000

I saw the Blair Witch Project in an indepentant film theatre prior to all the hype, hoopla, and big theatre release of the movie. When I entered the movie theatre, not knowing how good or bad the movie was going to be with some friends, it was quite something, I left amazed at how original the movie was. Honestly, it's not an oscar winning movie, but if you watched this movie aside from the hype it received, it's a decent movie. It doesn't reveal a whole lot in the movie, which is cool because it leaves you some space to figure things out for youself. In the end, how many scary movies these days have to just be about blood, gore, and sex? Blair Witch Project wasn't made to make a profit. Blair Witch Project dared to do something different.
posted by crog at 1:27 PM on November 4, 2000

I guess that's why I feel so cheated with Book of Shadows. It was made for money. Blair Witch was made to convey a story to an audience. The money was an elusive impossible dream to the Blair Witch filmmakers at the time of production. For Book of Shadows, it was a given. Even though its bombing and the opening weekend was "disappointing" they made as much money in three days as they spent making the thing. Video sales will be their gravy.

I think that alone subtly yet dramatically affected the end product.

In Blair Witch I finally found a movie that didn't reveal everything. It didn't insult my intelligence by assuming I had no deductive reasoning or creative talent of my own. It worked more as an instigator for one's own imagination. It lets you play with the possibilities in your mind. You can choose to believe it or not. You can choose to accept certain assumptions and see if they're believable. Share your hypotheses with others. Expand the tale, like friends sitting around a campfire.

Book of Shadows grabs you by the tonsils and quite impolitely shoves a nine course meal of hastily prepared, uncooked blood and guts and entrails down your throat for two hours straight. There is only one answer at the end. There is only one course of events. There's no questions when it's over. There's no mystery or suspense. The neato-eerie creepiness of BWP gave way to a repetitive gross-out barf-fest in BoS.

Blair Witch left me wanting more.

Book of Shadows just left, and good riddance to it.
posted by ZachsMind at 2:21 AM on November 5, 2000