The Blair Witch Project

[Linkara]

So earlier this year I did a MASSIVE watch of Found Footage movies - just tons and tons of them on Shudder, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. I ended on the Blair Witch Project and Blair Witch 2016, since it felt appropriate to put an end to it at the point that really got the found footage boom going.

I agree with Chuck - Blair Witch Project held up incredibly well. The night scenes were full of tension and wondering what was going to happen next. Blair Witch 2016, by contrast, had plenty of interesting ideas... but suffered from the fact that there were nearly 20 years of found footage movies in between, so instead it felt derivative - not helped by the actual appearance of the monster. Indeed, one of my few criticisms of the original Blair Witch Project was that it felt like we should have seen SOMETHING related to it - some figure or payoff for the tension. Not a good look, mind you - I'd have been happy with a blurry silhouette, but Blair Witch 2016 just had it be some kind of goofy stretchy monster thing more reminiscent of Grave Encounters than the Blair Witch.

The thing I noted about the Witch in the original was that she was very much fucking with them the entire time. She was intelligent, manipulative, and knew how to push their buttons in just the right way to lead them to the cabin and get them to do what she wanted. In Blair Witch 2016, there is nothing to indicate that the Witch is intelligent in any capacity - just a weird, mindless monster killing them unless you stand in a corner and don't look at it... which is already bull because the legend in the original didn't have to do with the Witch herself, but Parr's murder of the kids. While it's possible he did so on the orders of the Witch, the "have the kids look away" thing was his call, not hers, and it wasn't to PROTECT them like suggested in the 2016 sequel.

[Rocketboy1313]

I remember Linkara tweeting about the found footage when he was watching it... How empty is my life this year that I can vaguely recall tweets from a youtuber I like? It would be one thing if I was in an argument with him, like when I briefly argued with Dan Slott about whether Superman should kill... But this was just reading them. 2020 blows...

Anyway, I was never on board with the Blair Witch, and I don't know why.
It has all the elements of a good scary movie, mystery, isolation, and a (for the time) clever gimmick in the form of being a found footage film... But it didn't get its hooks in me the way "The Ring" did back in the day, or "Underwater" did earlier this year.

Maybe it was just overhyped when I saw it? That I did not see it in the right conditions? That at the time I was just not into the horror genre?

I don't know.

[hypocratus]

From what little I remember of 'The Blair Witch Project', I didn't like the three leads. They just rubbed me the wrong way. Which meant that instead of being worried for them the most I could drag up was indifference. The worst was active annoyance. Which I remember being far more of the time. I still don't know why.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah I remember feeling like there could have been more to it at the end, but ultimately that it is cute through and through, even/especially for what it is.

[Meushell]

My only issue with the movie was that by the time I got to the end, I had forgotten about the kid in the corner story. It made the end very confusing. I was watching with a group, and only one person remembered that bit.

[King Green]

I find the film's acting great, the actors were pushed to their limits of an un-mastera-ble concept of improv and having each and every choice become a consequence.

Sad that the latest games that "try" to expand the lore felt like being raped by an equine abomination with two heads and the voice of a crack-week hybrid user. And that's just the monster, the story is another mess that needs to be buried...in a large ditch with gasoline filled.

[Dilandau3000]

Anyway, I was never on board with the Blair Witch, and I don't know why.

Same, Blair Witch never worked for me. I remember it was on TV late at night when I watched it, and I just thought it was silly. I'm not someone who's ever really scared by scary movies, but Blair Witch did nothing. It didn't feel tense, or scary, or in anyway interesting.

I guess these kinds of movies just aren't for me.

[Wargriffin]

Ehh I prefer the Theory that there was no witch but the two guys had conspired to murder the girl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YASj8IuQ_Yw

[Deledrius]

From what little I remember of 'The Blair Witch Project', I didn't like the three leads. They just rubbed me the wrong way. Which meant that instead of being worried for them the most I could drag up was indifference. The worst was active annoyance. Which I remember being far more of the time. I still don't know why.

This was my problem as well. At best, I was laughing at them sabotaging themselves, and at worst I was annoyed or disinterested in their plight. The movie failed to bring me along for the ride. Chuck's analysis is great, and I can't find fault with it (in fact, it makes me appreciate the film more), but it simply wasn't how I experienced it. I never connected with these idiots and their incessant screaming at each other.