The Moment of Truth: The Blair Witch Project

[JDFP]

** Your poll selection will be public for everyone **

Okay, fairly self-explanatory. I've heard both pro and con to this issue, so let's put it up for a poll. How do you rate "The Blair Witch Project" as a film?

Personally, I find it to be one of the ten best horror films I've ever seen (and I've seen *alot* of horror films). I don't know that I'd put it in my top 5 list (where "Day" and "Christine" are) but it's definitely top 10 worthy. I think it's an exceptionally done work of psychological horror (my favorite) focusing on a character-driven story (as opposed to stupid Hollywood F/X and/or CGI driven drivel). What it did it did exceptionally well.

It seems there tend to be two classes of people who come to "BWP" -- those who absolutely love it or those who absolutely hate it. I'm former of course, but the reason I love it so much is the primary reason those who hate it tend to hate it. The end keeps you guessing -- there's no clear cut "Oh, it was a bunch of rendecks" or "Oh, it was the witch!" moment. There's no 'big reveal' and I applaud the film for this reason -- I think revealing too much would have destroyed the film for more than one watch. Instead, we are left with our own opinions and perspectives on what it all means -- very David Lynch like. And I especially commend the film on not doing any stupid CGI-looking 'Blair Witch' floating above people or something -- this would have completely destroyed the film.

Anyway, I'll stop rambling and ask:

So, what are your thoughts and please explain your thoughts in detail.

j.p.

[Neil]

I think it was a great bit of film making! Just let down by the ending IMHO!

[MinionZombie]

I think it was a great bit of film making! Just let down by the ending IMHO!

Really? The whole ending bit in the abandoned house, particularly him standing in the corner (which gave me shivers) was the best part of the whole movie. Hmmm...

[bassman]

Good but not quite great. If anything, you've got to give them points for making something so well received and entertaining off of a shoe string budget.

[Neil]

Good but not quite great. If anything, you've got to give them points for making something so well received and entertaining off of a shoe string budget.

Is it still the most profitable indendent horror film ever? Like half a million % profit or something?

[AngryNeighbour]

I was disappointed by the ending, but also thought it was great ahaha. I was disappointed because finally something for sure was actually happening and they ended it, but it was also great because it left you thinking and wondering and that aspect was pretty much the strategy of the entire film.

I liked it but I didn't love it (its something if I saw on TV I'd definitely watch it, but I wouldnt buy it), but it was well done and it also seems to me to be a pretty influential film.

[wayzim]

I think it was a great bit of film making! Just let down by the ending IMHO!

I was more impressed by the whole PT Barnum/Orson Welles Showman approach, including the Two BWP Sci Fi channel specials ( which rocked. ) the slightly less Showtime special 'White Enamel. ' about Kyle Brody, the lone survivor of the Rustin Parr killings in 41, one really good book; The BWP: A Dossier,which followed a private investigation into the missing students.

I was probably one of a couple film fans who actually appreciated Book of Shadows for turning the original movie on its head. It was concerned more with the folks who treated Blair Witch as a true story, but then itself treated some of the events as real, and finally challenged the idea that video was worth anything.

My only disappointment is that the film makers never did the next film. which was to be about Elly Kedward and how she got to be the Blair Witch.

Wayne Z

Randy Donahue; Well my heart was pounding in my chest, I don't know whether I should scream or laugh, because by God she is ugly, she's got hair all over her arms like a lumberjack or something, and she's just staring at me. And then she said "Donahue.

Buck Buchanan: And?

RD: What do you mean "and"? That was enough for me. I turned around and ran like Holy Hell.
How'd she know my name? I'd never seen her before.

BB: Well, to me -

RD: I know. It sounds like I came across some crazy old lady in the forest. But I tell you, I've heard other people talk about her too - people alot older than me, alot younger. And she always looks the same.
It was the Blair Witch, Buck.

Excerpt from BWP; A Dossier, an interview between Buchanan (Investigator hired by Heathers family ) and Randy Donahue, her grandfather, describing a meeting with Elly when he was a young boy.

You don't generally get this level of detail in alot of Horror series.

[MikePizzoff]

Good but not quite great. Gotta give it props on the miniscule budget, alone. I thought the concept was awesome: "Lets just give these three kids some cameras and an outline of a story, send them into the woods, then bother them in the middle of the night."

[Mr. Clean]

With the deception of the "footage" being real, I'd say it was a damn good thriller along with everyone else who was duped into thinking it was real and then pissed off after the fact. I was only 13 when it first came out. So I'm sure I didn't grasp all the details of it's release but I remember how bummed out I was to find out that it was a big bag of lies. Knowing the footage is phoney. I gotta say yuck. They should have kept that shit to themselves for at least 20 years.

I too thought the end was the creepest part with dude standing with his nose in the corner and then the camera dropping to the floor.

As for Book of Shadows...I use to have a huge interest for gothic women. Not really sure if I still do. The wife doesn't have a gothic bone in her body though. I'd probably die from laughter if she wore gothic appeal. She might scare the kids. LOL

http://deecrowseer.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/bwbos002.jpg

[blind2d]

Best horror movie about a witch ever. You gotta give it that. I mean, come on.

It made me feel the same way 'The Ring' did when I saw it for the first time. And that's saying something. I mean, creeped out, man. Like the first time I saw the ending of Day. Or the first time I read 'It'. Or... you get the idea. Gotta say I love it. Hate the hype, love the movie. Not all of it, but most of it. The interview bit is great. And it's parodied too much for some reason. Hate that. Still, one of my... yeah, top ten favorite thrillers. Chillers. Spookshow Baby.

[Neil]

Really? The whole ending bit in the abandoned house, particularly him standing in the corner (which gave me shivers) was the best part of the whole movie. Hmmm...

I'll have to watch it again! But it all fell a bit flat for me...

[EvilNed]

Best horror movie about a witch ever. You gotta give it that. I mean, come on.

Oh... really?

zak1AUiOvLo&

[MikePizzoff]

Knowing the footage is phoney. I gotta say yuck. They should have kept that shit to themselves for at least 20 years.

The movie spawned acting careers for the three stars, which is probably why it wasn't kept a secret.

[rongravy]

BWP, great movie if you're a 12 year old girl. Scariest thing since The Exorcist, what a crock of dookie.
Maybe the lack of a payoff would've mattered to me if what led up to it would've been interesting. Guess you can figure how I voted on this poll.
I saw it once, that was enough for me.

[blind2d]

Oh!! So THAT's where that clip is from in that Rob Zombie song! 'Beginning of the end', I believe. Yeah, thanks, Ned!!

Ron doesn't get it...

[Purge]

One of the very few movies that actually scared me. Great filmmaking.

[JDFP]

BWP, great movie if you're a 12 year old girl. Scariest thing since The Exorcist, what a crock of dookie.
Maybe the lack of a payoff would've mattered to me if what led up to it would've been interesting. Guess you can figure how I voted on this poll.
I saw it once, that was enough for me.

What kind of 'payoff' would you expect though that wouldn't destroy the suspense of the film? In the last minutes as Heather is running around screaming all the sudden you see a CGI-looking witch floating across the ceiling? That would be cheap. You see a bunch of rednecks kill them and then lift up the camera and turn it off -- oh, so the whole thing was just rednecks then? Again, cheap. Anything other than the 'keep you guessing' at the end would seem cheap to me and would have completely ruined the experience of it. I agree with H.P. Lovecraft and others on the issue of horror -- showing too much of anything really cheapens the final product because it can't compare to what could be in your imagination.

How could it have ended with satisfying those who were expecting some type of 'payoff' without being cheap Hollywood drivel that's a dime-a-dozen?

j.p.

[rongravy]

How could it have ended with satisfying those who were expecting some type of 'payoff' without being cheap Hollywood drivel that's a dime-a-dozen?

j.p.
Maybe with that naggy beeotch being offed while the guy she nagged for losing the map watched and giggled? I dunno. I just found nothing remotely suspenseful, chilling, freaky... at all leading up to the earlier stated nonpayoff. My hats off to whoever made it for doing it cheap and raking big bucks from it, but that's about it.
Didn't like it, and wasn't alone by the end of it. I didn't hear one person gushing all over it like you do, lol. And not just for being gypped out of the payoff, everyone was pissed over the whole enchilada.
Seriously, if this hadn't been made, then Paranormal Activity would be my low bar for shitty movies.
Pardon my French but je deteste Blair Witch Project.

[DjfunkmasterG]

I personally hate the movie... all the hype and what a complete let down. The last 3 minutes of the film was the only thing worth while but it can not make up for the other 90 minutes of boring melodrama.

[Danny]

loved it then, love it now. but im one of the viewers who can put myself into the shoes more easily- being a film student whos been out filming in the woods and the 'locals' didnt take kindly to it for some reason.

i think it was a groundbreaking example of the culmination of a grand digital ARG that has only remotely been replicated in anything similar in marble hornets.

for my money i don't think the filmmakers had any concrete definition of what was going on, it looks to me like someone was angry about out of towners making the documentary and fucked with them in the ways the killer rustin parr did in the 60's and the psychos kept escalating it. but in the mindset of a filmmaker i can see the guys started with a novel idea, decided its easier to just leave if obscure and open for the public to decide on the ending so the pay off required little work.

that doesnt mean its not good though. i love the ending. it just leaves you going 'what in the fuck?' in the right way and the increasingly tense nature of these 'city kids' so far out of there element, paranoid someone is stalking them day and night who knows the terrain like the back of there hand is really creepy.

sure people argue its a witch because the fucking abysmal book of shadows sequel but honestly i never saw this as a supernatural movie. locals fucked with out of towners and went way too fucking far and the preconceptions of the supernatural in the students minset made them all the more terrified and partially the engine of their own demise.

but lets face, whats more likely to scare you, running into a ghost or spook in the woods? or a few homicidal "good ole' boys" who made it their business to learn a certain banjo ditty from deliverance?

[Rancid Carcass]

Cannibal >cough< Halocaust >cough<

:shifty:

[SymphonicX]

I thought it was OK. It's worth casting an eye on all the movies made since which draw influence from it. OK so the idea of mockumentary stuff has been around since the War of the Worlds broadcast by Orsen Welles - but this film did bring about a massive slew of "pov" movies....Might I also cast your mind back to....(and I'm sorry for this) Diary of the Dead...

What they have all failed to do is deliver a real pay off at the end - but the best of them all, The Blair Witch, has the most satisfying pay off of all these POV movies. All I should have to do is cast your mind back to Paranormal Activity for a let down of an ending. The ending of that movie felt like it should have been ending Act 1, not ending the movie. It had just ramped itself up to be interesting, spending a long time building up tension in clever ways - but it totally lost the plot in the last minute or so, and became a real let down.

These POV movies do tend to have shitty endings. But I have to say, for sheer "imagination running wild" moments, TBW beats them all hands down. Truly leaves your mind to fill in small blanks which lead to big tension later on - films like Paranormal Activity don't have that level of making your mind work overtime.

[MoonSylver]

Have to say I preferred the original ending of "Paranormal Activity". While not quite the same level of "payoff" as BW I thought it was up there.

[SymphonicX]

Not seen the original ending myself....don't think I'll ever get round to it either!

[bassman]

I was honestly confused over whether or not Paranormal Activity was a comedy. I was sure that something that funny HAD to be intentional....

[LouCipherr]

I personally hate the movie... all the hype and what a complete let down. The last 3 minutes of the film was the only thing worth while but it can not make up for the other 90 minutes of boring melodrama.

This, although even the last 3 minutes wasn't even worth watching, at least not for me. I went to the theater and wasted my money on this film, and I was not pleased. The wife wanted to see it, so we went - what a disappointment for both of us.

That being said, what the filmmakers did with this film and what they accomplished is something to commend, however, that doesn't mean it's a good flick.

[blind2d]

I was honestly confused over whether or not Paranormal Activity was a comedy. I was sure that something that funny HAD to be intentional....

This.

[tkane18]

Good but not great for me.
The best part was when my wife walked in and asked what I was watching. I started it from the beginning but didn't tell her much about the film. She thought it was a real documentary. About 2 weeks later, we went to a party. She started telling people about the film and that she couldn't believe it really happened. I quickly moved to the other side of the room. When I looked back at her, I could see the daggers flying my way. Needless to say, I did not win Husband of the Year.
That's how I'll always remember The Blair Witch Project.

I tried this again with her while watching Paranormal Activity on DVD but she caught on when it said Alternate Ending on the DVD menu.

[Doc]

The end keeps you guessing -- there's no clear cut "Oh, it was a bunch of rendecks" or "Oh, it was the witch!" moment. There's no 'big reveal' and I applaud the film for this reason -- I think revealing too much would have destroyed the film for more than one watch. And I especially commend the film on not doing any stupid CGI-looking 'Blair Witch' floating above people or something -- this would have completely destroyed the film.



j.p.


RkHI7aZrNI4

I personally loved it as well! it managed to do what no horror film has in a while. it actualyl sacred me!:eek: I never found the 3 leads particularly annoying, the camers walking up every morning to find something amiss was always interesting, and I personally freaked when the tent was shaken and they run being chased by an unseen entity.

[acealive1]

I was honestly confused over whether or not Paranormal Activity was a comedy. I was sure that something that funny HAD to be intentional....



:lol::lol: :D

[Mitchified]

I went with the "didn't like it, didn't hate it" option. It just wasn't that scary to me the first time around, and it's not one of those movies that hold up well over repeated viewings. I've found that I don't really like shaky cam movies, however, so I'm sure that influenced me. Hey, scared college kids in the woods! Tripods exist, you know!

[Mr.G]

I selected good...being apart of the whole 'experience' in a theatre added to my opinion. I wasn't scared while watching it but for some damn reason after I was home, alone, and ready to sleep, the ending really got to me and I was freaking out for several sleepless nights.

[ZombieKeeper]

Great the first time you see it in the theater. Terrible watching it at home on the small screen.

[Legion2213]

It was okay, the biggest thing that let it down was the fact that I simply didn't like ANY of the characters, so I couldn't muster much horror, sadness or the like as they got bumped off.

[Danny]

So i rewatched this today with a very different eye. Since getting my film degree which entailed lots of actual filmmaking practical work- and of course my own work as a job since then- i'm noticing way more faults in this film. For one thing you see things like an open field, a main road and even a poorly maintained carpark through the trees as they whent on which really gives you a feeling that they found a small patch of trees by a canal and just filmed walking it up and down in different directions which sort of cheapens the whole "the actors spent 8 days in isolation with little food" mystique given to the films production process.

That and there are little bits of unprofessional hiccups throughout. I don't wanna list a bunch because honestly they wreck some scenes but the i'll point one out as an example. When mike runs through the house at the end he rounds a corner and stops by a window to talk to heather as some dude is pointing in the window with a laser pointer. some websites say it was a douchebag kid who snuck on set during the night filming, some say it was the director showing where they wanted mike to run to. Either way this just smacks of unprofessional filmmaking. The house is the only true 'set' in the film with a definable perimeter and blind spots and should be easily controlled by the crew of a film no matter how early or low budget in a film makers career. You keep a watch around the outside so nobody can reach it without you knowing, let alone get in shots and if its to guide an actor- its a damn house, a house with writing on the walls, theres so many ways to do a preemptive walk about to show them the route to travel. i mean marble hornets did this but a movie that cost 35k cant?


That said i still enjoy it, but its never quite sure what to make of itself. At some points it is very clearly locals messing with them, as foreshadowed with 'goddamn kids never learn' from the fishing locals near the start, but then at others they hear babies screaming, little girls laughing and a huge group smacking the tent at once when there is nobody there. i dont think its for the sake of ambiguity either, i just think the directors did not know quite what to make of it.

[blind2d]

Oh no... Now I can't enjoy this movie anymore...
Still way better than Paranormal Activity, though (even just going by the titles).
Oh well, I still have The Ring, and The Matrix, so that's all good...
"And then Murdoc was like, 'Wot're you on about, ponies?' An' I was all, 'NO!! Whale!!' ...'E 'asn't talked t' me for three days since then..." - 2D