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Forum:Blair Witch Project 462

Posted by CmdrTaco from the stuff-to-see dept.
So like many of us this weekend, I saw the Blair Witch Project this weekend. I thought about writing a full blown review, but have opted against it. I enjoyed the movie a lot, but I'd really rather solicit comments on the movie. I do ask that anyone who wants to put spoilers in their comments try to warn people before they read anything that might spoil the movie. But what did you guys think of it?Update: 08/02 08:34 by H :FiNaLe wrote to say that August 2nd, at 9pm Eastern, on irc.scifi.com in #auditorium the Directors of The Blair Witch Project will be talking.
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Forum:Blair Witch Project

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  • they could have broken them. They could have divulged that BW was fake in September(imagine
    how pissed you'd be!). The way they did it, everybody going to the movie sorta heard some people saying it was real and some people not--not altogether perfect, but a giant aid to suspending disbelief and a huge contributor to the success of the movie.

    Puh-leeze! Who in their right mind would believe all this nonsense about witches was real. The average American maybe, but I think the average Slashdot reader is a little more intelligent than that.
  • Thank you! I've gone through a lot of these responses, and I keep seeing comments from people who loved the movie, and can't understand how anyone could possibly not like it. What really gets me is the theories these people have come up with to explain why some people don't like it. The two most common ones seem to be: young people "just don't get it", or that only people with imagination like it. How about: I SIMPLY THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF "WITCHES" RETARDED. I can see why people who believe in paranormal type stuff would like it. Otherwise, I think a lot of people are just gullible and will go for anything. It's hard for me to enjoy a movie where I'm sitting there the whole time thinking "this is so silly".
  • If I let my imagination roam, I can think of a few million things that are scarier than WITCHES and magic. If I let my imagination roam, I can also pretend Santa Claus is real, or that Jesus really did walk on water. That doesn't change the fact that this has no basis in reality. They could have at least chosen something less cliche than witches.
  • A&E's Blair Witch Fanatic Page [freeservers.com] contains all sorts of info about the movie included whether or not it was real.... and how it was filmed... and whether or not they were actually hiking a planned route and carrying a GPS with them and were never in any danger.

    Regarding the film though, I was very impressed with the effective construction of the movie around the lack of a budget. It all added realism, the lack of a steady-cam, the cheap, grainy film, the difficulties which really would be associated with doing sound in their locations and situations. It was great.

    To those of you who think it's real... please... don't go see it. If it were real, it would be no more than a snuff film. It'd be... disgusting and tasteless. If you say that because of the advertising, please also remember that advertisements claim that all detergents get whites whiter and brights brighter, that The Thirteenth Floor doesn't suck, and that if you use a certain deoderant, you'll 'get a little closer' with a cute member of the opposite sex in no time flat.

  • What I kept trying to figure out was how they managed to get themselves completely lost. Granted, the part where they kept returning to the same river was meant to screw with your head (as in there stuck in some maze), but you think they might have had a little more common sense.

    I'm pretty sure I would have just following the river in one direction until I came across some power lines or something, but I guess that would have taken some of the fun out of the movie.

    Most of my friends liked it a lot, but I only thought it was Ok. That's probably due to the fact that I knew so much about it already. Some friends had watched it earlier this year after snagging a copy of the film that was released at the Sundance film festival. On the drive into work on Friday morning, I heard the directors call in on Howard Stern and learned even more about the movie. By the time I saw it that night, I had a pretty good idea what was going on.

    The movie was definately creepy, but if you take out all the uncertainty, you start to focus on other things, like how that girl was so incredibly annoying and whiny.
  • It was definitly refreshing to see this low tech film just for a change from typical HollyWood lack-a-plot-add-a-lot-of-effects type movies.

    I loved it!
  • Playing Quake for the first time does gives that same sickening feeling... Luckily i've been playing 'First Person Shooter' games and was completely unaffected by the bouncy camera work. ;) Ha!
  • The movie IS NOT based on a true story. I'm sorry....but it's just not.
  • In the end, it turns out "The witch" was really just Barney. He comes out and everyone sings "I love you. ..." :)
  • actually, I think you're wrong here. The way I read those credits, and based on an MTV (yuck) interview with the directors, they actually did just send those 3 people into the woods to film it.

    I THINK the sound credits and stuff are for the people who sync'ed up the sound and added a few things later on. I don't think there was an actual "crew" out in the woods with them.

  • You're right.
    Video will make this movie the best. I can imagine (with goosebumps) watching this at a cabin in the woods on a TV alone with some friends....

    There is NO WAY you could go to sleep after doing that. :)

  • I saw it Friday night, and went camping the next day 8-). Actually, as my fellow hiker observed, nobody is ever going to mistake the Olympic mountains (in Washington) for Maryland - for one thing, if you run screaming through these woods in the dark (or in the light) you're going to fall down the side of a mountain and die. And you're not going to catch me out in the woods with people I don't know well enough to trust.

    That said, I think the movie creeped me out more than scared me - my heart wasn't pounding but I was definitely uneasy, and for several days. I suspect the people who really enjoyed the movie did so because they allowed their imaginations to go with the flow so to speak. Like most 'horror' movies, those who don't suspend disbelief in a big way don't get much out of it.

    Mind you, there are major holes if you treat this as a 'real' movie. If the character were real, they were so stupid that they practially deserved to die. But that can be said of most horror movies. The point is, you willfully ignore those holes. If you want to see people being smart, go watch the discovery channel or something. I was there to see people die horribly 8-). Besides, people are stupid in real life, too.

    I especially enjoyed two scenes:

    1) When Heather is examining the bundle of sticks containing gristly bits. The hyperventilation was right on - I wonder how many people felt their breathing speeding up in sympathy. Although I thought sure she was going to pass out 8-).

    2) The last 5 minutes of the film had a particularly sureal, nightmarish quality to them, with the ending so abrupt that is left me in mild shock.

    - Ken
  • If you've got a passing knowledge of the stars, or can watch the sun for a few hours, knowing your direction is no problem. If you've got anything magnetic around, building a compass isn't much of a problem (shallow vessel, water, small leaf, light magnetic object). I would think losing a map would be much more of an inconvenience.
  • I don't know that they're really going to sue. One of the Blair Witch people did a daily diary [indiewire.com] for IndieWire and sat in front of some of the The Last Broadcast people on the plane over. He didn't mention any weirdness about it.
  • "Lots of fun"? Uh, in a really, really sick way I guess. I also recommend Man Bites Dog to those that can stomach it (it's just a movie, it's just a movie, it's just a movie) but it replaced "Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer" as the most disturbing movie I've ever seen.
  • Not every moment of their time is filmed. How do you know if they read the books? So what if they didn't? I *intend* to do all kinds of things but fail to.

    Weapons? I never took more than a pocket knife camping. Where do you camp? Kosovo?

    Did Mike really have control of himself when he was in the corner? Aren't there lots of examples of people doing *anything* when their lives are threatened?

    So you think you heard Josh, so did they. But was it Josh?
  • Does anyone else remember the online promotion for Johnny Mnemonic? It turned out to be a pretty crappy movie but the online contest was fun. It was basically a net scavenger hunt which was a popular activity at the time but they also re-used the 3D cyberspace graphics from the movie. You could "navigate" in 6 directions (left, right, forward, back, up, down) and also turn to face in the different directions. It would load a new page with a gif of the view from that cell of the "space." It was a part of the scavenger hunt to navigate it to find some clues. I don't remember how big it was, I think it had a 0,0,0 point then +6 and -6 in each direction. That would be 13 cubed times 6, 1 for each way you could face in each cell. That's 13,182 gifs which sounds about right.
  • I was with you right up til you listed Event Horizon as a great horror movie. Event Horizon was crap, period.
  • I was somewhat underwhelmed by the movie, perhaps because I had read a lot about it.

    However, the movie is only one part of the picture, and almost seems like an advertisement for the rest. The web site, comic book, soundtrack CD, etc, add a lot to it. Ultimately, the DVD may be the best way to get the whole experience.

    BTW, I see that the FX channel has bought the
    broadcast rights. They're gonna have to bleep the dialogue so much that... hm... maybe if we listen to the bleeps as Morse code, we may find out what's really going on...
  • And the real world anology is correct. and I hate real world. All this stupid arguing got annoying after a while.

    You have no idea what you're talking about. The Real World and Road Rules are so bad that I cannot sit through a half hour of either. It is just painful. The people are all incredibly stupid, and then they keep having these sorta philosphical/teenage angst/damnit I hate you all for pathetic reasons type discussions. I can't understand how anyone can want to watch that crap.

    Blair Witch, OTOH, was convincing and scary. You could see the people getting more and more tense and scared, and screaming at each other, and doing things that real people would do in those situations. Having breakdowns and going from physical violence to insane laughter to apologizing was utterly convincing.

    That was an awesome movie. The only problem I had was that the camera shook too much and I had motion sickness. But even though I would have rather they held the camera steadier, I think that the shaking added to my uneasiness about the whole movie, which may have been what the film makers were trying to do.
  • When being weirded-out at night, sleep during the day and move at night.

    I don't see how that would help much. Either way your in the woods with something scary. I think I'd rather be in the tent, at least you have some protection(at least you think you do). A lot of why this is scary is imagining yourself in that situation. If you were there, do you really think you'd want to hike at night? I wouldn't.
  • Ugh... City Folk.
    --
    Python
  • It was a movie. Thats why it didn't scare some people.
    --
    Python
  • I thought the three stars in this film were three of the best actors i've ever seen. Not once did it seem like they were acting. To me, at least, it seemed well done.

    Adam
  • The fishing guys at the creek sucked - acting wise.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • That SciFi channel special didn't seem to have any disclaimers or anything of the like that any part of this story was false.

    I call it more of a Hoax, but it's definately art that strays "outside the box" of "fiction" that we'd like to keep it in.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Bah!

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Remember also, that they were all nicotene junkies, and were jonesin hard for a smoke after the first two days.

    REMEMBER, always pack extra cigs.

    If you can't smoke them yourself, you can use them to bargain for your life.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • I'm pretty sure I saw teeth, and also what looked like a bloody tongue, but then I was wondering how Josh could have called out like that w/o a tongue. . .

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • And do you know any REAL witches? If so, please change me into a newt.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Bwa ha ha!!!

    Good one!

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • 3fold? Why not twofold, or fourfold? Sounds a bit arbitrary to me.

    And if a witch turns me into a newt, how can that witch be turned into a newt three times? Once a newt, ever after a newt, I always say.


    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • Hey mister "neandertal.org"!

    Were you BORN a witch?
    I hardly think that being a pagan/wiccan/witch equates with being Jewish or Black.
    Perhaps the title is offensive to both the witch wannabes out there in the world, but everyone else found it culturally relevant in other ways.
    So, go take your made-up hokey wish I had a religion of my own because I want to piss of my parents who are Xians because they loved my older brother more than me, and shove it up your butt.

    "The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
    -jafac's law
  • I remember her saying that her "favorite thing to do on the weekends was to go hiking, but maybe not anymore."

    Hiking, not camping. So their stupidity is still believable.
    -----

  • Yeah, the landscape was definitly repeating itself. People bitch about them not following the stream, etc. It didn't matter. If they followed the stream, they would still get to the same log later. Kind of like characters running across a scrolling repeating background in a Hanna Barbara cartoon. Creepy
  • Just as a side note, Spielberg didn't mean to do that with Jaws really. It made a better movie in hindsight, but he really planned on showing more of the shark in the beginning. The reason he didn't was because his shark animatron fscked up a lot, and he couldn't get all the shots with it he wanted in the alotted time. Cool, huh?
  • *SPOILER*

    ...if your in the SouthEast Wisconsin area
    would have to be the Theather on Downer street
    in Milwaukee where thats the ONLY MOVIE THEY ARE PLAYING
    (every hour they're open, to boot). And I
    can't tell you how amazing it is to see it with a whole bunch of people ready to be scared out of their minds.
    I do have a questions about the film. First of all I was scared out of my mind to the most primal sense of fear. And I was seriously affected for a while afterwards. I think the scarriest part of the movie is when they realized they were at the same fallen tree that they passed 15 hours before! Damn, I would have offed myself right then and there. What I wanted to know is whats with the rocks? And what was in that little package outside of their tent? Other than that, the film was exceptional and sooo much better than the usual hacker(you know... like the Net hehe) films or the self-aware ones (Scream, I Know...).

    I do think that Jeanean Garaffalo would have been a better lead actress. Of course I think that about every movie. :)
  • i was pretty excited to see "the scariest movie since the exorcist"..watching the bwp, i kept waiting for it to get scary..unless you are afraid of the dark, and things that go bump in the night, there is nothing to frighten you in this film..

    go see american pie, the best film this summer
  • I agree. It seemed much longer than it really was and I was definately bored during much of the second half. Yet somehow, in retrospect, I really liked it.

    It's definately worth seeing but I think many may be disappointed after all the hype. I saw it opening night (midnight) several weeks ago. I had heard of it but the hype machine hadn't really kicked in yet.

  • I loved the Blair Witch project. Amazing movie, very unique, extremely powerful, quite impressive.

    But.

    I am incredibly disturbed by the complete and utter lack of attention being given the lead players in Blair Witch. While I fully accept that directors can be shortchanged in the media spotlight, Mike, Josh, and Heather did an *amazing* job.

    First, these three acted excellently, with far more convincing performances than you're likely to see from most. Did anyone for a second not completely believe their *confusion*, their distrust, their pure fear? The directors did an outstanding job creating an environment in which the actors could shine, but we should not ignore the fact that these actors did shine, quite outstandingly.

    They also spoke a damn nice script, considering their was no script to speak from. Again, the directors did beautifully defining scene outlines, but as Hollywood has much trouble learning, good storyboards do not a compelling story make. Edited with oscar-worthy aplomb, the cast's dialogue, while hokey at times, reflected the nature of stranded, real people in the middle of a disturbingly surreal environment.

    Speaking of the editing, have we forgotten that the filmwork of the entire movie was also executed beautifully by these three? Granted, the footage would have worked *awfully* without the amazing work of the directors and editors, but done right their work was critical to the success of this film.

    I don't want to take away from the stellar performance of the directors. But Heather, Josh, and Mike deserve more than they're getting.

    Of course, there's a reason they're being left out of the loop(for now): The marketroids want people to believe the movie is real.

    This happens to be a good thing.

    Now I know this is going to make some of you yell and scream, but the fact was if I could have seen this two months ago with absolutely no prior knowledge, I would have been scared out of my fucking mind. Suspension of disbelief is far easier when there's no disbelief to suspend, and while it's somewhat dishonest, it's dishonesty in an environment where the entire industry is built upon creating the most convincing lies possible. Arnold Schwartzenegger is not a cyborg creature sent back through time, and Shitbrick didn't get it on with Stiffler's Mom.

    Blair Witch bent the rules. Consider how much more they could have broken them. They could have divulged that BW was fake in September(imagine how pissed you'd be!). The way they did it, everybody going to the movie sorta heard some people saying it was real and some people not--not altogether perfect, but a giant aid to suspending disbelief and a huge contributor to the success of the movie.

    If one of the big studios tried this, they'd hang us out to dry with their ability to simultaneously assail the public with their "this is a true story!!!!!!" message, unrebutted, on all media fronts. There would be no doubt, no undercurrent of truth. It'd be so overdone, so disastrous-in-retrospect, that the studio would have no choice but to attempt to suppress any news that the original movie was fake.

    I don't have much more faith in the Big Studio's plans for harvesting Net sentiment. Blair Witch [blairwitch.com] and The Matrix [whatisthematrix.com] have set the standard for what makes an excellent movie site. (The Matrix comic strips, incidentally, are required viewing for any Matrix fan. They add to the movie immensely, and increase my respect for the universe they've developed immensely.)

    If the Studio's can actually express more originality than they could press onto the Celluloid into the web site, great. I'm just afraid of fake web sites, fake web rings, and most of all, fake "o i saw this movie it r000led O MY GOD JOHN DOECAPRIO IS SOOOOOO HOT!" manufactured 15 year old geocities pages that are really hacked together by some marketroid committee.

    What do they have to lose? The worst they could do is discredit the Internet as a medium for movie discussion...which hurts them, how? If they can't own it...destroy it.

    I know not everybody in Hollywood thinks this way. I know that there are some very hard working and ethical people out there.

    I also know that there a very real chance that the three actors/screenwriters/camerapeople will get shortchanged by a media looking to move on to some new summer flick. This must not occur. Sooner or later, the Blair Witch Three need to be recognized for their excellent work. It's only fair.

    I've talked long enough. What do the rest of you have to say?

    Yours Truly,

    Dan Kaminsky
    DoxPara Research
    http://www.doxpara.com


    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
  • In the 1980's, a movie called "I Know My First Name Is Steven" came out. Based on a true story of this kid who was kidnapped for like seven years.

    A few months ago, a few campers over in Yosemite were killed by that kid's brother. Big international incident, since there was an exchange student murdered.

    Nasty stuff. You act like people are never randomly killed in the woods...

    Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.
  • First of all, how many cities was this movie playing in? I heard just a limited number and I was in Toledo OH when it was.

    After not being able to see it for a day after being sold out, we got to see it Sunday. I was a wee bit dissapointed with the outcome of our waiting and our money.

    I have to give it credit for being weird with the 16mm camera and all, but I think the movie just lacked. I won't spoil anything, but the ending was terrible and left tons to be desired. Just a quick note that after the movie, everyone stood up and like looked around quietly. Most were moaning, laughing, or bitching. One person yelled "MIIIKE!!" which made everyone laugh. But that mood should tell you something.

    I have to say that it was a bit scary with not knowing what was going to happen and all, but after all that waiting, wondering, and thinking, the outcome was poor and didn't really do anything for the movie.

    Those are my thoughts. Does anyone know if this is real.. I know it probably isn't, but I've heard on a radio station claiming it's real and stuff.

    --
    Scott Miga
  • it wasnt scary. i had heard all the hype and bull$hit surrounding the whole movie for the past month and when i finally saw the movie it bored me more than eyes wide shut. i would NOT recommend paying $7 for this movie, get it on video and watch it in your basement at 2am...maybe just maybe then would it scare someone. I dont know what was supposed to scary....SPOILER.... the sticks shaped like people? the little kids running around the tent?? yea, that stuff is fscked up and if it actually happened to me i would be scared out of my mind, but it wasnt really happening to me, i know it was all only a set up.
    oh, yea...i hear they put hallucinagens in their water to f-ck w/ them even more...hehe, pretty cool... =]
  • I saw it over the weekend... And BOY was I sick (no alcohol/drugs involved). The jerky, bouncing, amateurish shots brought me to the brink of hurling before I was 15 minutes into the movie. I spent most of the movie with my eyes closed. I can't say I missed much; both my friend and I thought it was one of the lamest movies ever. Over-played, and really pretty boring for all the hype. I've seen better footage from those "funniest home video" shows.
  • Okay, I think I have an explanation for the stick figures.

    Remember the mad woman who was interviewed beforehand? She said the Blair Witch had hairy arms and legs, and was wearing a shawl... she raised the shawl and she could tell 'it was female'.

    The largest stick figure has grass and weeds tied into the arms and legs. The stick figure is the blair witch, with her shawl open.
  • From the comments here I assume this is nothing to do with the current British PM and his relationship with Mrs Thatcher? Regards, Ralph.
  • From the comments here I assume this is nothing to do with the current British PM and his relationship with Mrs Thatcher?

    Regards, Ralph.
  • Burkittsville, like any place has quite a few local legends, though most seem related to the Civil War. However, everything about the Blair Witch Project is fiction. There wasn't even a township of Blair.

    The directors should receive major kudos for the job they did.
  • I think that is the part that freaks me out most of the movie. What would cause a young, strong, able bodied man to stand in the corner like a child while his companion is killed.

    All of the answers are pretty disturbing.
  • ccording to my wife (who, unlike the characters in the movie, actually read How to Stay Alive in the Woods, following a stream doesn't always get you to civilization; sometimes the stream empties into a pond that is even harder to navigate around.

    While this can be true, the chances of reaching some form of civilization (a trail, a road, a town) still outweigh ignoring it outright. Especially if you're part of a group of morons who throw away the map.

    Unlike the first poster, as a former Scout, I didn't find it too unbelievable that someone would know to lay down a tarp but not be able to follow a map. In my Scouting experience, about 1/2 turn out to be excellent woodsmen and the rest turn out to be somewhere between "barely competent" and "fucking incapable". I thought the movie was justice against the fuckwits who would rather start fires and carve their initials in trees than learn how to select proper camping sites and use maps.
  • SPOILER

    >As for it being predictable I have to disagree.
    >OK looking back you can see what was gonna
    >happen, but at least I couldn't quote the lines
    >before they were said - like the normal set of
    >horror flicks.

    I'm one of the ones who said it was predictable, but upon reading this I must admit that I _did not_ know what they were going to say. When I said "predictable," I suppose I meant things like, the things outside the camp, the whatever-it-was in the bundle of sticks, getting lost and going in circles, Josh's voice calling them to the "final confrontation," if you will, in the house. I have to admit that I wasn't ready for the final scene, but had I been trying to ruin my own movie, I think I would have anticipated that as well. Glad I didn't (although maybe then I wouldn't keep seeing it today, in broad daylight, in my cubicle. Yeech).

    END SPOILER
  • No major spoilers here; all things you've probably already heard, but if you haven't heard anything then I recommend getting completely off this page and go see it before anybody spoils anything for you.

    I wish I hadn't heard so much about it; I think it would have had more of an impact on me.

    It was interesting to watch them break down, and the final scenes stayed with me (and still flash in on me every once in a while, even when I'm not thinking about it). Haunting, I would even say.

    I also liked the way that they didn't explain anything too much. No need to show us the reasons, physical or metaphysical, for the things that happen every night. Too many movies have to explain everything.

    Overall, I liked it, but I won't see it again. It's very predictable, but set up, shot, and acted very well. And those last scenes...
  • The movie gave me a headache from the home-video-esque footage. It was kind of jerky, and the first hour wasn't that great, IMHO. I think there was alot more hype for the movie than it actually deserved (surprise!).

    The guy who created and directed it is a local around here, and he used his parents' life savings to create it. Unfortunately, his parents hated the film. ;)

    -Dave

    --
    Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
    http://www.amorphous.org

  • Re:Creepy (Score:1)

    by db ( 3944 )
    What exactly is "hicking"?

    --
    Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
    http://www.amorphous.org
  • But my wife did. She said it was boring and made her motion-sick with all the unstable camera shots. Of course she did have half a pitcher of Margaritas.

    I saw something about this almost 2 years ago. I guess it was the tapes that this movie was based on. At the time I thought it was scary as sh!t and really wondered what happened to them. (Now I know this was all fictional but I still don't want to see it.)

    Today's English Lesson: Oxymorons

  • First, for those of you that haven't, go read the real story [burkittsville.org]. This movie's a nice fiction, but it's just that. When you're done with that, you migth like to read this article [salon.com] (even if it is on Salon). I'm not sure I quite agree with all the negative things said in it, but it's a pretty good response piece.

    Also, regarding the compass... if the group was actually moving south all day the second day and if they came back to the same log across the creek they'd seen the day before, it's quite possible that this is not because of any witchcraft but because of a perfectly natural phenomenon. There is a lot of lode stone in the back country of Maryland, Pennsylvannia, and West Virginia, which would make compasses pretty useless (when in close proximity to it). (Well, at least, there was at the time that Mason and Dixon put the southern border of Pennsylvania through.)

    You'd think that this would be an effect that any outdoorsmen with half a clue would know about, but as others have noted, these three weren't portrayed as the sharpest knives in the cutlery tray. Still, if you're pretty clearly walking around in a circle, get a clue...
  • SPOLIERS!!!! GO AWAY!

    There were some indiscriminate bits in the bundle of sticks. I saw a nose and some teeth and stuff, but others have seen other stuff. Regardless, it was Josh parts. She didn't tell Mike, at least not on screen in any rational manner. By the time they'd made it to the house, they weren't really rational anymore, so it's understandable that they were holding out hope that it was still someone messing with them and those weren't Josh parts.

    Yes, that was Mike standing in the corner. He had plenty of time to move into the corner after dropping the camera. Why he stood there is totally unexplained. Supernatural powers, frozen with fear, whatever. What's important is that what made him stand in the corner while waiting to be killed is *unknown*. That whole scene in the basement has no rational explanation, so no matter how much you try to understand it, you're not supposed to and never will. It's all based on fear of the unknown.

    Same thing as above. There is no explanation for the stick figures in the trees. It's the total lack of any explanation of their purpose which makes the scene in the woods so powerful and keeps it powerful. Even now you're thinking about the figures and if they have any importantce. Would having it explained to you be any better? I doubt it.

    Remember, whenever you feel that something in the movie is not explained well enough, or if it feels incomplete, that that was the point of it all. The fear of the unknown is very powerful, and although you can try to ignore it, there are some things that we can't ever truly understand.
  • I was hoping that one of the spoilers would say something about the "project" part of the plot, which I assume is where the film gets its nerd interest?

    Info please! :-)
  • I wish I could remember the name of that fake documentary film about the end of the world in a nuclear holocaust ... And I vaguely recall one that had something to do with exposing some failures in some sort of radioactive plant, and another I think about some space mission.

    Evidently they had a huge impact on me. ;-)
  • The movie sucked. Period.
  • The film was OK, but if you habitually sit in the front row like I do, DON'T. Unless you fly the Space Shuttle for a living, you will get motion sick if the movie screen fills your peripheral vision.

    I couldn't look directly at the screen for the last 20 minutes for fear of getting sick. Apparently I missed some of the best parts...

    Jamie McCarthy

  • Paganism has been around longer than Christianity: true. Anything that isn't Christian is pagan, including such non-witchy faiths as Buddhism and Confucianism.

    Druidism died out about a thousand years ago, and was revived somewhere in the last century as a romantic bit of British nationalism. It was only one stratum of historic British faith, which includes Norse, Teutonic, and Roman beliefs, and various forms of Christianity from the Roman era on.

    "Witchcraft", historically, was defined as the practises of baptised and confirmed Christians who had turned against their faith, which usually involved malicious pranks, poisoning family members, promiscuous sex, and worshipping the Devil. Their purported spellbooks called "grimoires", or grammars, are an interesting hodgepodge of Latin-like gibberish, borrowings from the Cabbala, folk charms of love, prosperity, and revenge, and (sometimes) home remedies more fanciful than practical. There is no mention in them of anything that could be construed as an organized system of beliefs, no Gaelic holidays, nor any deities outside the Christian pantheon of angels/demons.

    "Wicca" is a purely 20th century phenomenon, which was largely invented in the 1940's by Gerald Gardner (with help from Aleister Crowley) who claimed that his "Book of Shadows" (cobbled together from Greek, Egyptian, and Masonic sources) came from a woman named Dorothy Clutterbuck, whose coven had kept an unbroken chain of belief from the Paleolithic times onward. Since then, his ideas have undergone several layers of revision, the most important of which was the shift in focus from the Horned God (concieved as a phallic hunting deity, similar to Pan) to the Green Goddess (originally a sex/fertility goddess but now concieved as a Virgin Mary-like figure -- celibately parthenogenic and a "wounded healer".) As practised now, it bears no likeness to any historic or anthropologically recognized strain of nature worship: while "native" animism is usually concerned with bribing, tricking, or placating a variety of gods whose nature is capricious at best, Wicca's response to its near-monotheistic Goddess is more akin to pity.

    "True" Wicca is neither dark nor mysterious, yes: if you consider the current version to be the true one. Mostly, it's largely indistinguishable from most liberal Christianity: their ideals are to hold services, be nice, and feel guilty about the environment. Since the heyday of witchcraft in the late 60's and 70's as an excuse (by lapsed Christian young folks toying with blasphemy) to celebrate Halloween and full moons (by getting nekkid, high/drunk, and screwing to loud music) Wicca has been reborn as an excuse (by lapsed middle-aged Christians toying with going back to church, on their own terms, of course) to celebrate Halloween, Christmas, and May Day (by holding ersatz group therapy meetings with the a few Renaissance Faire trappings thrown in). While most Christians will readily own that there have been other members of their faith that have been less than nice people, Wiccans will become enraged at the mere suggestion that any of the historical witches hurt so much as a feeling.

    Part of the story hinges on just such a sentimental view of nature worship, and of nature itself. When the kids go to the woman in the trailer park, they are most certainly meeting someone who would have been called a witch in the day: she's old, lives alone, comes on as more than a little schizzy, and surrounds herself with a grab-bag of patriotic and religious symbols (a flag, a Bible, a rosary...) that are most probably not being given their usual meanings. (She also has a gate of bound-together twigs, similar in technique to the effigies found in the woods, and spoke at length of stones as well. Hmm..) Heather doesn't recognize this: apparently, the old woman wasn't up enough on modern witchcraft to invite her in for a nice hot cup of estrogen analogues and a chat about the latest developments in eco-feminism. The dolls and rockpiles would be perfectly understandable to many animists throughout history, and even a few modern ones: these kids are going to be sacrificed to propitiate the gods angered by their profane intrusion on sacred ground. (Their verbal profanities probably were the deciding factor: you just don't swear in church.) If this sounds a far cry from the activities of your local Spiral Dance Drum Circle, it should: as I alluded before, most real nature gods (including fairies) are petty, vain, tricky, capricious, and mostly, downright nasty.

    As it befits them. As we see in the film, nature is not, as we like to think, a gentle, caring, mother: she's more like a drunk housewife with PMS. It's dark after the sun goes down. It's cold. There's little food readily available, it's dirty, and you may have to get your feet wet. There aren't even any cigarette machines! When I think about how many Gen X'ers I've met who claim that they would like to go off and live "in nature", implying that all that's involved is a couple of purchases at the local trendy wilderness gear shop (campfire espresso pot, anyone?), I think about Heather's speech before the flashlight. It took only a week to turn a post-modern womyn, well-schooled in every stereotype of the nature-worshipping witch and nurturing Earth Mother, into a weeping, remorseful wreck. I don't think that's anything you can find in Starhawk.

  • Well, I was speaking in a traditional sense. However, *some* Buddhists have a pantheon, some do not. It is not true, I would submit, that all "pagans" follow the creed of Celtic Wicca. Thank you for the clarification.
  • 1) His eyes and tongue, and some teeth, if I recollect rightly. The fact that you can still hear him scream coherently makes me think he's already dead, and leading them on. 2) He's bewitched. 3) It seems to refer to the "Wicker Man", a Celtic custom of making a huge basket and setting it aflame with a man inside. They also suggest crucifixes, with their implied flavor of sacrifice, etc. A major point is that this isn't what's expected of witches-as-peaceful-nature-worshippers, instead this is ...something else.
  • I'm not Christian, in that sense, being an agnostic myself. I do, however, find "Wicca" less than admirable after having been in the occult (as a real-live pre-teenage witch, OTO member, student, and scholar) for 30 of my 40 years. As a Jewish friend of mine once said, "Wicca is identical to Christianity, except that no Christian ever said that all Christians were entirely without sin or human failings."

    In other words, if it's all sweetness and light, why do you have this compulsion to prefix the word "Shadow" to everything? Celebrate the Eve of All Saints' Day (OK, Halloween, er, Samhain...) when it's dank and dark? The Goddess was a hot babe when I knew her, now she's the Drama Queen of Guilt. And where is the Horned God when we need him? While girls are still swooning over Lestat, the group that should be giving them support is counselling a new chastity, where it's a source of pride to be a lesbian, and a shame to be in love with a Man.

    Witches have given themselves a wussy stereotype that has little to do with real, Dionysian paganism, and everything to do with trying to return to the prissy narrowmindedness of The Little Church on The Corner...on their own terms, of course.

  • was 'man bites dog'

    but i still loved blair witch. .
    saw it twice to catch everything

    it would be pretty boring to watch it
    again. .

    i'm suprised this is just now being hyped
    on /.

    there's a really kewl fan site at:
    http://tbwp.freeservers.com/
    they have a pretty good faq on the movie

  • BWP (Score:1)

    by Breakdown ( 5084 )
    I've been waiting to see Blair Witch since April and I was blown away by the movie. It lived up to my personal expectations. BWP was the best independent film in a long while. I love to see such minimal films do so well. They successfully blurred fact and fiction. The theater was dead silent for the last 10 minutes. I will see it again! The directors/actors/etc.. defineately deserve the support. They had me shakin' in my boots.
  • -Tangent-
    I saw Pi and though it was an interesting film I just couldn't figure out what was so special about it. I didn't understand the guy's frustration and I didn't "get" why he was going so crazy. Now with TBWP I had just come back from a weekend camping and I could relate well the actors and the fear of the unknown.
  • Most people seem to be missing the fact about the 7 dead kids and Josh. The sounds of kids in the forrest was supposed to be the 7 dead kids spirits/ghosts or whatever. Those kids were dead. Same goes for Josh's screaming. "How did he scream if he was dead?" Well, how were there little kid voices out in the middle of nowhere? And was it really little kids shaking the tent? It was all done by spirits/ghosts.

    People have become too analytical to the point that the "voices" being ghosts doesn't even occur to them because we all know "ghosts don't exist." Pretend they do and you would understand the film much more.

  • Yes BUT they've made a lot of people believe that it's fact. They've distorted what people believe. If a director can take a false story and make people believe it's true then he's done a great job.
  • I myself had trouble falling asleep this weekend. The movie kept coming back to me when I was lying there in the dark.

    You think that's bad, you should try seeing it then go directly home and try going to bed.

    I kept seeing little kids hand prints on walls all night long as I tried to get to sleep.
  • I must admit that I got suckered into it like a lot of other people. They did an extremely good job promoting the movie as being the real documentary work of the three students who disappeared. The show that aired on SciFi channel helped tremendously to create a spooky atmosphere around the film. They did a great job with it, though there were a few points that made me think twice.
    I loved the whole storyline and the historic references, though a lot of the historic appearances linked with the Blair Witch were all pretty much ridiculous and easily explained.
    There were a lot of things which just didn't make sense. The fact that Mike kicked the map into the creek, well... no one, even in that situation, and that scared, would ever do that. That was just dumb. Anotehr thing... Why the hell did they run out of the tent when something was outside hitting it from all sides? What if it had been right in front of the door ready to kill them? Also... when they were walking south... and somehow went in a complete circle, even though they were looking at the compass, WHY THE HELL DIDN'T THEY LOOK UP AT THE SUN?!?! I walked away from it the first time (without having read the credits all the way to the point where it mentions the entire thing is a work of fiction) and I thought the kids were just plain stupid. I also thought that Josh was the one who hit them in the basement of that house.
    That reminds me.... Just how did a three story, modern house, get built in the middle of the friggin woods without ANY roads or pathways leading to it? Houses don't just appear in the middle of nowhere. Also... the basement of that house looked a good 75-100 years older than the rest of the house. The kids' handprints and the writing on the walls was interesting... but what was the deal with that? There were no kids there. That wasn't Rustin Parr's house because they said that the people in the town burned his house down.
    *shrug*
    Another thing about Rustin Parr, the witch supposedly told him to kill those kids, yes, but it wasn't the witch who told him to have one kid face the corner while he killed the other one. So why was Mike facing the corner when Heather got hit? And just how did Mike get back up after being knocked out like that?
    Knowing that this was a fictional movie now, I really have to say that those three kids were portraying a bunch of mildly retarded film crew members. They did a good job making the movie, they tricked me once, but they did still make some mistakes. No one is ever going to be able to pull something like this off again.

    --
    Gabe Ricard
  • Obviously, some people liked this movie.

    It was campy and predictable. Friday the 13th had a less predictable plot. And why was it about a Witch when they ran into the Hermit's house (which was burned down and they magically did not see during the day)?

    People keep calling Heather "Ann" and "Mary" and call Mike "Matt". If you people supposedly like this movie so much, how can you keep screwing up names?

    And how do you get over all the inconsistencies in the movie? Stay awake for two days, no bloodshot eyes. Run out of food after two days, but have enuf film for 8. See your friend's body parts and hyperventilate, but don't drop the camera. What a load of shit. They should have called the movie "Snipe Hunting", at least us (ex) boy scouts would appreciate it more.

    Rob Nelson
    ronelson@vt.edu
  • As to the bundle tied with Josh's flannel shirt - My friends and I agreed that it was probably Josh's tooth necklace... From what we remember, it made the most sense. I'll be going to see it again this afternoon, though, so I'll look again.
  • I love Man Bites Dog... its the only film I own on video and thats only because its not on DVD yet. Quite gripping with very few down moments... but disturbing? nah...

    Iron Man Tetsuo, now that is a disturbing film in almost every way possible.

    ---
    Openstep/NeXTSTEP/Solaris/FreeBSD/Linux/ultrix/OSF /...
  • The thing about the moving of the camera is that you just can't sit too close to the screen. I went to see the movie on friday, and I was about five rows from the back of the theater. That way I was able to watch the movie bouncing around, and still know I wasn't moving. The reason people get sick from this movie is that they sit too close, and all their eyes see is the jittery camera, while their ears tell them that they aren't moving.
  • The most impressive thing about the acting (or the entire movie, for that matter) was the fact that most of the dialogue was improvised. The producers took the kids into the woods and left them there for 8 days without telling them what they were going to do. Much of the fear in the movie is as real as they could get it.

    My only question is this:
    When is Hollywood going to attempt something in the same style? :)

    -Ke


    "Where do you get off thinking any OS is superior to DOS?"

  • IRC forum (Score:1)

    by tcs ( 8094 )
    I decided to check out the IRC forum, and it's an obvious fake. Dan and Ed, the directors, supposedly came onto the channel. Ed immediately posted: "I'd like to start this off by announcing the launch of the site for our next movie. Please visit www.richent.com for all the info." Don't bother to visit that site, because it's a nasty porn site; the big splash screen says "Welcome to Steamy Dumps!"

    I hate to admit that I got suckered into seeing this dreck, but I've put that behind me now. ;) I'm rather upset, though, about the totally dishonest chat: boycott scifi.com!
  • Although maybe a step or two above in quality.
    --
  • I disagree.

    American Pie was not the best movie this summer. Sure, it was funny, but it was like Can't Hardly Wait but over a longer period of time. And definitely more wittier/funnier. But nothing i would spend my time (and $$$) seeing more than once. This was a movie that is way too predictable.
  • i saw it a couple weeks ago, and everytime i see a commercial or hear a discussion of anticipation for it since then, I still get the chills. I though the movie was fantastic. Definitly one to cause heart palpitations.

    For those of you who didn't like it, makes me kinda curious; did it not scare you? If so, what kinds of movies do? I think this was up there with the exorcist.
  • I concur. It wasn't the cat-jumpin-out-of-the-closet kind of thriller, it was much more creepy than that. I didn't jump once seeing the movie, but the whole last half, the short hairs on the back of my neck were up. that was one of the creepiest movies I've ever seen, and it gives me the chills just thinking about it, and I think about it a lot. I'm never going camping ever again.

  • MORE MAJOR SPOILERS --


    I'm not sure if this is the correct interpretaiton, but it seemed to me as if Mike had been hung. It was a combination of the position of the head (which sort of lolled to one side) and the noose upstairs in the house that gave me this idea. Again, I'm very much not sure.

    A very good movie - well filmed and acted, and the plot was good, in my opinoin. It's hard to have a good plot if they give away end at the beginning, but they managed. If movies can scare you, this one will.

  • Children's voices followed by tent shaking, blue slime, and bundles of sticks tied with flannel containing body parts "come with the territory"? Where the hell are you camping...

  • At the beginning of the movie, they were talking about an guy who killed a couple (7?) children. He made them face the wall while he killed them, because "their eyes were watching him." So you were supposed to see him facing the wall and associate it with the kids (notice the bloody prints on the walls?) getting killed.
  • I enjoyed watching it. I thought the actors and
    actress were actually quite good and believable
    in their roles.
    Oddly enough, however, I didn't find it as
    scary or frightening as I had hoped, especially
    the events leading up to the climax.
    Also, there were a couple of things that were
    irritating but probably limitations of the choice
    of presentation: their constant giving up, sitting
    down in the grass, and complaining about how lost
    they are. I guess, though, that's better than a
    whole movie of video shots of them walking and
    complaining.
    Despise these things, I still liked the film.
  • What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit? If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did. If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?

    Stuff I've read said that it was teeth. That's pretty much straight out of the directors' mouths (the description, not the teeth =) ) As for why they kept expecting to find him...well, they did hear him screaming, and teeth don't mean that he's dead yet.

    That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away? Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps

    That was Mike in the corner, as per the legend with the children. That's why that scene messes with me so much. At that moment you see him in the corner, you know the other victim in the room is going to die. And then she does.

    As for why he just stands there -- I think at that point, he's not really himself anymore -- doesn't have any will to fight back, just like the men who were disembowled at Coffin Rock. They were alive when they were tied up, but for some reason didn't resist.

    What were all the stick figures in the trees? Did they have any connection to anything else we saw in the movie? I would gather that the piles of stones represented the dead -- 7 original disappeared, 7 piles. 3 of them, 3 piles. But all the stick figures were never really explained.

    blairWitch.reallyFuckingWith( theKids ) There may have been some more symbology there -- to me, it'd at the very least just be *really* spooky.

    Andrew
  • SPOILER

    Great concept. Poor execution (no pun intended). The actors simply became annoying very fast. I was under the impression this film was supposed to scare people. It did not scare me. I did laugh at a few lines, but nothing made me scared. About the closest the director came to scaring me was when they unwrapped the one bundle of twigs to see what was in it. But the girl is shaking so much (to demonstrate her own fear of course) that the image doesn't hold still long enough for me to be sure what it is. I'll go back and see "Eyes Wide Shut" before I bother with this one again.
  • My basic reaction to the Blair Witch Project is that I wish they had told a better story. But that's such a basic and general purpose piece of advice that it almost seems silly to recommend it. Yet so many movies, including this one, would do so much better to remember it.

    For those of you who have seen the film, have you told anyone about it? Did you have anything to say other than "These kids, you see, they get lost in the woods looking for the Blair Witch, they're making a documentary, and, um, all this scary stuff happens. But I can't tell you how it ends."

    But if you have seen the poster ("a year later their film was found") you know they didn't get out alive. I don't see that there are any spoilers possible with this film because nothing happens beyond some kids being stupid and freaking out and dying.


    Why is The Blair Witch Project is so successful? Let me reveal just how old I must be with the following.

    People, particularly "kids these days", the ones who go to all those movies, are afraid of the woods. They are also tired of "Oow, what an ugly monster, but not as good as Aliens." The youngerly can relate to seeing other youngerly panicing. And Hollywood's gloss gets predictable.

    So put a bunch of panicy kids in the woods, don't show the monster/witch/whatever, use--er--innovative camera techniques that don't look like Hollywood gloss, and I can see why it is a success.

    I admire that the film makers realized that what isn't seen is often more frightening than what is seen, however, I wish they had spent more time trying to tell a good story instead of merely trying to be scary, because a good story offers its own suspense.

    One thing that can drive an audience crazy (in a good way) is when they know something the character on screen doesn't. When this be something dangerous to the onscreen character the result can be a powerful "Don't do it!!!!"

    The problem with Blair Witch is that, being filmed by the characters themselves, there is no way we can see things they don't also see. There is no way we can see the metaphorical knife being raised behind anyone's back. Or is there?

    I suggest that two things could have been done.

    One would have been to take advantage of the fact that they ran their video camera so much and let them leave it on when they don't intent to or to let them look up over the camera at something else as the camera (and audience) catches something the characters themselves miss.

    The second idea would have been near the end to have the camera dropped...and picked up. It could have had a smoother or at least different style of operation. It could have moved in a searching way that would have completely reversed the audience's previous identification with the moving camera. A character could have turned, looked at whatever was now holding the camera, and been completely mortified. The very turn of events would have been so scary that no extra extra emoting would have been needed.

    Add to that some careful thinking about how to tell a good story and this film could really have been worthy of all the hype and success.

    -kb, the Kent who doesn't pretend to be good at telling a story, but he knows it can be done better than in The Blair Witch Project.
  • I kept hearing people saying stuff like "this movie is extremely scary", etc. etc... so when I went into this film I expected it to be similar to some of the cheesy mainstream horror flicks we've become so used to (I Know What You [still] Did Last Summer, Scream, etc.). Boy was I wrong.

    The wavy camera motion really gives the impression of a "first-hand" perspective of this brave group of 3 fictional filmmakers. You're one of them. When they get mad at one of the group members (like after the missing map segment) you get mad at that guy too. When they're running, so are you. At the final scene (I won't give anything away) you're part of the action.

    Weaving the viewer right into the action is a different flavor of horror, and left me walking out of the theatre feeling a lot more entertained than I have after a whole lot of movies.
  • I got very annoyed at this "film". After an hour of watching three refugees from "The Real World" screaming at each other I walked out.

    It felt as if it had been made by a couple of guys on a lark (the point I guess). The dialogue was embaressingly ad-hoc, and no character development was detectable to these jaded senses.

    The group I saw it with had mixed reactions. Two thought it was hilarious, two hated it, and one thought it was 'chilling'.

    My suggestion - wait until it comes out on video. You won't be missing anything.
  • All I can say is if there are any dark woods with a utility road within a few miles from your theatre, GO THERE.

    It's the most awesome experience to go see the movie and right after it drive into the woods and turn off the engine and the lights in the car.

    I did that to my friends when we saw it (we went to the 12:35am showing on Saturday). One of my friends was really freaking out by the dark woods with the wind causing the trees to sway and light to bounce off the various metal objects dumped in the woods.

  • The warning may be unnecessary, but I'm not sure what I'm about to write :)

    Thoughts on the Blair Witch Project:

    This movie is definately one of the best horror movies that I've seen in a long time. It does so many things right that most modern horror movies do wrong. In fact, calling the Blair Witch Project a movie is wrong. It is a film. There is a difference.

    Some of the more striking things about the movie:

    1) The lack of music: we're so used to hearing background music (even when we don't consciously notice it) that it makes it all the more eerie to realize that there is none. All you can hear is the actors and the world around them.

    2) The role the audience plays: a good friend of mine put it best I believe. What he said was this:

    "the movie has seven characters. heather, the director. mike the sound guy, and josh, the cp-16 camera operator. then there is the DAT, the handicam, the cp-16, and the witch.

    ...

    *we* play the role of the dat and the cameras. "

    What is so interesting about this fact is that we never get to see exactly what is going on. Unlike most movies, it is not told in the 3rd person Omniscient. We're a very limited third person, almost a first person (as the role of the cameras and DAT). Things happen, the three main characters react, and yet we barely get to see what they're reacting to, if at all. We don't know what the heck the noises are out in the woods. We have no idea who made those rock piles outside their tents. [sure, we have some guesses, but so do they, and ours are no better than theirs]. We don't know where Josh went. There are even times where the cameras and sound are blacked out, and we are left only to guess what happened while we were away. The point is, we are in some ways a part of the story, but only as a powerless observer. We couldn't help them no matter how hard we tried or wanted to.

    3) The realism of acting: this is one of the finer points of the movie. I have seen at least one review berate the amount of obscenities thrown about, but realistically, what do you think YOU would be doing in that situation? The realism comes largely from the fact that almost all of the movie was ad-libbed. There were a few key turning-point scenes that weren't, but the rest was done on the spot. The three main characters were given a GPS, the cameras, and supplies, and left out in the woods. The crew stayed far away most of the time. The crew didn't even tell the actors when they were going to do stuff like noises. Sure, the actors knew they had to happen sometime, but they didn't know when. This helped make a lot of the fear a lot more genuine. Had I been doing this movie, I would have been scared shitless myself :)

    All in all, this movie was incredible. It didn't scare me as much as I thought when I saw it, but it was creepy nonetheless, and the final scene is still vivid in my memory, even though I saw it last friday. Those who dislike this movie have a high likelihood of being the type of person who only likes gory horror movies, and dislikes more subtle, and psychological films.

    Rating: ***** :)

    Go see it. It is good. But for those of you prone to motion sickness, consider some dramamine beforehand.

  • There was a movie out in 1997 called "The Last Broadcast" that has so many similarities to the Blair Witch it's gonna make some lawyers lots of money.

    InterneTV Film [internetv.com]

    More 'proof' [voicenet.com]

    A friend of mine also studied with Lance (one of the filmakers) and it seems the makers of "Last Broadcast" are currently reviewing their options with lawyers. What makes them so sure they have a case?

    The Last Broadcast people are also from Florida and studied above the Blair Witch guys. It is known the Blair witch crew saw the Last Broadcast and allegedly re-edited their fledgling film in lieu of the footage they had seen.

    The premise of the last broadcast is so similar I'd urge any of you to try and get hold of a copy. Murder, woods, found footage all the same.

    You heard it here first!

    I've not seen the Blair Witch project myself. I want to re-rent the last broadcast first. I don't want to detract from the Blair guys at all - well - Ok yes I do. Credit where credit is due for "such an original storyline and concept" etc.

  • For those of you interested in the cinema verite / fake documentary aspect of "Blair Witch Project", I also recommend finding a copy of "Man Bites Dog". I haven't seen BWP yet, so I don't know how deep the similarities are, but "Man Bites Dog" is a wonderfully, darkly witty film that is thought provoking and lots of fun.

  • I liked the style, the acting, etc... and thought it was worth my money to support such creative, independent filmmaking.

    As for the plot itself, though..umm....I think I was hoping for some more resolution on a few things. I mean, when something's mentioned at the beginning of the movie, you at least hope that it'll somehow tie up toward the end. And more stuff was left hanging, then resolved. Sure, the argument can be made that it wasn't intended to be plot-based, it was intended to be more real life documentary...but it was fiction, after all, and the filmmakers are supposed to at least attempt to make me want to go see it, or tell my friends about it.

  • Ok, if you haven't seen it, don't read me.

    (Remember the good ol' USENET days when you could stick a ^L in your spoiler posts?)

    Now, I've got some questions about the ending that perhaps people can help me with. I just saw it like two nights ago, and haven't had a chance to discuss it with anyone, so I want to understand these bits better:

    • What was tied up in the bundle of sticks? A piece of Josh? Could we tell what bit? If it was a piece of Josh, did she tell Mike? I didn't think she did. If she did, why would they still be hoping to find him in the house?
    • That was Mike standing in the corner? How did he get there so fast? And why was he just standing there? I didn't understand that bit about the legend. If somebody tells me to stand in a corner while he kills my friend, I would think I'd be trying to get away? Maybe it was Josh standing there (if it wasn't a piece of him that she found). But then where did Mike go? She was right behind him coming down the steps.
    • What were all the stick figures in the trees? Did they have any connection to anything else we saw in the movie? I would gather that the piles of stones represented the dead -- 7 original disappeared, 7 piles. 3 of them, 3 piles. But all the stick figures were never really explained.
  • blairWitch.reallyFuckingWith( theKids )

    What witch, though? Is the whole idea supposed to be that the crazy hermit in the house, and the witch are two entirely unrelated myths that just happen to both be true and take place in the same location? I wasn't the only person to walk out of there saying "Ok, so, where was the witch?"

  • It maybe an excellent movie, but I'm hesitant to see it because of the behavior of it's marketers. They created fake fan sites to sell the movie, à la DivX, documented in this article at Salon [salon.com]. Pretending the movie is real is one thing. It's cute and only morons believe it anyway. But this sort of thing is disgusting.
  • [no spoilers here]
    There was a review recently from a slightly jaded reviewer that he didn't "get it", but many of the people in the theater obviously did.

    I would have to put myself in the group who didn't get it, but enjoyed the film anyways.

    I saw BWP at a film festival, after having seen about 20 films in the week before it, so I was fully in Jaded Film Reviewer Mode. Even a sneak preview of Phantom Menace at that point wouldn't have got my pulse moving. When I walked out, I had been scared, but not as much as some other films have done. I did give the film some thought, which is my litmus test for a good film.

    I did like the hand held camera style, it has been used effectively in only a few films before. Most film makers try to avoid it because audiences tend to get sick if there is too much natural feeling motion, and the film doesn't make as much money. It works to great effect here.

    Most of the film is kind of boring, but almost every bit of it is necessary to set up the last 10 minutes. For anyone who has been camping regularly, or was in the scouts, the stupidity seems a little far fetched. But if you remind yourself these are wanna-be film makers first, and probably have never been camping more than once or twice in their lives, then it works. It allows the tension to build for an hour, because the human body really needs that much time for the adrenaline to kick in and power the "fight or flight" response.

    What especially got me was the final 10 minutes, there was a kind of tension I've only seen in very few other films. Alien and Psycho are two of my favorites for creating fear when the camera is not really showing anything to fear.

    BWP now is firmly in the realm of in the category of "sufficiently scary", and I would put it on my list of top 20 films to cause you to lose sleep.

    I wonder what I will think of it after I have seen it a few times over the years. Time will tell.

    the AC

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