The Blair Witch Project

Steyn On-line ^ | October 28, 2017 | Mark Steyn

[KarlInOhio]

The movie struck me as someone’s B-minus film school project which somehow got a national release. I didn’t hate it but it was a one shot deal. All the other “shouting shaky cam found film” movies were just annoying, even the ones with huge budgets. Hollywood, if you are going to copy someone, go with Welles, Hitchcock or Kurosawa - not this.

[KarlInOhio]

So you missed Battlefield Earth?

[TruthWillWin]

Yes, missed that one but hard to imagine anything worse than Blair Witch?

[Robert DeLong]

On top of that the near constant herky jerky motion of the camera made it irritating to watch. We did pull a good prank on the son though. I went out in the backyard and placed rocks in a circle. He was freaked for days. We lived on 12 acres and were surrounded by woods I might add.

[RandallFlagg]

RedLetterMedia’s take on The Blair Witch Project:
https://youtu.be/nCjbevNlLXE?list=PLJ_TJFLc25JSmtBkyIYqgD5KabbU57yzY

[Vince Ferrer]

It's very obvious that the picture's not been filmed deep in the forest, but that they're just tramping about on the edge: there's too much light, too much sky; there's not that claustrophobia you get, that sense of the branches closing above you and the trees swallowing you up. I'm sure the directors had very good reasons for this: the gloom of dense foliage overhang would become oppressive on screen.

That is how almost all "wilderness" filming is done. They aren't going to carry a thousand pounds of film gear up a mountain, they will film on or just off a road in a forest.

The location of the shoot for the Blair Witch, the Black Forest in Maryland, is so narrow and small that it is actually impossible for them to get lost in. It is more of a county open space area than a forest. They could have walked out of the forest at any time, and it was a bigger problem that they had to edit out joggers and houses in the background. It was a movie. They were acting lost.

[BradyLS]

I liked both The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity.

Apparently, there’s a ton of “found footage” horror films out there, beginning with an Italian featured called Cannibal Holocaust (1980) that follows the story of a documentary team that went up the Amazon and never returned.

[BradyLS]

…Although I remind myself that there’s an episode of Gilligan’s Island wherein the castaways find a crate of film-making equipment (camera, film, editing equipment—the works!) and proceed to make a documentary about their time on the island. Then they send the canisters off on a raft where they are eventually found and entered in an art film festival.

[pabianice]

It depends upon what your age is. I saw “The H-Man” when I was 12. Scared me so badly I had to sleep with the light on for 10 days.

[SamAdams76]

That said, at its heart The Blair Witch Project is about something real: North America is mostly a thin strip of civilization clinging to a wilderness. You wander off behind the ugly strip mall, and suddenly you're in mile upon mile of dense forest and your cellphone no longer works.

How very true that is.

One of the most surreal experiences I had as a child was when I was in Cub Scouts and we used to go on weekend camping trips in some woods near Saugus, MA. Being driven there, I had the feeling this campsite was "deep in the woods" as there was a winding dirt road maybe three miles long to get there off the main road. On one of those trips, my friend and I decided to take a little hike on our own, opposite the way that the scout leaders always took us.

Within maybe a quarter of a mile, we stumbled into a clearing and before our eyes, there was Route One in Saugus in all it's glory. We were looking at the back of the Child World shopping center and the Hilltop Steak house was nearby as well. We could clearly see Route 1 with all the cars. It was a bit disheartening and that campsite lost its luster with us forevermore because it was so close to civilization.

Then many years later, I had a true life or death experience in the woods. I was on a long hike by myself in winter time near the White Mountains in NH when an expected snowstorm hit hours earlier than expected. I quickly lost my way as the heavy, wet snow quickly covered the tree markers. It was only because I had a compass that I was able to maintain a westerly heading which eventually dumped me onto the main road. But close call, I could easily have died in those woods, just a few miles from civilization. I had a short story drafted out about that incident and hope to publish it someday.

As for "Blair Witch Project" - I remember when that movie came out. The Internet was still relatively new then and that was the first movie to "go viral." I was one of the first ones to see it as it started showing first near Boston University on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston. It was a Friday night and it scared the hell out of most of us in the theater - mainly because they weren't expecting that type of movie.

It was very brilliantly marketed by the way.

[sparklite2]

Imagine it.  And speaking of runny noses...

[wally_bert]

Most mainstream entertainment products rate being insulted and made fun of.

[murron]

First of all, the woman in the movie had French braids in her hair. Nice and neat with no strands showing. If you’re lost in the woods for several days, you don’t have nice and neat French hair braids.

Secondly, the constant moving of the camera really got to me. I had to excuse myself and upchuck. Missed the end of the movie. (I’ve seen it since when it showed up on TV).

Thirdly, when some of the cast members showed up on the Jay Leno show, then it proved that it was a hoax.

[SamAdams76]

I still think it was a great movie.