The Blair Witch Project

[baumer]

Discuss

[Jack Nevada]

I seriously think this is one of the most important films in the history of cinema.It changed the way movies are made (I doubt the digital revolution would have happened without Blair Witch), and of course how movies are marketed. It's also one of the best horror films I have seen. Some people complain about how not much happens til the end. It may be true, but I do love the build up that leads into one of the greatest movie climaxes of all time.BWP is scary as hell, atmospheric and revolutionary.10/10

[baumer]

The Blair Witch Project is the personification of fear. This is a film or rather an experience that knows what it is that scares the human soul. As many over the years have stated, this film brings back what it is that scared us as kids. And what it is that scares us are things that are naturally frightful. When you are five or six years old we are not naturally afraid of men with masks that stalk babysitters or men with hockey masks that haunt horny campers. Those are things that are taught to us by the news or by watching enough scary movies. But what we are afraid of, even though we don't know why, is the dark, strange noises in the middle of the night and our own subconscious. We are afraid to go downstairs when the lights are off because we don't know what is waiting down there to get us. And the reason we are scared of these things is simply that it makes us think of death or extreme pain. The Blair Witch Project preys on those fears. And as long as it takes to get into those primal fears, the setup is worth the payoff. What we witness is three people that could be budds that we went to school with. They are not caked with makeup and set in the perfect light to make them good looking Hollywood actors. They are three people that are tired, unshaven, hungry, cold, deprived and scared out of their minds. They are a microcosm of every single one of us put in the same situation. I have never seen a film like this one before and only a handful of times have I felt close to what I did watching this film. First there was Jaws, that made me afraid the water. Halloween made me afraid of the night and Nightmare On Elm Street made me afraid to go to sleep. There are a few others that made me feel similar to this, but no movie has ever made me feel exactly the way Blair Witch did. In here you feel like what is happening is real. 8mm cameras can do that. You are watching a home video and what you can't see scares the hell out of you. We hear what they hear, we feel what they feel and we are prone to curl up in a ball and wait for the inevitable.

Now I have read the comments that dismiss this film as fluff and how it is not really scary, and that may be true for some people, but for the majority of the people that have seen this, it hits us with such force that it does cause you to keep the lights on at night. This is ingenius film making and even though it is not exactly what people would consider on par with say Citizen Kane ( only on a technical level ) you will not find a film that manipulates our senses and our primarily our fear more than this one, and on that level, this is one of the best films ever made.

I can't say enough about this film. It is a psychological trip through fear. It makes us feel lost and it keeps us fearing that these people will never get out alive. And it is true what people say: the last shot of this film will scare you more than any shot in the history of film. That is high praise coming from me, I grew up on horror films. You can take a shot of Michael Myers rising methodically in the background in the first Halloween, the opening death of Chrissie Watkins in Jaws, the dinner table scene in Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the shower scene from Psycho, the boiler room scene in Nightmare On Elm Street, the scene where Hicks discovers the aliens in the ceiling from Aliens or even any one of the rape scenes in Last House On The Left ( that is some pretty select company ) and still they will not surpass the raw emotion and primal fear that you will feel in the last five minutes of this film.

Blair Witch is pure fear. It should be seen by everyone at least once. If I could meet any of the five major players in this film ( the three "actors" and the two writer/directors ), I would thank them for showing me that someone knew how to make a fantastic horror film. This is the film that paved the way for all the found footage films of today. Blair Witch is a pioneer.

10/10

[Jack Nevada]

Yeah, the film really taps into some primal instinct in a way that really fucks you up

[75Live]

Don't have to add much since baumer and Jack pretty much said it all.

I saw this at one of my first ever midnight showings with my brother. He was pretty freaked out by it as well which made it even better.

The marketing for this was amazing and has been copied so many times, obviously not to any success though.

A

Edited November 5, 2012 by 75live

[luna]

i was scared, not terrified. perhaps i was even too young when i saw this. scaring myself to bits isn't really my favourite pastime, so i'm glad for that anyway. one of the better horror films.

 

7/10

[CaptainJackSparrow]

A chilling, creepy film. I love the ending. 5/5

[DAR]

I hate this film. I don't find it interesting. It's not scary. The characters are annoying. It spawned the whole found footage genre which I hate. Terrible. F

[The Stingray]

It was really ahead of its time, with found footage and viral marketing. A friend in my high school class actually thought that shit was real.

[baumer]

Watching it again now, still creeps the hell out of me.  When Josh disappears and they hear him screaming at night, that's messed up.

[baumer]

Now watching Heather's death confession to the camera.  Chilling and brilliant.  Such an effective film.

[Ozymandias]

Love this movie, remember its debut very well.  It and the Matrix were like the talk of the town of that year.

Edited November 13, 2013 by Ozymandias

[Goffe]

This is some scary shit, it totally lived up to the hype. 90/100

[Jake Gittes]

Watched it less than a year ago for the first time, knowing the ending beforehand, and it still worked on me. Obviously not quite as well as it would have if I'd watched it in the theater in 1999, but still. I'm not surprised TBWP seems to have aged relatively well - it's a rare movie that transcends its gimmick. 

 

Heather Donahue should have got an Oscar nomination.

[Maxmoser3]

Not a bad movie very creepy horror movie and probably one of the better found footage movies the acting wasn't bad either but nothing to write home about overall B+ because of the setting, the buildup, and everything else

[Omario]

I remember in school all the kids saying it was the scariest movie ever and that it put the Exorcist to shame. It made me hesitant to watch it lol. I actually saw the sequel first and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Eventually i decided to give the original a go and i wasnt dissapointed. Not the scariest movie as i was told but definitely one of the best horror movies. Great atmosphere and just such a new concept at the time. 

 

A

[baumer]

Watched it less than a year ago for the first time, knowing the ending beforehand, and it still worked on me. Obviously not quite as well as it would have if I'd watched it in the theater in 1999, but still. I'm not surprised TBWP seems to have aged relatively well - it's a rare movie that transcends its gimmick. 

 

Heather Donahue should have got an Oscar nomination.

 

I agree with everything you said here.  Donahue was fucking brilliant.

[baumer]

I remember in school all the kids saying it was the scariest movie ever and that it put the Exorcist to shame. It made me hesitant to watch it lol. I actually saw the sequel first and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Eventually i decided to give the original a go and i wasnt dissapointed. Not the scariest movie as i was told but definitely one of the best horror movies. Great atmosphere and just such a new concept at the time. 

 

A

 

For me, it does put Exorcist to shame.  But I think it just depends on what gets inside you.  For the most part, I found the demon in Exorcist to be the equivalent of a petulant and spoiled 4 year old child.  But in BWP, I grew up on camping so the dark of the woods really gets to me.  And this film preyed on that.

[Jake Gittes]

The Exorcist is very well directed and acted but I suspect it could never really get to me because I'm not religious. First time I saw it, at age 13, I was more shocked than scared by it, the second time it was still effective and I could see how well made it was, I just never found it deeply frightening. With TBWP, I don't actually believe there's something scary hiding in the woods in the real life either, bit it's much easier for a film to fire up my imagination, and it helps a lot that we never actually see a physical threat, unlike with Pazuzu who is present a lot in The Exorcist and eventually you just kinda get used to him. 

[Webslinger]

It's a love-it-or-hate-it movie all the way, and I mostly loved it. Sure, it's basically 80 minutes of twentysomethings getting lost and then getting pissed off with one another, but the mundane nature of the action makes it feel all the more realistic and plausible, and thus all the more tense and terrifying to watch.

 

A-