SPOILERS ALL AROUND! THERE'S PLENTY FOR EVERYONE! HELP YOURSELVES!
I should let you guys know something. Even though I consider myself a horror fan, I didn't see this film until about a month ago. It was always on my "horror bucket list", but I just could never find the time or patience to sit through it until recently. I'd heard wonderful things about it, how it "makes Paranormal Activity look like a joke" (even though Paranormal Activity is already a joke, amirite?), how it's "one of the best movies I've ever seen", and how it "scared the bejeezus out of" my mother and tons of other people. I finally sat down and watched it, and I gotta say.....it's okay, I guess.
You all know the plot: 3 college kids go into the woods that are supposedly haunted by the spirit of a witch, armed only with a camera, a map, and almost as much sexual tension as Mulder and Scully. They're making a documentary on the area and the myths surrounding the haunted woods. The locals urge them not to go into the woods at night, but you know those darn young'uns, they just don't listen. They go into the woods, spend the majority of the daytime bickering amongst each other, and at night, some spooky stuff happens. That's about it.
I knew I should've brought more weed, dude....
A major selling point of this film was that this "found footage" thing hadn't been done before (at least in a big theatrical release like this), and as such, the advertising for this film was based on a pure lie told by the production company. The audience was told that the events of the movie actually happened and the three main characters had actually gone missing in the woods. There were all kinds of missing person posters slapped around towns and fake reports put out in the news and junk like that. At least, that's what I've heard. I was a measly 5 years old when this movie came out, so I was obviously more interested in Power Rangers and didn't have time to care about missing people. I think that's why I find this movie a little bit lackluster compared to other people; I wasn't there to witness this film's impact: the masses of people who fell for this publicity stunt and actually thought that these characters were missing. I mean, they went all out: they didn't name the characters and instead used the actors' real names, plus there were no actors listed in the credits. However, I bet all those people who thought they actually died were feeling a little dumb when they saw a little movie from 2007 called The Morgue and said to themselves "Hey, isn't that the girl from Blair Witch? I thought she died! What's she doing here?!" Anyway, this movie proves that advertising is one of the most important aspects that determine how well a movie does in the box office.
Missing: Three hippie art school students. If found, please do not return.
So aside from the great publicity that was generated for this movie, what else is there that made it stand out to the average horror viewer in 1999? Well, for one, it's actually really really creepy. Whenever anyone asks me how to properly make a creepy atmosphere in a horror movie, I always point them to the night scenes from Blair Witch. At first, there's not much happening at night: a few birds chirping, maybe a twig snapping, usual nature stuff. Then, they piss off the witch and crap hits the fan. They start waking up to find "presents" in front of their tents: a little doll made out of straw, some rocks in a formation, and a freaking bloody tooth wrapped in cloth. On top of that, the night noises start becoming increasingly more violent. You start to hear low growls, much bigger sticks snapping, large footsteps, and one night, the characters are even confronted by the witch (supposedly, the witch is never actually shown on screen) and chased through the woods. Now, you expect the witch to look like a generic female ghost-y type thing, right? WRONG.
DEMON MONSTER FROM HELL! This is the "official" Blair Witch action figure, btw.
All this creepiness culminates in one of the friends going missing, and the other two kids go looking for him and eventually find him in the Blair Witch's house, which has a deep mythos surrounding it, which I'm not gonna go into here because it's a really long explanation. Anyway, they find him standing by himself in the corner of a room, not saying anything, which is also part of the mythos, but if you wanna hear about that, go look it up, and the girl says "Josh?" and we cut to black. That's all, folks!
So, what did I think of The Blair Witch Project, one of the most well-respected horror movies of all time? Honestly, I thought it was just above average. It's nothing special, but it's certainly the best found footage movie I've ever seen. Most of it is pretty good: the aforementioned atmosphere, the story is good, and it's very well-paced. The main problem I have with this movie is the same problem I have with all the Paranormal Activity movies (which I'll get to reviewing eventually, trust me). This is the part where you say "But Synester, how on earth can you compare Blair Witch to something like Paranormal Activity?!". And to you, I say: the daytime. The daytime scenes are what makes me not like this movie as much as others. Everything about the daytime scenes is just extremely boring to watch, just like in Paranormal Activity. Literally nothing happens except the characters arguing about which way to go through the woods and maybe a little bit of the mythos is explained. Other than that, NOTHING happens during the day, which takes up about 40% of the entire film! Boring filler like that just kills the mood of your movie and makes the audience hope for something exciting to happen, which good thing it did happen in this film or else I would've been super pissed. Overall though, this movie is pretty good and I completely understand why it has the giant following and reputation that it has. I give The Blair Witch Project 7 shaky handicams out of 10. I'd say definitely watch it once, just to experience the phenomenon for yourself.
*sniffle* This is stupid. Jimmy started it and I'm the one in time out. *sniffle*
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