This next review also comes from new review contributor Markus, after his ace review of TCM3 im pleased to bring you a review for The Blair Witch Project.
Arguably the simultanously most hyped and anti-hyped genre movie ever, "The Blair Witch Project" is a film rarely getting a chance to be examined as a mere movie, because most reviewers seem to have been so overwhelmed (positively or negatively) by the flick's unrepeatable "one-of-a-kind" marketing history that their whole take is usually based on whether or not they're fascinated or simply annoyed by the "Blair Witch" phenomenon.
Luckily I'm usually blessed with complete ignorance when the "next big thing" does the rounds and in the case of the "Blair Witch" my life was in a transition phase from Germany to Finland anyway, so my first encounter with the film on its theatrical run was completely unprejudiced and untouched by the waves it had produced in the WWW, the genre fanbase and mainstream culture in '99.
To cut a long story short: I consider "The Blair Witch Project" as a true landmark genre classic and a testament to the power of suggestion, prooving that man's deepest and primal fears, inherited from the earliest time and present in each and everyone of us under the surface, are a neverending goldmine and inspiration for truly effective horror movie making, all too often neglegted and forgotten by filmmakers.
You have to remember: At the time the "Blair Witch" struck box-office gold horror had gotten overly slick, self referential and "safe".
The genre was more popular than ever, yet it had lost its bite and will to really scare its audience.
One key element most essential for any seriously groundbreaking horror movie is a sense of realism and a chance for the viewer to fully identify with the actions on the screen, this "It Could Happen To Anybody" feel which turned the genre upside down forever in the late 60's and 70's, when "Night of the living Dead" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" brought the boogeyman to "our" shores", before "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" would finally put him right in front of our doorstep....and he hasn't felt the urge to move back to Transylvania ever since (Coppola's overblown lovefest "Bran Stoker's Dracula" aside - but you get my point).
Creating a real feeling of threat in the age of mobile phones and overly present "civilisation" had become one of THE biggest challenges for genre filmmakers at the end of the 20th. century.
Putting some average looking twenty-something "city folks" in the midst of the woods, combined with a spooky legend, the (back then!!!) fresh "documentary" look, natural approach to "acting" and complete lack of self referential humour and cheap "Scooby Doo" jump scares, "The Blair Witch Project" was in fact foreshadowing the genre's trail back to 70's "realism" after "Scream" had comfortably catapulted horror into the midst of the mainstream.
One of the movie's cleverest tricks is that for the longest time you'll be wondering whether or not the increasingly threatening events have any supernatural origin at all.
Is it the villagers lurking in the woods by night or are our maverick filmmakers beginning to "loose it" after a few days lost in the middle of nowhere?
Even the incredibly tense final minutes could be perfectly explained without resorting to the supposed "Blairwitch legend", though it's this ambivalence which I find to be one of the movie's strongest assets.
One funny fact about "The Blairwitch Project" seems to be that it's not working at all for people who grew up in the countryside near a forest, but for a "city kid" like myself, who doesn't really have much personal childhood memories of spending my time in the midst of nature far away from any sign of civilisation, this film has ruined any far fetched chance of me camping in the woods...ever!
Am I the only one who finds the often cited "Blairwitch ripped off Cannnibal Holocaust" accusation slightly far fetched? Regardless of the undeniable classic status of Ruggero Deodato's nasty amongst genre fans, "Cannibal Holocaust" has a totally different agenda than "Balirwitch". "Holocaust" sets out to make its point about the media's voyeurism (simultanously putting its audience on a test to keep their lunch inside while watching!) while "Blairwitch" is a product of its era's "new media enthusiasm"- embodied by its young "documentary filmmakers" protagonists (who couldn't be more far removed from "Holocaust's villains-behind-the-camera!) and not the least the whole "Blairwitch" marketing machine in the net, in itself as much a tool of "telling the story" as the actual movie.
Forget the hype, it's gone for good...but the film deserves to be judged on its very own merits.
FILM: 5/5
Written By Markus Duschek
Arguably the simultanously most hyped and anti-hyped genre movie ever, "The Blair Witch Project" is a film rarely getting a chance to be examined as a mere movie, because most reviewers seem to have been so overwhelmed (positively or negatively) by the flick's unrepeatable "one-of-a-kind" marketing history that their whole take is usually based on whether or not they're fascinated or simply annoyed by the "Blair Witch" phenomenon.
Luckily I'm usually blessed with complete ignorance when the "next big thing" does the rounds and in the case of the "Blair Witch" my life was in a transition phase from Germany to Finland anyway, so my first encounter with the film on its theatrical run was completely unprejudiced and untouched by the waves it had produced in the WWW, the genre fanbase and mainstream culture in '99.
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| Iconic image from TBWP |
You have to remember: At the time the "Blair Witch" struck box-office gold horror had gotten overly slick, self referential and "safe".
The genre was more popular than ever, yet it had lost its bite and will to really scare its audience.
One key element most essential for any seriously groundbreaking horror movie is a sense of realism and a chance for the viewer to fully identify with the actions on the screen, this "It Could Happen To Anybody" feel which turned the genre upside down forever in the late 60's and 70's, when "Night of the living Dead" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" brought the boogeyman to "our" shores", before "Halloween" and "Nightmare on Elm Street" would finally put him right in front of our doorstep....and he hasn't felt the urge to move back to Transylvania ever since (Coppola's overblown lovefest "Bran Stoker's Dracula" aside - but you get my point).
Creating a real feeling of threat in the age of mobile phones and overly present "civilisation" had become one of THE biggest challenges for genre filmmakers at the end of the 20th. century.
Putting some average looking twenty-something "city folks" in the midst of the woods, combined with a spooky legend, the (back then!!!) fresh "documentary" look, natural approach to "acting" and complete lack of self referential humour and cheap "Scooby Doo" jump scares, "The Blair Witch Project" was in fact foreshadowing the genre's trail back to 70's "realism" after "Scream" had comfortably catapulted horror into the midst of the mainstream.
One of the movie's cleverest tricks is that for the longest time you'll be wondering whether or not the increasingly threatening events have any supernatural origin at all.
Is it the villagers lurking in the woods by night or are our maverick filmmakers beginning to "loose it" after a few days lost in the middle of nowhere?
Even the incredibly tense final minutes could be perfectly explained without resorting to the supposed "Blairwitch legend", though it's this ambivalence which I find to be one of the movie's strongest assets.
One funny fact about "The Blairwitch Project" seems to be that it's not working at all for people who grew up in the countryside near a forest, but for a "city kid" like myself, who doesn't really have much personal childhood memories of spending my time in the midst of nature far away from any sign of civilisation, this film has ruined any far fetched chance of me camping in the woods...ever!
Am I the only one who finds the often cited "Blairwitch ripped off Cannnibal Holocaust" accusation slightly far fetched? Regardless of the undeniable classic status of Ruggero Deodato's nasty amongst genre fans, "Cannibal Holocaust" has a totally different agenda than "Balirwitch". "Holocaust" sets out to make its point about the media's voyeurism (simultanously putting its audience on a test to keep their lunch inside while watching!) while "Blairwitch" is a product of its era's "new media enthusiasm"- embodied by its young "documentary filmmakers" protagonists (who couldn't be more far removed from "Holocaust's villains-behind-the-camera!) and not the least the whole "Blairwitch" marketing machine in the net, in itself as much a tool of "telling the story" as the actual movie.
Forget the hype, it's gone for good...but the film deserves to be judged on its very own merits.
FILM: 5/5
Written By Markus Duschek
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