Rating: 
Summary: What's the point?
Review: For four years, this movie chilled me to the bone. It also sickened me, because I couldn't believe that someone would actually try and profit off someone's death. That seemed pretty low. It wasn't until 2003 that a friend of mine let me know this thing was a hoax. While I was relieved, I was also pretty angry.If my anger seems misplaced to you, let me try and explain. If this is not a real documentary, what's the purpose of making it so poorly? Shaky video cameras - it looks like my Christmas videos. Do you think someone would pay me to watch those? "The Legend of Boggy Creek", which covers many of the same issues and is done in a semi-documentary style, is made with much higher production values, and as a result is much, much scarier. Watch it with the lights off if you don't believe me. Also, I can't get behind any horror movie that never shows its monster. How am I supposed to know what to be afraid of? A shaking tent? Stick figures? I give it three stars for the idea and one star for the execution. I'm off to watch "Boggy Creek" again.
Rating: 
Summary: i havent seen it a long time
Review: but i rember that when i did see it i peed in my pant.(i was 9 i was scared!) and i literly couldnt sleep for 3 days!! advise for parents:dont let a 9 year old watch this movie...
Rating: 
Summary: NEXT, PLEASE!
Review: "Three wanna-be student filmmakers disappeared during filming. Three years later, their footage was found. Reports of audience disappointment followed." Don't Believe the hype! This movie is LAME. It's success is typical of trendy teenagers who think they're "Sophisticated" by seeing an "independant" film like this. What is all the hype about? It's not scary, in fact, its incredibly BORING. Nothing worthwhile happens for almost the entire film (60+ minutes), and the only "creepy" things that do happen are twigs snapping in the dark, and piles of rocks that look weird. NO KIDDING! This is "Scary as hell?" And when the creepiness finally rolls around (took its damn time), its nothing more than what "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" accomplished, 100's of times better, 25 long years ago! Actually, I was quite glad to see them meet their fate; they were stupid enough to go in the woods themselves, purposely lose the map, and get lost and do nothing but bickering! Thank god they wouldn't live long enough to reproduce and treat the world to more stupid people! In fact, if it wasn't for the non-stop swearing, this film could have been rated PG! I know that's not the point (I'll be the first to claim that gore doesn't make a great horror flick), but it seems that the "filmmakers" simply threw in some swearing at the last minute to warrant an "R" rating, simply so the braindead moviegoing masses would take it seriously. It's a shame that the hype is what made this BOMB so popular; if stupid horror fans hadn't persuaded so many people to see it. Thankfully, I rented it. You shouldn't. Bypass this and go straight to the real classics. I'll even give you a starting list: 1. Night of the Living Dead (1968) 2. Dawn of the Dead 3. Suspiria 4. Hellraiser 5. Terror at the Opera 6. Dead Alive 7. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 8. The Exorcist 9. Re-animator 10. Psycho
Rating: 
Summary: Joe and The Blair witch
Review: The Blair Witch Profect has gone beyond being a cult film, or another fleeting trend emitting its pulsating "ping" on the radar screen of popular culture, it has become a bonafide cultural phenomenon. Why? Partly, because the movie is brilliant, (trust me, its frightening), but that alone does not sufficiently explain why masses of the population rushed out to see this film It has touched something much deeper inside us, something primitive, ancient. For those of you intellectually stunted people who insisted on rushing out and seeing "Deep Blue Sea", or (Ugh) "Runaway Bride", instead of something of quality, I'll give you a brief synopsis. Three 20-someting student film makers head deep into the woods of Burketsville Maryland, formally Blair, to explore the legend of the Blair Witch, a centuries old supernatural menace that town folklore has blamed for a wide range of bloody, and mysterious atrocities. On the second day of shooting they become lost in the woods, and on top of being hungry, cold and frightened, they are terrorized in the dead of night by an eerie, noisy, and unseen presence, that becomes more menacing with each passing night. The film's directors, along with a trio of incredible young actors have managed to take "Cinema Verite" to a new level with this gem of a film, but I'm not reviewing it, so you'll have to go see it yourself. I'm only attempting to explain the psyche that is driving the phenomenon. First, the movie has re-introduced the witch in its original form, a dark, evil aberration of nature that lives in the deep, thick of the forest untouched by the hand of man. In medieval times, the deep unexplored woods were believed to be a portal to hell, where Satan's minions sprang forth from the fertile soil. Romanian folklore draws time and time again on the concept of vampires, wolfmen, and other shape changers, as creatures who emerged from the forest in the dead of night to terrorize villagers, and the unfortunate tourist arriving late on his journey. Without the means of modern science to explain crop failures and drought, or the forensic tools to understand the socio-pathology of the serial killer, supernatural folklore was accepted as sound reasoning to explain away the horrors that plagued the short, and often harsh realities of European life in the middle ages. These ideals were brought back in full force during the American colonial period, where the puritans, despite the fact that they built their new country on the foundation of escaping religious persecution and ignorance, brought back the concept of the inherent malevolence of the dark woods. Centuries have since past, and a new age of science and reason has replaced the superstition that now only finds a warm bed in re-runs of the X-files, and Hilary Clinton's evenings with the ouija boar. But can years of evolution be swept away that easily? My wife the biologist, when reading my rough draft for this article, summed up what I'm trying to get at quiet nicely. She opines that the reaction to Blair Witch is not much different than the need to re-enact other primitive urges inherent in man. The impulse of man to hunt for sport is really a re-enactment of the times when man's survival was dependent on his ability to kill in order to provide nourishment for his family. His fascination with violent sport, wrestling in particular, may still be a remnant of a spark left in us from primitive ages when physical prowess ensured the future survival of your lineage. It would later find other incarnations in the gladiator's ring, and the Roman Olympiad. As the necessity of these actions become obsolete, they still survive in the form of ritual, which serves as vehicle to satiate these engrained urges. While it would be a leap of logic to try and argue that the success of Blair Witch owes itself to the need to pacify some bizarre impulse to be frightened, it is undeniable that the movie has triggered something not experienced before. The most frequent comment I hear about the movie, is that viewer's find that the film stays with days after they went to see it. They find themselves jumpy, and on edge. Some, like myself, experienced strange nightmares the night after they went to see the movie, as if some tiny switch, long dormant in the recesses of our brains was switched on again. A primitive fear within us, resurfaced, because of the gritty realism of a low budget movie. So does all this sound like the boring thesis of a nerdy academic? Maybe, but tell me how a weekend of camping sounds after you go see the film!
Rating:
Summary: revolutionary film fataly hurt by excessive hype!
Review: A spit in every major Hollywood studio's face, to say the least, and the second film of 1999 to learn a lesson from MTV's atrocious programming and put it to superior, even revolutionary use. With "Run Lola Run" it was the relenltess pace and non-dependence on dialogue which created a sublime effect, a near return to the silent era. "Blair Witch" took the channel's utterly false reality of home-video footage and documentary-style acting, transforming it into perhaps the most realistic falseness to ever grace the silver screen. The enormous buzz that surrounded this amasing horror movie (which never aspires to be more than a cheeky genre entry) has started an undeserved yet equally strong backlash, mostly by jealous film-students at first, then by the spoiled masses which could not comprehend anything beyond Will Smith's special effects-ridden vehicles. Misunderstood both by the critics who hailed it as the next cineamtic movement and the audiences bombasted by the hype, "Blair Witch" should be taken at face value; although currently that is practically impossible to do. The degree of scariness in the exploits of three young idiots (types all too familliar to everyone who attended college) doomed to perish in the hanuted Maryland woods will largely correspond to one's own level of sensitivity, but regardless of how frightened the film makes you, it amounts to an experience of gleeful delight,(akin to the great "Evil Dead" series minus the cartoonish gore), of taking part in something new and refreshing. Of course the overall execution is not totally original, deriving mainly from "The Real World" and an obscure 80's Vietnam flick called "84 Charle Mopic", but what does it matter? Nothing, repeat NOTHING spurts out of the blue - (a classic case in point would be Tarantino inspired by Goddard and Melville inspired by Carol Reed and John Huston inspired by the 20's expressionist cinema and early gangster films). "Blair Witch", while not transcending its genre, still has a share of pure visual artistry, some probably unintentional. A certain beauty lies in the shots of Heather Donahue's white shape jetting through the dark forest, or the omnious rays of sun glittering in the evening trees. The amateur feel the directors generate is but an expertly-crafted illusion and therein lies the film's ultimate pleasure.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting Film Student Experiment
Review: Student filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez have delivered a quaint, spooky little tale with a budget tantamount to the price of catering a single meal for the cast of a standard Hollywood film. "The Blair Witch Project" follows the misadventures of a trio of film students (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams), who armed with two video cameras, set out to make a documentary based on an eerie Burkittsville, Maryland folk legend. Not far into an excursion through a secluded woods, their playful enthusiasm gives way to tension and terror, as they find themselves lost, someone - or some thing - stalking them every step of the way. Relying on a paper-thin plot barely sustained by realistic emotion and situations, "The Blair Witch Project" generates its effectiveness by exploiting what most big budget films consider taboo - raw, shaky camera work, unheard-of actors, believable premise, and zero usage of special effects. The environment selected for the shoot, virgin of set decorators and flashy lighting techniques, captures the essence of an ominous forest perfectly - I kind of like it because it bears a startling resemblance to my favorite place to hike! The acting, which demonstrates the mental breakdown of the characters, is quite convincing, especially Heather Donahue (recently seen in Steven Spielberg's Sci-Fi Channel miniseries "Taken"). While the incessant arguing of the three tends to become a trifle vexing, it actually imbues the film with a higher degree of realism. If you were lost in a cold, damp forest for days, hungry and thirsty, being followed by a psychotic killer or other entity with the intent to harm, would you be leisurely skipping, beaming a robust smile? Still does not explain why they never took a cellular telephone... "The Blair Witch Project" is not really scary - spooky, but not scary. Over hyped and hardly a "Citizen Kane", but still worth a peek for its unique approach. A fun film for amateur filmmakers to watch.
Rating:
Summary: Sometimes what we don't see is what scares us most.
Review: The movie "The Blair Witch Project" is a one of a kind film that is completely based on the premise that "sometimes what we don't see is what really scares us the most" and is many ways, this is very true. Indeed, this movie shows us very little gore and the audience never gets a view of the villain, but in a way, this really works because it keeps the audience in suspense the entire movie and the audiences' imagination runs wild.
"The Blair Witch Project" is actually done like a home movie in that there are three teenagers doing a documentary on the legend of the "Blair Witch" deep in the woods of Maryland. The movie starts with a lot of interviews as a good documentary should and the audience gets a taste of what the teenagers are looking for or trying to discover. The interviews produce some very wild stories and some horrorfying death stories involving the disembowelment of some hunters. Heather, Josh and Mike are the three teens or twentysomethings (hard to tell age) in search of the truth behind this legend...is it truth or myth? Well, in this movie, they are about to find out.
The entire movie follows Heather for the most part as she walks and sometimes runs through the woods with her video camera catching the reaction, mood and fear of the group as they discover that the Blair Witch is a real witch and not just a ghost story. The movie screen shakes as a video camera would on the run on an uneven and treacherous surface as the woods can be. The teenagers capture evidence of strange pieces of art involving rocks and sticks and the audience is left to assume that this is evidence of witchcraft in the making.
It becomes obvious that the three teens or early 20 somethings are being toyed with by someone or some thing, but as the movie progresses and the audience sees these witchcraft like works of art, it becomes more apparent that the Blair witch is for real and these kids are in serious trouble.
The group constantly fights amongst themselves as they try to find a way out of the woods, yet they go no where but in circles as the Blair witch manipulates the direction of the group and toys with them while hunting them in a terrorfying fashion. The movie does hit a lull as basically, the movie can only go so far with this whole idea of the documentary and really not revealing anything about the witch at all, much less does the audience see the witch.
There is a sense of horror though as we follow these kids through their terror in the woods and as Josh turns up missing and Heather finds a present from the witch in a bundle of sticks. So, the film is quite creepy, but it could have been better if it had allowed the audience to get a look at this horrifying creature or witch, but that's just the point with this film...they don't want you to see the witch...in fact, the movie does a good job of making the audience wonder if there really is a witch or just some psychopathic serial killer in the woods.
At any rate, the movie provides an eerie feeling to the audience which climaxes with the disappearance of Josh and the subsequent search for Josh that leads Heather and Mike to the lair of an obvious child murderer and perhaps a monster beyond their imagination. Indeed, an imagination is absolutely critical to enjoying this movie as the director is basically attempting to allow the viewer to be in suspense so much that your imagination runs wild, yet, the audience never sees any blood or any villain. Hence, this is the charm of "The Blair Witch Project".
This movie is not for everyone and you should not overexpect but I own the DVD and I think it's a good and original horror flick, but like I believe in the premise it is based on being "sometimes what we don't see is what scares us most," but I end this review also stating that you can only go so far with this idea and that in order to create the perfect horror movie you have to pick and choose to show some things while not showing other things to really bring the horror home to the audience using a mixture of the abstract nature of the imaginations of the audience and the concrete horror of the film itself. All and all "The Blair Witch Project" is a 3 star horror film that is pretty good but not great and certainly not an alltime classic by any stretch of the oh so important imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Much ado about nothing
Review: For a no-budget horror movie this one got lots of reviews and this one is a huge disappointment with no budget,no blood,no special effects, and no villian/monster. Three foul-mouthed filmmakers go the woods and do a documentary to find a legend about a witch. This isn't a even a horror movie or much of anything. Please don't believe the hype and waste time on this overrated movie. If you want a good no-budget horror-comedy with gore,blood,demons,and special effects rent Evil Dead, If you want completly boring movie rent this or House of the Dead. The only good part of this is the end when they all die.
Rating:
Summary: If something wicked was coming your way...
Review: "I'm scared to close my eyes...but i'm too scared to open them."
The Blair Witch was suggested one of the scariest films of 1999 and instantly became a cult classic.
In Burkittsville, Maryland, three film students took off into the dark woods to make a documentry about the lengendary inhabitant of the forest, the Blair Witch. They were never seen again...until their video footage was found by the authorities. The footage they found shows the activities of the three students before their terrifying disappearance.
Well, Blair Witch is not a fantastic movie and some viewers will definitely be put off by the movie's pacing, lack of action and amount of dialouge. But on closer inspection, we should appreciate the movie for what it is. A VERY chilling experience.
The three actors deliver their parts very well, making Blair Witch an all more real effect. See the look of terror on their faces? That's REAL fear!
A good characteristic of horror films i have always admired is the idea that somewhere in the darkness, someone (or something) is lurking. It's what's unseen that scares us the most and the movie relies mainly on the disturbing sounds in the woods (eerie laughing, weeping children, twigs cracking under foot etc.) and the characters' reaction to the situation they are in. The note of shear panic in their voices is what's really scary.
This movie may not be totally satisfying to some, but will leave most people shaken inside. This movie is a rather enjoyable piece of pyhcological horror with a good few DVD extras to keep fans occupied for a short while. Unfortunately, the sequel - "Blair Witch: Book of Shadows" - didn't match up by any standards.
Rating:
Summary: Heather's Reactions Make This Movie
Review: Atmospheric, scary story ala M. Night Shyamalan. You don't have to see the monster or buckets of blood to be creeped out.
The ensemble cast is great, but Heather's reactions when it all comes unravelled really make this movie all the more devastating. Her discovery that they've been travelling in circles, her reaction to the contents of the bundle of sticks outside their tent (screams, handwashing, gloves, trying to put on the backpack), her soliloquy into the camera...it doesn't get any more raw than that. And to think it was all improvised! She deserved an Oscar. Really.
If you can get past all those f-words, this is a well-crafted, creepy movie that doesn't depend on gross-outs.
|
