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Originally Posted by iam1bearcat
The Blair Witch Project
It really is hard to find a great horror movie these days. Something I see a lot with horror movies that aren’t very scary are, “well, at least it was entertaining” or “at least it was well made” or the best, “at least the kills were cool”. When did horror movies turn into competitions to be entertaining, well made or have neat kills? Horror movies are supposed to SCARE you, not invite you back to visit as soon as it ends because “that one kill scene was so awesome”, replace certain words and you should be talking about other genres: action, comedies, thrillers. Horror, in my eyes, is supposed to be a genre where the film sucks the life out of you. Where once you’re done you’re not talking about how awesome some scenes are, but instead where you’re almost fearful to mumble a word and scared walking to your car or around your house. For me, that is exactly what The Blair Witch Project does every single time I watch it. And believe me, I’ve seen the film countless times.
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Exactly! Perfectly stated. A great horror film does drain me. And Blair Witch did that to me! You remember my story on my first viewing? watched it at age 22 at this chick's apt and walked home terrified
I almost called her to ask her to walk me home! NO JOKE!
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But, with what I mentioned above, it’s not hard to figure out why people seem to either love it or hate it. Are there cool death scenes? Nope. Is it well made? Well, yes, but it doesn’t have a million dollar budget, and of course, on blu-ray and DVD it “looks like crap”  and it doesn’t have a legendary blood thirsty murderer that we’ll see for 167 sequels.
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I think people hate it because they've either seen trailers (not me thank god) or heard stuff from friends -- Bottom line: they've been prejudiced and/or tainted before they see the film. They're not starting with a fresh slate. Instead, they're starting with a "this film will suck if it does X", then they see X and conclude "this film sucks". I prefer to not have film criteria programmed in my head before I watch one. I like to have my own criteria!
I'm not suggesting anyone who doesn't like it had this mis-thinking going on, but a big majority did IMO
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Horror movies in a sense should not make you excited to see the next scene or kill. It should not feel unrealistic. It should not have you waving your fists in the air yelling in excitement while shoving your face with popcorn. It should make you tense up in your seat and want to look away, but you also don’t want to do that because it creeps you out so much. Little things like this that horror movies in 2010 (and for a very, very long time) certainly seem blind to.
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well stated: you want to look away, but you don't want to look away! And it does that with suspense. Suspense is done with creating images in the mind of the viewer, not images on the screen. This is why torture porn horror doesn nothing for me. Its not suspenseful. I'm not imagining anything -- I'm been shown everything. Take Blair Witch -- much of it is on our head -- the blair witch for example, and much of the final scenes. We only see the conclusion of events, not the actual events
[Show spoiler]we only see stuff left at various parts of the wood, we don't see the witch/whoever doing it. so we're forced to imagine it/her/etc.
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The film itself is shot as a documentary, and when it was first released in 1999, I was a mere 10 years old and when I saw it with my mom, she was bored to death and hated while I squirmed back and forth in my chair ( ), praying it would end soon. Praying the characters would be found and nothing creepy would happen again. But I was wrong. My god was I wrong
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Wow dude, 10 is young!
Did you watch lots of horror at that age?
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Filmed by 3 “film students” who visit Burkittsville, Maryland to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch, the film starts off “slow” by having our filmmakers meet up, and then travel around the small town talking to residents about what they have heard. A few disturbing stories later and we’re drowning in the bleak, dark woods in the middle of nowhere. But Heather, the group leader who has “planned” the trip, believes she knows exactly where they are going. In 48 hours they will be home, safe and maybe have a cool documentary for school to show for it.
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I know it was pseudo-acting right? some interviewed people were real citizens while some were planted actors/characters? genius way to film a movie!
I love this intro part b/c we really get to know the characters. we know they're decent people. heather is a toughie: she can hang with the dudes, can do shots, and yet is the mommy-figure in some ways by organizing everyone.
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But that’s not what happens of course, otherwise that would be a pretty terrible horror movie.
The second act of the movie is filled with paranoia, fear and panic as our three filmmakers end up lost and disoriented  . Once Josh and Mike start to suspect that Heather doesn’t in fact know what she’s doing, and a few nights are disrupted by intensely creepy “cackling” and a snapping of what sounds like branches and footsteps, the pressure really begins. Running low on food and water, unable to have idea where they are in woods that have no paths, and unable to remember where their car is, all hell essentially breaks lose, mentally, and physically 
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again, genius filmmaking! the cast/crew would sneak up on the tent. the actors knew it was coming, but didn't know when and were really asleep! so in a way they weren't really acting. not acting = realisitc = audience believes its happening = audience is terrorized!
It still gets to me too! It doesn't matter if I watch it for the 12th time or 112th time...it'll always put me back on that cold november nigth in tallahassee walking home to my apartment , in complete and utter mental terror with the 4 horsemen on my back: terror, bewilderment, panic and fear
As I said above: The Blair Witch is very powerful because they
[Show spoiler]do NOT show her/it, etc
. LIke the best horrors, there is little or no imagery on screen, because any filmmaker knows that the viewer will create imagery in his head that is far more terrorizing than any image he puts on a screen. The great Ebert quote says it all: "the sound of a monster in the woods is always more terrifying than an image of the monster making the sound in the woods". Why? Because when I hear that noise, I'm going to envision a beast of epic proportions, after which some much less terrifying animal is shown and my imagination is limited. Blair Witch doesn't do that, nor does any great horror film (Shining, Orphanage, THe Ring, etc)
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I love that we don’t see anything. It would have completely ruined the film to see a witch or a crazy guy in the woods with an axe or whatever chasing our characters. Millions of other (bad) horror films do this, why would I want to see that again? Here, you get to use your imagination, which should be the scariest thing a film can provide. We hear things - very disturbing things, very unusual things - and your mind is left to come up with what’s causing it.
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holy crap, i didn't read this paragraph until after my post above!
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Much like how 2001: A Space Odyssey is the pinnacle of the science fiction genre, I believe The Blair Witch Project is the pinnacle of the horror genre. And I actually am glad more horror movies don’t try to do what Blair Witch did, because chances are they would fail. [Rec] and Quarantine don’t come close to capturing the atmosphere, the scares or the unrelenting uneasiness of the entire film and those films mentioned are filmed in the same ‘documentary’ style.
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Yes, I'd put Blair Witch in top 5 horrors, although not #1. Shining there for me. But like Blair Witch, it also uses non-visual elements to unleash the viewers imagination to invoke psychological terror in the audience, and not visual elements which make the viewer mentally and psychologically impudent.
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can a movie be on netflix streaming if it's not even out yet?
(great marketing for the film by the way, probably the best ever 
) but it still gets to me. Even after dozens and dozens of viewings. a lot of people I think complain that we don’t see anything and it just kind of “ends”. To those people, I shake my head in disappointment since some people need everything all tied up with a neat little bow. That is NOT this film.
), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (pretty sure it's my dad's favorite film, not positive though), and another one that got me was Candyman, which i haven't seen in years so i have no idea what it's about or scary beside the bathroom / bee scene (afraid of bees ever since)
i feel sorry for those types of people. i've always had an overactive imagination, so that's probably part of why the film works so well for me 
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