I'll admit it, I really didn't like The Blair Witch Project when I was younger. I remember being unimpressed by how little happened in the film and thinking it wasn't scary at all, for a movie everyone was claiming was the scariest thing to ever exist. People were obsessed with this movie when it was released. My mom had a friend who, even years later, swore the movie was real. Blair Witch hysteria.
I decided to give the film another chance because I'm older now and my thought process has changed a bit. I wasn't afraid of the woods when I was a kid, but I am now. I think that changed after I saw Wrong Turn. That movie wasn't scary, but it was the first time I realized, "Hey, something really bad could happen in the woods." I also just really enjoy found footage films now (Gonjiam Haunted Asylum is my favorite). I went into watching The Blair Witch Project again with an open mind, hopeful that I would be able to appreciate whatever it had to offer.
In case you somehow don't know what this movie is about, allow me to tell you (I have a ton of notes here, but I'm going to scrap them because I don't want to give major spoilers). In October of 1994, three film students disappeared in Maryland while filming a documentary about the Blair Witch. A year later, their footage was found, though the students never were.
As is usually the case in films like this, everything starts out lighthearted enough, until one night while they're sleeping in the woods, they hear noises outside their tent, including cackling. This escalates each night, until their very last night in the woods. Throughout their stay, everyone slowly begins to break down and become hysterical, causing them to turn on each other. That's their downfall because they stop working together to find their way out of the woods (with one of the two guys kicking their map into the creek because he thought it was "useless"). Listening to them scream at each other (for most of the movie) stressed me out and I couldn't wait for it to stop.
So, after rewatching The Blair Witch Project 500 years later, has my opinion changed? Kind of. I think it's definitely longer than it needed to be (and it's not even that long to begin with) and my mind began wandering towards the end. However, I did think it was interesting and not nearly as boring as I remember it being. All the screaming was too much for me though and I really just wanted it to be over. I'm not mad that (SPOILERS) we never see the Blair Witch or what exactly happened to the three film students, I think the movie is still effectively "scary" with what we do see (such as the creepy rock piles and effigies). I'll probably never watch it again, but I don't hate it.
And because I can never post about one topic without mentioning another, I wanted to say that I see so much of this movie in Resident Evil 7, in the found footage VHS tape of the Baker estate (the one from the demo). It's especially obvious in the scene where you find Andre facing the wall in the basement. I thought this when I first played the game, and now I'm even more convinced that the developers must have taken inspiration from The Blair Witch Project.
No comments:
Post a Comment