Does The Blair Witch Project still hold up today or does it need the preface of "is this real?!"

Does The Blair Witch Project still hold up today or does it need the preface of "is this real?!".

it holds up more than will smith

Yes Mike you fucking pleb

No it never held up to begin with.

YES, NEXT QUESTION.

no, it was the shit back then though, but I don't expect it to be appeal to people outside that generation, especially since it's fake

it was only popular in the first place because retards thought it was real

Literally none of you were old enough to see it in theaters

it is only relevant because it started the trend of docu-horror movies like it

not many people actually thought it was real and there are lots of movies that did it better since then

Yes it does, one of the best horror movies ever made.

>INB4 247 replies of no lol its gay and you see nothing and nothing happen hurrr

please, i watched ET on theaters.

Could you name at least two that "did it better?"

I watched it the same night I watched Paranormal Activity for the first time, after watching the shining. in a fucking sleepover with underclassmen because of pleb gf.

PA is boring trash, Blair Witch Project had me unsettled, scared, and frustrated at people. So I think it holds up fine.

>mfw local arthouse theater hung up little stick dolls all over the lobby and on the doors sometime near the end of the movie on opening night

This.

almost every one that came after it did it better

literally the only reason blair witch is talked about is because it is the original and some people thought it was real whereas nobody believed any of the rest were

The first movie I saw in theaters that I remember is Ghost Busters 2, if you're even close to being old enough to have seen that I'll be shocked.

BWP is shit.

You probably think Banshee Chapter is good.

definitely holds up as a great horror movie and one of the greatest pleb filters of all time
its scary because
>it takes time to build atmosphere,
>you have to listen to what the characters are saying
>the characters aren't insufferable idiots
>the setting is perfect
>the audience's imagination of what the characters saw and what happened is 100x more effective and scary than actually showing it

I didn't think it was very scary at all. I thought it was very boring until the last few minutes and then disappointing.

>what is cannibal holocaust
Pls check ur facts before you post ;-)

>disappointing
Shouldn't have had expectations

I expected to be scared :|

>>it takes time to build atmosphere,


Here is where I disagree without the marketing it has no atmosphere. You know how I know this? Because anyone who just watched the movie blind without any gimmick marketing or rumors beforehand thought it was shit and every idiot that bought into the rumors thinks its the greatest thing they ever saw.

>the characters aren't insufferable idiots

You have to have intelligence yourself to measure it correctly in others.

>the audience's imagination of what the characters saw and what happened is 100x more effective and scary than actually showing it

Heather screaming 'what the fuck is that?!' still spooks me because she sounds legitimately fucking scared, and was at the time. I love that.

However the characters are insufferable, but you know what? They're film college kids. They would be insufferable fucks. It makes total sense and is believable and honestly only adds to the film.

My favorite part of the movie is how they don't show anything and us as viewers have to form our own opinions about what was out there. What did you guys picture?

10/10 best horror of all time and a game changer. All horror movies borrow from it.

I watched the movie without the gimmick and liked it. Please do not make sweeping statements, it nullifies discussion.

subtle yet powerful film. Guerrilla moviemaking at its finest

I can't believe it took 6 minutes for the right answer to be posted

Didn't it only cost them like 10 grand to make this movie, and it made millions of dollars? That's pretty good

>generalizations

I came to this movie way later without the marketing, fucking loved it. It's a good movie and handles itself masterfully.

The best part is there was basically no script, just outlines, told the actors to go out into the woods and have at it. The director and producers then proceeded to stalk them and fuck with them, the reactions you see from the actors are mostly real, they know they're making a movie, but they're genuinely exhausted and unsettled.

What I don't get is why in the hell would anyone run into a creepy spiky house like that in the middle of the night? I would have said fuck this shit and ran out of those woods as fast as I can.

I'll refer you back to my second statement.

Showing stuff is dumb. Horror movies should never show anything and make the viewer use their imagination... That way the film maker doesn't have to make a creative choice or have any responsibility if it fails. If it fails it's simply because the viewers don't get it and not because he was too big of a pussy to make a creative decision about the monster the entire story is based around.

>Because anyone who just watched the movie blind without any gimmick marketing or rumors beforehand thought it was shit and every idiot that bought into the rumors thinks its the greatest thing they ever saw.
What of it?

Oh, so you don't have an argument are just name-calling, got it.

The story is based out the project :^)

>I need to be beaten over the head with everything because I'm an ADD babby who can't into suspense
Got it

That's awesome. They barely have to act, they have 2 cameras that the actors just carry with them most of the time, no sets or special effects, no scripts, and it still pulled huge numbers. it's like the perfect b-movie.

in stranger things when they showed the monster the show got infinitely less scary. before that when they were just showing it pushing against the wall that was the most scared I've been in a long time.

Ohhh man I'm gonna see if I can get the theater I work at to do that

Sorry but I can't agree with any of that.

You don't get it.

It's supposed to be ambiguous. You just assume and take everything at face value. The film is about a legend, what's behind that legend is what's happening, and what that is, you're not supposed to find out. It's just kids getting lost and scared in the woods...right?

God forbid you have to think about a fucking movie and not have it spoonfed to you.

blair witch is more interesting if you watch it as a documentary of the producers fucking with the cast in the woods in the middle of the night.

>Please spoonfeed me, I have no imagination
>it's not scary unless a longmouth ghost pops out and the camera zooms in on it while it screams in a demon voice

Yeah that is why it's shit. Saying "I have an answer but you can makeup you own mind" is acceptable Saying "Everyone's answer is valid!/I made this sanbox so you can makeup your le own is not." At some point you have to take a creative risk and have a valid narrative somewhere even if it's hidden. Blair Witch does not, it's an attempt to create an atmospheric sandbox where we make our own answers but you then cant fault people who don't enjoy it because they story that isn't there doesn't appeal to people. It would be like me getting mad that people don't see my balsa wood castle as a real piece of architecture.

I get it just fine. Some college kids made a ahitty movie in the woods and created some internet hype behind it and almost 20 years later fags like you still don't realize you watched a shitty movie because you bought into the hype.

Do it, especially for late night showings (not that I'd assume you'd do too many mid-afternoon Blair Witch screenings).

I don't need to be spoon fed. In fact when I go to the movies I watch only the first 8 minutes of a movie and then I leave and use my imagination to finish the entire story.

Aren't you the twelve year old from the last thread?

You should probably get off dad's computer before he comes home from work, sonny.

The film gives you at least three choices of it being a witch, some serial killer ghost or kids getting lost and scared in the woods. You're given the evidence, make something of it. You honestly sound like you need ten minutes of exposition at the end of a movie because you can't think for yourself and are scared of ambiguity.

>20 years later
>marketing hype

Yeah sure, buddy. I get you need spooky scary ghosts in every frame of a movie jumping out with scare chords, but not everybody likes that. Some people prefer subtlety over creepypasta tier jumpscare gifs in movie form.

>abluhbluhbluh I'm retarded and don't understand using the unknown as a device for horror abluhbluhbluh

What part of the story did you feel the film failed to present?

Take your keyboard, unplug it, and throw it out into the road so that we can use our imagination to envision that you will someday type an intelligent post.

I first saw it knowing that it was all fake. Scared the shit out of me and I was in my late teens.

Also its a masterpiece of horror, that goes for subtlety and atmopshere instead of pointless jump scares, or gratitous gore.

I like any horror movie with a slow burn.
Too much too soon makes a movie shitty. I don't even need 'scares' in the first or second act.

Examples of movies that sort of hold back on the horror are Paranormal Activity 1, the original Poltergeist, Blair Witch, etc.

Even movies like Grave Encounters, which sort of resorted to jump scares and "long face ghosts" had a good slow burn that built atmosphere.

i fucking loled

People either really love this movie or really hate it.

The Thing and Alien also don't have any real danger until at least 30 minutes in.

Grave Encounters is a lot of a fun, it's definitely less subtle but makes up for some dumb scares with some really neat ideas and does hold back in the right places.

Love the slow burn in The Thing

I'm generally in favor of movies with ambiguous or mysterious parts of the story you have to work out for yourself. I don't think that is what the BWP is. It's attempting that sure but what it really does is just dump a bunch of ingredients of a story on your lap and tell you to decide which in my opinion is not the same thing. At some point it would have been better for them to have a definite answer even if it was well hidden and hard to find on multiple viewings. I think you can watch it a million times and it will still be just as narratively broken because they didn't give you one which to me is a flaw in the "story" not a pro.

I also want to make it clear I'm ok with a movie being ambiguous and mysterious indefinitely if I genuinely feel the concept or the meaning just might be limited to my "not getting it." I have to really believe there is something there that I am not getting though and I just don't get or feel that I'm missing anything of much importance with the Blair Witch. It's a sandbox movie whose atmospheric elements just fail to enthrall or intrigue me in any way.

Really?
The thing I disliked the most about The Thing was the way they exposed the thing, being more subtle about it would be way better (shadows, dripping blood, etc.)

Could also be locals fucking with them.

>new movie ends with them getting raped in the woods by hill people on camera
Yes please

The ending of the movie is meant to provide the sense that yes, there is in fact something very very wrong going on here, and there always was, all previous notions of potential locals fucking with them or it being mere exhaustion is thrown out the window. But what that might be, who knows. Do you believe in the legend now that you've been provided with evidence?

I would almost even say that actual plot and story in the movie is completely negligible, it's all about creating, building and maintaining an atmosphere than actually telling a story of any kind. Now that I can understand people not liking, because it's more an exercise in just creepiness for creepiness' sake than any kind of real narrative. Myself, I love it, I love this kind of stuff, I think it excels in creating a consistent atmosphere that builds to a head. Nothing ever really was meant to happen because everything that does happen is meant to add to an overall level of happening. It's hard to describe exactly what I mean.

If you want some much older examples of this, read the stories 'The Willows' and 'The Wendigo' by Algernon Blackwood and see how they strike you. Both stories concern some people getting lost in the wilderness and weird shit happening, but were written nearly 100 years before Blair Witch

>implying they would ever show the bad guys in a genius mind blowing genre changing artistic masterpiece like bwp

Fuck you pal. This movie is better than that.

I saw the original Star Wars movie in a theater. I also say Close Encounters in a theater.

>still this bitter about being called retarded
This guy is right though, it's not nearly as ambiguous as people in this thread are making it out to be. Are we forgetting that the witch was supposed to make the children wait in the corner while it killed?

Mike and Jay didn't agree on this, so I can't make on my mind.

>Are we forgetting that the witch was supposed to make the children wait in the corner while it killed?

That was the killer though, right? The guy who killed the kids? I always felt that we were the place was messed, just never exactly how. We're given a ton of evidence and it's more about accepting the truth that there's a basis for the legends than any particular concrete explanation.

The killer was possessed by the witch, 0

I could surmise that much on my own. As to the rest I'll just say again that I don't think that atmosphere worked at least for me. I just found the whole thing more ridiculous than scary. I'll look into the stories.

It's a great character study with a few decent spooks. So yeah, it holds up.

Tbh I can't remember entirely, I haven't seen it in a few years. I do remember the corner part, though. Wouldn't the slime and the getting stuck in the same place part indicate more supernatural shit, though?

I think it's a piece of shit but I hate horrors.

the main reason I didn't enjoy it was because of the all white cast and I hope that will be corrected in this new one.

The getting stuck in the same place thing can be attributed to either a supernatural presence or a bunch of factors like them not knowing you subconsciously favour one foot over the other which can cause you to literally walk in circles, them being exhausted, stressed, scared and also with a map.

The slime is harder to explain mundanely, but nature's weird and gross I guess. In the end, it is outright supernatural, or at least very very heavily implied to be so.

I never thought it was real back when it came out since I'm not retarded, and I still thought it was great.

Yeah I'm not a retard either, bro.

whenever people defend the movie they never defend the movie itself they defend everything around the movie.

>dude it was improv
>the directors were really fucking with them
>they really were in the woods
>those reactions are real

It's never

>dude I really enjoyed the experience of watching it

Cool idea. Boring as fuck movie.

But several people have said they just enjoy the movie while also explaining why they like it, because of those reasons and more.

Also, every detractor of this movie just spouts the same thing, they say it's boring or 'nothing happens', never why. In fact one guy in this thread is I think the first person I have ever seen who explained why it didn't interest him, everything else is just 'it's shit' with no reason. You said so yourself, it's just 'boring', but why?

What part of the story are you having trouble with?

The ending is supposed to be a little ambiguous but they pretty much spell out for you that the ghosts of the murdered children are harassing them and it's heavily implied that Josh was possessed by the witch and kills Mike and Heather in the ending

Because it's shit and it's boring and nothing happens

Quads confirm my taste is shit forever

I'm off to watch Insidious, see you guys later

>the ghosts of the murdered children are harassing them and it's heavily implied that Josh was possessed by the witch and kills Mike and Heather in the ending
They don't "spell this out" at all, this is you projecting onto the ambiguity of the ending. Which is pretty minimal. Just because you don't see a fucking monster or whatever kill them all doesn't make it ambiguous. There's a fucking witch, it's the title of the movie. You don't need to make up all this extra bullshit

The movie has a lot of theoretical value as an experiment in horror film technique. It's a great discussion piece.

That being said, I did enjoy seeing it, but I don't think it's very rewatchable.

Not sure how a post could be this stupid but here we are.

I literally don't understnad 90% of the opinions in this thread. The Blair Witch Project is a good movie. It's fun to watch without the 'viral marketing' of the time, it's got a creepy ending even if you don't know what the witch looks like or whatever. What are you people complaining about? I re-watch this movie like once a year.

I don't know what to tell you man. You can hear the children's voices on night three.

The Josh interpretation is also not a big logical leap at all. They follow his voice into the house man lmao, who else could be behind it? The townsfolk even mention that the witch possessed someone before in the town's history: the serial killer. And that legend is tied directly to that ending.

It's all right there in the movie man, I dunno how you aren't getting it.

Then who would be the one getting killed while Mike was waiting his turn and Heather was filming?

Uh.... Heather is the one who is killed while Mike waits. This implied when she drops the camera.

I feel like you're grasping at straws now. Why wouldn't the witch kill Mike and then make Heather wait, considering he was the first one down there?

>pcmasterrace.jpg

??? What would Heather be waiting for if she was the only one left?

The Joshwitch makes Mike wait first because s/he hears Heather screaming and knows she's coming down soon

Another Blair Witch Project thread, another repost

1/2

[The Blair Witch Project] explores the utterly inhuman, that which is completely removed from our possibility of knowing through its not-residing in our world - and it manages to capture it on film!

To be clearer: the Witch is something horrifying because it exists on its own terms, removed from humanity and its categories (which is, at least for me, the true source of horror - and philosophy, as every critical thought begins with amazement/wonder [thaumazein]. you could say that the history of philosophy is the history of humanity's horror); we understand it insofar as it, as entity (and even this is debatable), makes things happen that we can understand, but we merely get to see and interpret these outward, inconsequential signs instead of the Thing-In-Itself. Example: the stick figures. In the movie the protagonists think they represent some kind of boundary, a way to manifest the Witcch's presence on the territory, and in doing so they unconsciously superimpose their own wills and ideas on the things - the reason why THEY'd put them up would be to make their presence felt, but the only thing we "know" for certain is that these stick figures exist. They may be something that merely happens due to the Witch's presence, like we unknowignly have an effect on the air composition of a room we are into.

Don't know if I made myself clear, but the whole movie is about this issue - it's a First Contact movie more than it is a conventional horror, it's the process of encountering the Unknown (and unknowable) and reacting to it. It's a study on the limits of humanity and the vastness of Being. This alone makes it one of the best movies ever made this century.

2/2

All of the above would make it a great story, the reason why it's a great film is that the concept of the unknown is captured by the "ontological conditions" of the medium itself: movies are, in their essence, the portrayal of the image, of "what is there to see" (an extremist like Vertov or Benning could say, maybe: of pure movement); there is nothing outside of what is recorded, and what is recorded is the truth of the film. Mimesis, realism, attinence to a story - all of these are afterthoughts, accretions of meaning one could attach, tumorally, to the essence of the film. The Blair Witch Projects captures the image and plays it back, no more, no less. We don't see the Witch, because the Witch isn't there to see - or isn't there to see for humanity and its tools. We see everything else, and by finding the glaring obviousness of what is lacking from the apparent completeness of Being we are presented as reality, we cannot but feel terrified and inconsequential.

It's because the CGI was shit. It was actually a great silent Hill like design but all CGI characters never look good. If they actually tried making a practical base it would have looked really good. Being that the entire series is an 80s horror love letter (and they have a scene with the nerdy teacher sperging over practicals) I'm surprised they didn't.

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