Hey Blair Witch! Cannibal Holocaust called.

It wants to know why people think your film is so original and groundbreaking....

I liked the movie in the theater...I don't know anybody who thought it was real though. PN was right though, it doesn't hold up at all. And when it comes to scary, nothing comes close to the nightmares I had after watching Peewee's Big Adventure. Large Marge might be the scariest thing ever put on celluloid.

theironchef: Hey Blair Witch! Cannibal Holocaust called.

It wants to know why people think your film is so original and groundbreaking....

Actually it called to apologize for being thinly veiled animal snuff porn.

Rev.K: For those of us with imaginations, The Blair Witch Project was a f*cking terrifying movie.

/scared f*cking sh*tless

It took me 5 years to watch it.

I still have a chill.

theironchef: Hey Blair Witch! Cannibal Holocaust called.

It wants to know why people think your film is so original and groundbreaking....

Bravo!fark, at this point Sleepaway Camp is a better horror film than Blair Witch. That, and the ending is still farking horrifying on a few levels when I think about it.

/shudder

I never saw it

Guntram Shatterhand: Sleepaway Camp

Chicks with dicks..do not want

bullwinkl: ...when it comes to scary, nothing comes close to the nightmares I had after watching Peewee's Big Adventure. Large Marge might be the scariest thing ever put on celluloid.

Damn straight! Of course, I didn't help that I was stoned to the bejesus belt at the time.

I wish it was real so that they could have all died a horrible screaming death.

Very few movies have ever pissed me off for being as bad as they were, but that one did. There is some creepy imagery but no follow through and the characters were completely unsympathetic. It did not deserve the hype it got by any means.

What was it Chris Rock said about it at the MTV movie awards that year? " A movie that was made for $10,000? Somebody's walking around out there with $9,980 in their pockets!

Utter garbage.

Subby is a cying-movie-snob.

STFU.

Saw it in the theater with my family. I was 17. Only movie to make me cover my eyes since I was six.
Interesting to note that at the time I believed in ghosts and shiat like that. That definitely upped the scare factor. Now I'm an active skeptic/atheist. If I saw the movie today for the first time it probably wouldn't have the same affect on me. And while I'm happy with my intellectual stance, a part of me misses the fact that I can't enjoy movies like that anymore.

I was stoned... I miss weed.

I paid to see that movie, and the second I saw it was being done in a telephone pole tree farm I knew it was a fake. But nonetheless a pretty cool movie.

Saw it. Loved it. I hate slasher flicks cause they're all the same. Even your "horror" movies are starting to just got he way of slasher movies, whether it's ghosts, vamps or whatever. Same plot form, same everything. To me, not worth my time or money. I watched one of those "i know what what" movies and i called each killing...it was pathetic.

Though BWP doesn't stad-up for repeated viewings, it brings back me back to a time when right after seeing this movie, I had to walk my dog....in the woods....by the tennis court and the lights to just turn off as the timer ran out.

Someone else said it, the key to this movie was how big your imagination was.

/Believe more in ghosts than some homicidal maniac in a shatner mask
//or hockey mask
///or leather mask
////etc.

It's a mix between Ozzy and Milton Berle in drag.

I think I just shiat my pants.

Hmmm... I thought the ending was blatantly obvious if you'd actually been paying attention through the whole movie...

****major spoiler*****

One of the interviewees near the beginning of the movie talks about a local serial killer named Rustin Parr. He kidnapped local children and killed them in pairs, forcing one kid to stand facing the corner of a room while he murdered another kid. When he was caught, he pled insanity, claiming that the spirit of the Blair Witch had demanded them as sacrifices.

So, the final moments have the two remaining characters discover Parr's house. They see some creepy shiat (including handprints of his victims all over the walls), then get separated. When Heather gets to the basement, Mike is stood facing the corner, then she's attacked from behind. The implication is that either Parr is alive and has escaped from the asylum, or its the ghost of the Blair Witch continuing his work and taking sacrifices for herself.

If you read the book that came out with the movie, it's even more messed up. The book goes into the fictional mythology and suggests that the campers were displaced in time (Parr's house had supposedly burned to the ground by the time of the movie). It takes a bit more swallowing, but explains why they couldn't find their way out of the woods and why no rescuers couldn't find anything but their footage.

****end spoiler****

If you want good "found footage" movies, try the following:

Cannibal Holocaust (it's possible on some copies to watch without the real-life animal brutality)
[REC] (just been officially released in the US on DVD, the upcoming sequel looks excellent)
Slashers (not quite the same format, but I loved it...)
My Little Eye
Cloverfield (hey, I liked it!)

Also seconded from recommendations in the thread (people who hate thinking during movies need not apply):

Primer
Pi
Cube
Ringu (original Japanese version of The Ring)
The Devil's Backbone
Man Bites Dog
Event Horizon
The Thing

Not scary, but very very creepy. I was fine until the children noises started outside the tent and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

Jonesy Boogieman: I was living in Virginia. Went to see it with my ex.

I don't know which was scarier now that I look back.

As a resident of Virginia for almost 50 years, I'd say it's probably the former. Unless your ex is Glenn Close...

/stays out of the woods
//checking my stovetop for boiling bunnies

horrified: Atomic Spunk: Saw it in the theater with my wife who was pregnant at the time. The camera movements gave her motion sickness big time, but she was able to hold it together for the whole film. As soon as it was over, she went to the restroom and puked out a toiletful of popcorn and Pepsi.

wow dude-- how's your kid now? After all that Pepsi caffeine -- must be borderline AHDD.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

I took my 16-year-old nephew on a camping trip in the White Mountains the year that movie came out. He brought along his laptop and spent most of his time playing a video game (a far cry from my youth when my dad kept telling me "Take your head out of the comic book and look at the scenery!" -- instead I found myself saying "Take your head out of the laptop and look at the scenery!"). He had a pirated copy of the movie on his computer and we ended up watching it one night in a tent in the middle of the woods. Not that scary, but any postage stamp-sized grainy MPEG tends not to be.

Has anyone mentioned the Bare Wench Project. Pretty girls, but to annoying to watch.

There's a restaurant here in Buffalo, NY that has an enormous one person bathroom. When I use the urinal I feel like I'm in the basement sceen from the movie.

I was actually a manager of a movie theater at the time. Loved the movie, thought it was one of the better horror films ever made. Not only did people believe it was real, but even those that didn't typically liked it because it made you use your imagination rather than "jump out and scare you" cop out scares that most horror films resort to.

I think that's the difference between those who hated it and those who liked it: Imagination. People that hated it typically just wanted to see the "witch" at the end. They didn't want to have to think or try to figure out what this thing might actually be. They just wanted to see a big scary monster at the end. The people that enjoy reading and more intellectual entertainment typically liked it.

This, of course, excludes those that just disliked the shaky-cam effects because it made them sick. We would usually have at least one person a day puke in the theater. Always fun to send an usher in to clean it up.

Another fun fact: I bought the "Newsweek" about the movie that had the three kids on the cover, posing and mugging for the picture. I kept it behind the garbage can, and would pull it out every time I would hear people walking out from the film say "You know that was real, right?" Just to watch their response. Most people just went "Huh, wow, they did a good job." A few of them got pissed off, though. Like they were really worried about those kids, and were pissed off that they were manipulated in such a way and now they hated the movie.

For me, it was a sign of a good film that could convince you that this crap was real.

Because I had no TV, I didn't hear much hype. I did hear that there was a little hype that the story was true, but it was word of mouth, and all my friends are pretty smart, so there was no one who believed it.

I watched the film. I thought it was amazing for a low monologue-ish story. There's a lot of natural suspension of disbelief because nothing was overdone.. you had to use your imagination.

Later, I was rather confused that some people thought the story was real. Since I'm anti-hype, I was really in disbelief that there were people out there who couldn't wrap their brains around the idea that it was just a movie. Of course, this was all before the 9-11 conspiracy theorists. Since that particular phenomenon, I am acutely aware of how many stupid people there are out there.

that should read "Low budget monologue-ish"

thenewflesh: Also seconded from recommendations in the thread (people who hate thinking during movies need not apply):

Primer
Pi
Cube
Ringu (original Japanese version of The Ring)
The Devil's Backbone
Man Bites Dog
Event Horizon
The Thing

Wow. I have seen everything but Man bites dog. I just recommended The Devil's Backbone to someone last night, lol. That's one of my absolute favs. Event Horizon seemed a little over the top but gave me the serious creeps anyway.

I'm hearing good stuff about Drag Me To Hell.. and thinking I might want to catch it in the theater.. do you know anything about it?

Oznog: Oznog: Geez, can't a guy take a piss in the corner without you getting all "screamy"?

Now I can't even finish. I'm all tightened up.

mtmitch:That's the shot that freaked me out the most. You only see it for a second or two and the first time I saw it I wasn't sure if he was floating or hanging.

None the less, that shot is what made the hair on the back of neck stand up.

Well, even for those who got NO reaction out of this, you gotta respect the filmmakers for being able to get this kind of reaction out of SOME people when all there is is a guy in a corner. THAT'S art.

There are people who "don't get" BWP, some who found it "neat", and others who were genuinely terrified.

Me, I downloaded it, so my expectations were not extremely high, therefore no disappointment factor associated with overhype. I thought it was pretty "neat".

That was the shot that made me mad. It was the stupid campfire "boo".

On movies:

By the way, I just watched Lucky (2002) again, that's a good one. Adaptation (2002) was another thinking movie, very good. Not as much horror, more intrigue. Barton Fink (1991) was very good, saw that a couple months ago for the first time.

I just saw David Byrne's True Stories (1986).. and it was very very odd. Some underlying messages about people and society, and it will either have you falling asleep from boredom or watching simply because the film is so.. odd. In any case, pay close attention to the dialogue and narration, and you'll be imparted with Byrne's take on life.

dead_dangler: What a Blair witch might look like.

Leaving this thread forever before the Fact of Life Halloween special images start showing up.

Cerebral Ballsy: I just saw David Byrne's True Stories (1986).. and it was very very odd. Some underlying messages about people and society, and it will either have you falling asleep from boredom or watching simply because the film is so.. odd. In any case, pay close attention to the dialogue and narration, and you'll be imparted with Byrne's take on life.

I love that movie!

It's probably one of my top ten favorites.

When I first saw it at a friend's house in the early to mid 90's, I was astounded that someone saw the world the same way I did. And it was the big suit guy from the Talking Heads! Of course, he's much, much more than that, but that's all I knew him for before I saw the movie.

coffee fiend: Jonesy Boogieman: I was living in Virginia. Went to see it with my ex.

I don't know which was scarier now that I look back.

As a resident of Virginia for almost 50 years, I'd say it's probably the former. Unless your ex is Glenn Close...

/stays out of the woods
//checking my stovetop for boiling bunnies

Ha! That was an unintentional joke on my part, but pretty accurate actually. Thanks for pointing it out. I meant "which was scarier, my ex or the movie?" LoL

But speaking of staying out of the woods, man, being an Albertan boy transplanted to living near a couple of swamps East-South East of Petersburg, damn:

1. The first time I saw a Black Widow spider it was on my foot, AFTER I put my foot in a shoe, sockless, felt a tickle and kicked the shoe off so fast I nearly put myself on my ass. Didn't get bit though, I think I killed it first. I didn't wait to see.

2. The first time I saw a Brown Recluse, or Fiddleback Spider (^) was after a short drought temporarily dried our well up. I moved a plate out of the sink and that farking thing charged at me from the drain, pissed off that I disturbed it. I can still recall the scratching sounds it's legs made on the deep aluminum sides of the sink before I drowned and crushed it.

3. The swamps flooded after a hurricane passed up the coast. I can't believe how many snakes appeared in the yard (I lived on an acreage) and on the road as a result.

But, some of the good things:

1. Beautiful countryside. Though the humidity and heat suck.

2. Grits, Biscuits, and other "southern" style food. You're hard pressed to find anything comparable to them in Alberta.

3. Awesome history. The colonies, the battlefields... It was fascinating.

Jonesy Boogieman:

2. Grits, Biscuits, and other "southern" style food. You're hard pressed to find anything comparable to them in Alberta.



I am from Alberta too. What is the matter with pancakes at Albert's?

Benalto: Jonesy Boogieman:

2. Grits, Biscuits, and other "southern" style food. You're hard pressed to find anything comparable to them in Alberta.

I am from Alberta too. What is the matter with pancakes at Albert's?

"Comparable to them". :) "Grits" at Denny's is terrible. The biscuit at Tim Horton's is decent, but not as good as they are down there. I guess I should have emphasized I meant direct comparisons.

Benalto: Jonesy Boogieman:

2. Grits, Biscuits, and other "southern" style food. You're hard pressed to find anything comparable to them in Alberta.

I am from Alberta too. What is the matter with pancakes at Albert's?

"Comparable to them". :) "Grits" at Denny's is terrible. The biscuit at Tim Horton's is decent, but not as good as they are down there. I guess I should have emphasized I meant direct comparisons.

(Correction made)

I was raised in Alberta. And after living in a couple of other places, and traveling a bit, I love being home the most.

Sitting at home while my wife and daughter went to see it. I told them it looked stupid, but they went anyway.

cYn21: Why? Because a bundle of sticks "magically" appeared outside their tent? Or perhaps the final scene with the kids peeing in the corners of a dark room?

There was nothing scary about that movie, aside from the atrocious camera work.

That movie was so awful. The only good part was when that one kid admitted to throwing the map into the creek. That was loltastic.

THIS. I hated this movie. It wasn't scary, it was a movie about a bunch of easily-scared whiny douchebags who deserved what they got. It bored me to tears.

At least the craptacular sequel had tits in it.

/cue the "ZOMG U JUST DONT GET IT" and "U MUST NOT HAEV AN IMAGINATION!!11!!" douches.

This was the only mvie that has ever scared me. I think you are required to have some sort of imagination to watch this movie....

djklambake: I sat in a packed "ultra screen" theater in Milwaukee, WI, fed up with the whole POS movie, and at the very end when the dude was standing in the corner, I yelled "HE'S TAKING A LEAK" and half the theater laughed - the other half was very upset that I ruined the only scare in the whole damn movie. I proceeded to drink the rest of the night away. The drinking was more memorable.

Too bad the half that was upset didn't beat you to within an inch of your life.

And what's with you people claiming 'motion sickness'? You must puke every time you're in a car that hits a bump.

thenewflesh: Hmmm... I thought the ending was blatantly obvious if you'd actually been paying attention through the whole movie...

****major spoiler*****

One of the interviewees near the beginning of the movie talks about a local serial killer named Rustin Parr. He kidnapped local children and killed them in pairs, forcing one kid to stand facing the corner of a room while he murdered another kid. When he was caught, he pled insanity, claiming that the spirit of the Blair Witch had demanded them as sacrifices.

So, the final moments have the two remaining characters discover Parr's house. They see some creepy shiat (including handprints of his victims all over the walls), then get separated. When Heather gets to the basement, Mike is stood facing the corner, then she's attacked from behind. The implication is that either Parr is alive and has escaped from the asylum, or its the ghost of the Blair Witch continuing his work and taking sacrifices for herself.

If you read the book that came out with the movie, it's even more messed up. The book goes into the fictional mythology and suggests that the campers were displaced in time (Parr's house had supposedly burned to the ground by the time of the movie). It takes a bit more swallowing, but explains why they couldn't find their way out of the woods and why no rescuers couldn't find anything but their footage.

****end spoiler****

If you want good "found footage" movies, try the following:

Cannibal Holocaust (it's possible on some copies to watch without the real-life animal brutality)
[REC] (just been officially released in the US on DVD, the upcoming sequel looks excellent)
Slashers (not quite the same format, but I loved it...)
My Little Eye
Cloverfield (hey, I liked it!)

Also seconded from recommendations in the thread (people who hate thinking during movies need not apply):

Primer
Pi
Cube
Ringu (original Japanese version of The Ring)
The Devil's Backbone
Man Bites Dog
Event Horizon
The Thing

One more to add:

/Last great John Carpenter flick, IMHO

I was living in the middle of nowhere in one of the few undeveloped parts of Florida. We had wild boar and chickens that would walk through the dead leaves at night. FYI, when chickens walk through dead leaves at 2am it sounds like someone sneaking around your house.

/movie was "okay"

My sister went to see it and thought it was okay. I avoided it based on the fact that I get motion-sick at the drop of a hat.

I was home from college and hooked up with a bunch of old friends from high school and they wanted to go see a movie about some witch in the forest. I'd never heard of the movie or seen any of the ads for it. And of course we went to the late show that let out at like 1AM. The camera work didn't make me puke or anything but I still drove home all freaked out. Plus there were some noises in the distance that sounded just like the ones in the movie. Didn't sleep too well.

Found the DVD back at school for dirt cheap but to this day I have never watched it and I'm not sure why. I think it's the only DVD I own that I've never watched.

wow no way I'm reading all this now, tag for later

RE: "Mute Witness":

As loathe as I am to ascribe any action to a man who has been lacking a heartbeat for half of my extant life, I strongly suspect that if I'd had the chance to view this film in the presence of one A. Hitchcock I'd have borne witness to him granting the film an appreciative grin or two.

Cerebral Ballsy:
I'm hearing good stuff about Drag Me To Hell.. and thinking I might want to catch it in the theater.. do you know anything about it?

Well, it was the first film in years that elicited any end-credit applause from the audience with which I'd viewed it (let alone the rapturous, sustained applause that this film received from the packed second-run theater audience of which I was a member).

In behind the scenes/inside baseball terminology: this movie PLAYED.
It deserved far,far better than it got theatrically; although I've no doubt this will be a home-vid/cable fave for YEARS.
As much as this sounds like faint praise, it's not (well, maybe 1%): DMTH IS the best major studio horror release I've seen this decade (and I've damned near viewed them all (rarely in a theater, though).

I enjoyed it, don't know why other people have such EXTREME opinions on it.

It does help if you watch the accompanying films/shows, like "Sticks & Stones", and the "news" programs they made to go with it.

I can't believe so many people simply don't get that the trio was transported in space and time, and weren't simply Lost in the woods", but being herded to Rustin Parr's house in the 1940s.

At the very least you'd think people would catch that the house didn't exist in 1994, as it had been burned to the ground in the 40s. The beginning of the movie made an effort to get this point across to the audience by flatly stating it as a fact.

ScottHimself: I will not be watching this movie, but am curious why the last scene was so 'good'. I just watched it without sound (at work) and obviously didn't understand what was going on.

Can someone explain why seeing your friend in a corner and then dropping the camera (or dying whatever the case may be) is not the most anti-climactic ending ever?

This is what I've been trying to figure out...I thought it was the worse movie I ever saw.

Cerebral Ballsy: I'm hearing good stuff about Drag Me To Hell.. and thinking I might want to catch it in the theater.. do you know anything about it?

Not seen it yet, but Sam Raimi + horror + not "The Gift" = win... If you haven't seen the Evil Dead trilogy, check those out as well but most genre fans seem to agree that Drag Me To Hell is worth the admission.

Vash's Apprentice: One more to add:

/Last great John Carpenter flick, IMHO

Oh yes indeed! Any movie that opens with Sam Neill being dragged kicking and screaming into an asylum is OK with me. I'm a Carpenter fanboy, though... I just wish he'd make another movie soon so that Ghosts Of Mars doesn't go down in history as his last theatrical release!

Tony Baloney: I always thought the trailer for Event Horizon was infinitely more creepy than the actual movie -- its editors should have gotten an award, since it compelled me to go more strongly than any ad I've ever seen before or since. The imagery of the movie itself was certainly disturbing, but to this day nothing's creeped me out more than John Carpenter's The Thing. Sure the FX are dated and even cheesy in places by today's standards, but nothing I've ever seen compares to it in terms of sheer HOLY FARK WHAT THE FARK WAS THAT DID YOU SEE THAT FARKIN SHIAT???

Oh man Event Horizon. That movie used to scare the crap out of me, at least for the first two thirds. For this reason, I had a hell of a time watching Sunshine and that one episode of Firefly where they find that crazy guy on the ship that the reavers hit. Lesson here is: Don't board an abandoned ship. Man, just don't do it.

Blair Witch I found less scary. I didn't watch it in theaters, but saw it on VHS (!) a year or two later with some friends. I liked that it was such a cliffhanger ending, but so much of that movie was about getting there that we got bored, made popcorn, told jokes, and completely ruined the creepy factor.