Yeah, I am going to go ahead and take advantage of the news from San Diego Comic-con. The horror film by Adam Wingard, The Woods was revealed to be Blair Witch, a sequel to the 1999 found footage horror film.
If I go back to the summer of 1999, I can remember a friend of mine calling me. He knew I was a big time horror fan and he asked if I heard about the website. Three missing college students and the footage of their last days was uncovered. I couldn’t believe this, they were going to show the actual footage of these kids final days, being lost in the woods. The website, everything pointed to this being true. I followed it very closely, the film makers did such a great job promoting the movie as “real”.
There was a documentary about the legend of the Blair Witch, it was possibly better than the movie itself. The film makers built a legend, a deep history of this Blair Witch and it was believable. With all of this, I was there, in line opening night to see, what I thought was a historic movie event.
A bunch of friends and I went to see the movie and when I walked out, I felt sick. The Blair Witch Project is a found footage film and it is very shaky. I couldn’t handle the shaky camera work. But I did enjoy the story. It was late and we were all a little spooked from the experience. We all still believe the story to be real. I was 19 and to think about life ending that early or the paranormal actually existed.
We walked the streets of our small town and I remember thinking, anything is out there. The Blair Witch Project was a game changer. I could not stop thinking about the movie and its effect on me.
The following morning I woke up and saw the newspaper sitting on the dining room table. There was a big headline, front page. “Blair Witch Project Hoax!” I read the article and shortly after I saw Heather Donahue in Steak n’ Shake commercials. I was bummed, but thought, man that is a good way to get people in the seats.
The movie is an interesting film. I still believe it works today. It worked better when we all thought it was real. But in watching the movie years later, I have come to really respect what it does. If you watch the movie, check out the mockumentary, Curse of the Blair Witch. It came with the original DVD and I believe it is on YouTube. I will check. You have to pay $2.99, worth it.
The Blair Witch Project gets a bad reputation. It is, what it is. An ok horror movie that is a traditional slow burn that picks up at the end of the movie. I am in to those kind of horror movies. Even for the Millennials, I would suggest it. I don’t think I really need to do an in-depth review of the Blair Witch Project. It is found footage…which is not for everyone.
IMDB.com rates it 6.3
The Horror Syndicate 6.8
