Documentary-style horror wasn’t a thing until Blair Witch, so the fact that we are watching handheld camera work was really pretty brand-new and cool at the time. ![]() My other problem with this film is also what makes it so special: the camera work. But holy fuck, when half of your movie is pissy teens being lost, it makes it hard for me to want to keep going. Part of what makes a good found footage film work is the inclusion of footage that might not really directly connect to the plot, because the idea is that this is just when Joe Shmo turned the camera on and Joe Shmo doesn’t know where all this is going, so interspersed with foreshadowing and plot points is just some random shit, which adds to the realism. The creepy shit parts are pretty delicately sprinkled into the film, which is cool and means that you’re not being hit over the head by murder ghosts, but it also means that a lot of screen time is opened up to teenagers being lost and having teen feelings. Like holy shit arguing teenagers forever. But, just to get it out of the way, here are the two reasons it’s not worth seeing. This is where I’ll stop in case people haven’t actually seen this movie, because it is definitely worth seeing. Until one night….when Teen 2 goes fucking missing. All three Teens, furious at each other, hike in circles for several days in the creepy creepy woods, finding nothing but stick people and the disembodied laughter of children. ![]() Teens 1 and 2 lose their shit with Teen 3. Teen 2 is grumpy, but Teen 3 gets so pissed at Teen 1 that he kicks the map into the river. Teen 1 is being a real bitch about taking control of the map and she’s freaking out the most. What starts as weird noises in the dark becomes cairns popping up outside their tent in the middle of the night and headless stick figures hanging from trees (as in figures literally made of sticks, not just drawings done by people who love to tell you how dumb and easy drawing is because they never went to art school and got raked over the fucking coals because their color theory isn’t perfect BECAUSE DRAWING IS ACTUALLY HARD. And don’t get me wrong, the creepy shit is creepy. Then they try to hike back to the car.Īnd here we have an hour of The Teens bickering about who should have the map and where they should go, interspersed with creepy shit. They find more creepy shit and camp again. The next day they walk deeper in the woods despite not being super clear on where the fuck they’re going, BUT I BET YOU KNOW WHERE THIS IS GOING. Then they walk not nearly far enough away from fucking Murder Rock and they camp. They hike around filming establishing shots and Teen 1 does some dramatic introductions of various important locations, like a rock where a shitload of men were ritualistically murdered in the 19th century. Then Teen 1, Teen 2, and Teen 3 all wander out into the woods to try to get some footage of the ghost witch. Later he would tell the police that a witch made him do it because IT’S ALWAYS THE WOMAN’S FAULT, ISN’T IT. ![]() We learn that there was one dude who claimed to have been possessed by the witch – he lived in the woods as a hermit in the 40s and kidnapped and killed children in pairs in his basement, making one stand in the corner facing the wall while he killed the other. ![]() The found footage.įirst we see a bit of what their documentary was meant to be, interviews with the locals about the legend and their experiences of any paranormal activity in the woods. The movie begins by stating that the three filmmakers are all missing and that the documentary footage you are about to watch is all they had to indicate what may have become of them, and they found it in the woods. Three grungy teen filmmakers head to Burkittsville, Maryland, to film a documentary about the ghost of a woman known as the Blair Witch who had been executed for witchcraft in 1785. If by some miracle you have no idea what this movie is, let me take you back on a journey to 1999, a time when you could party like it was. You always saw the monster, you always had a sweeping soundtrack to indicate when something was scary, and you always knew it wasn’t real. Horror movies at the time were kind of loud and dumb and obvious, even the good ones (which were more smart and loud and obvious). NOBODY expected the Blair Witch inquisition. Blair Witch is the first big hit of the genre and it really is a textbook example of found footage done right, with the exception of one glaring issue that I’ll get to later. Finally, I get to talk about why I like found footage movies.
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