Next on my horrendous back log, is this steaming pile of laziness.
OK, maybe that is slightly harsh but also true.
'Blair Witch' is the second sequel to the ground breaker that was 1999's 'The Blair Witch Project'.
Its basically THE SAME FILM, with allowances made for the fact that it's 15 years later and we're technologically advanced beyond a couple of 90's camcorders.
This is the second attempt made (I can't even begin to talk about 'Book of Shadows') to replicate the monumental success of the original film and to no ones surprise, it failed.
'Blair Witch' has so far managed to recoup its meager $5 mil budget at least 7 times over, which in terms of return is actually a real success but when you compare it to the original film, which made at least 4 THOUSAND times its $60k budget, this is a dog shit performance to say the least.
Also, to add insult to injury the horror films of late have been raking in hundreds of millions while 'Blair Witch' has barely scraped thirty odd.
There is a reason for this and I will try and ramble through an explanation.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 15 years, you will know that 'The Blair Witch Project' is a found footage psychological horror film - often lauded as the first of its kind. Wrong.
I think the first that I know of is actually 'Cannibal Holocaust' - for the love of god don't watch it. You have been warned.
There is roughly another 6 or 7 that precede it but none really all that worthy of note and to be honest 'The Blair Witch Project' would probably not be worthy of its status without the power of online marketing and the millions that was spent on it by Artisan.
That's why it was such a phenomenon and such a huge financial success, because we all believed it was true; few of us had even heard of such a concept before and it was exciting and I have to say, the end is still one of the scariest moments of my life - that's why this new attempt was such a 'failure' - by this point we're all saying 'Yeah, well, sorry mate its getting boring now'
I should probably delete all that and talk about the actual film but to be honest, there isn't much to write.
If you've seen the first film then you've seen this one, except they now have drones and ear piece cameras, which I have to admit, did give the filmmakers the freedom to show us a lot more of the action, from a lot of different perspectives. Which was a positive.
Basically, a bunch of friends go into the woods, this time to find a missing sibling (Heather, from the first film) and they slowly get lost and weird stuff starts to happen and time goes all bat shit and they find a house and blah blah blah - again, its the same film with more people and a little bit more detail to the story, but to be honest, the stark simplicity of the first film is something I continue to love about it, even now. There's a huge difference between simplicity and laziness.
They also added a bit more to the back story of the Blair Witch and she even appears on camera for a couple of frames, which she didn't at all in the first film - but then again, I think that was all part of its charm and the threat of something is usually much scarier than its actual appearance - its the tension that makes a horror film.
If you take away the existence of the original film, then this as a stand alone horror, is a good solid film, with a well thought out story that scared the living shit out of me (I was completely on my own in a massive screen - bad move) but the original does exist and this is just a poor effort to make some money that frankly resembled something 'The Asylum' (God bless the bold as brass front of that lot) would have made and sent straight to DVD.
Talk about flogging a dead horse.
OK, maybe that is slightly harsh but also true.
'Blair Witch' is the second sequel to the ground breaker that was 1999's 'The Blair Witch Project'.
Its basically THE SAME FILM, with allowances made for the fact that it's 15 years later and we're technologically advanced beyond a couple of 90's camcorders.
This is the second attempt made (I can't even begin to talk about 'Book of Shadows') to replicate the monumental success of the original film and to no ones surprise, it failed.
'Blair Witch' has so far managed to recoup its meager $5 mil budget at least 7 times over, which in terms of return is actually a real success but when you compare it to the original film, which made at least 4 THOUSAND times its $60k budget, this is a dog shit performance to say the least.
Also, to add insult to injury the horror films of late have been raking in hundreds of millions while 'Blair Witch' has barely scraped thirty odd.
There is a reason for this and I will try and ramble through an explanation.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the last 15 years, you will know that 'The Blair Witch Project' is a found footage psychological horror film - often lauded as the first of its kind. Wrong.
I think the first that I know of is actually 'Cannibal Holocaust' - for the love of god don't watch it. You have been warned.
There is roughly another 6 or 7 that precede it but none really all that worthy of note and to be honest 'The Blair Witch Project' would probably not be worthy of its status without the power of online marketing and the millions that was spent on it by Artisan.
That's why it was such a phenomenon and such a huge financial success, because we all believed it was true; few of us had even heard of such a concept before and it was exciting and I have to say, the end is still one of the scariest moments of my life - that's why this new attempt was such a 'failure' - by this point we're all saying 'Yeah, well, sorry mate its getting boring now'
I should probably delete all that and talk about the actual film but to be honest, there isn't much to write.
If you've seen the first film then you've seen this one, except they now have drones and ear piece cameras, which I have to admit, did give the filmmakers the freedom to show us a lot more of the action, from a lot of different perspectives. Which was a positive.
Basically, a bunch of friends go into the woods, this time to find a missing sibling (Heather, from the first film) and they slowly get lost and weird stuff starts to happen and time goes all bat shit and they find a house and blah blah blah - again, its the same film with more people and a little bit more detail to the story, but to be honest, the stark simplicity of the first film is something I continue to love about it, even now. There's a huge difference between simplicity and laziness.
They also added a bit more to the back story of the Blair Witch and she even appears on camera for a couple of frames, which she didn't at all in the first film - but then again, I think that was all part of its charm and the threat of something is usually much scarier than its actual appearance - its the tension that makes a horror film.
If you take away the existence of the original film, then this as a stand alone horror, is a good solid film, with a well thought out story that scared the living shit out of me (I was completely on my own in a massive screen - bad move) but the original does exist and this is just a poor effort to make some money that frankly resembled something 'The Asylum' (God bless the bold as brass front of that lot) would have made and sent straight to DVD.
Talk about flogging a dead horse.