Jul 24, 2016

Really? A New BLAIR WITCH movie?

A trailer for a new horror movie titled The Woods surfaced recently that many thought resembled the story of the original movie The Blair Witch Project.  On it's own the story of the original Blair Witch Project movie wasn't very groundbreaking. Much like The Woods and many other haunted forest movies it's about a group of young adults that get lost in the woods and  get haunted by an unseen spirit.

With that being said, many aspects of the first Blair Witch Project movie made it truly unique. It revolutionized horror movies. In my opinion more for the worse than for the better because almost every horror movie to be released since then has been the same "found footage" and conveniently low budget filming style  But the way Blair Witch Project was marketed and presented early on, with fake documentaries and historical websites helped create a word of mouth marketing buzz. Then being released in small theater added to it's own mysterious mythology and history. Many people, including myself, while sitting in a leaking, tiny damp theater in Berkeley during a rainstorm, still wasn't sure if it was real or not. People leaving the theater in awe and confusion. All murmuring to each other "what did I just watch?"

Blair Witch Project was the first and last true found footage movie that worked. Every found footage movie to come after (including the Blair Witch sequel)  were a complete joke. Excuses to do cheap production. No one is fooled.

By the time Blair Witch got really popular and people that saw the previews on TV and watched it in the megaplex it was already ruined. The Blair Witch Project that came out in major theaters a few months later was essentially an entirely different movie in a way. I don't blame people for saying "that movie sucked" if they experienced it like this because by then the cat was out of the bag, it really did suck because the mystery was gone.

Now as many suspected the movie with the working title of  The Woods is actually a reboot of the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project. It will be released September 2016 with the title Blair Witch.  To make a full production remake of this is just stupid and lazy.