Art is subjective and liking one film and not liking another has nothing to do with intelligence.
For me, this point of view is losing some of its lustre. While it's true that you can't necessarily draw a straight line between liking a good film and being intelligent, willfully
not appreciating a film that has (at the very least)
elements of brilliance can sometimes say more about the person in question than he or she might want to believe.
I mean, if we're just going to throw up our hands and yell, "All opinions are equally valid! All art can only be appreciated subjectively! There is no way to objectively assess a film's quality!" that's fine, but I don't think any of us truly
believe that, even if it's fashionable to champion such points of view when discussing films. Democratic principles and all that.
The Blair Witch Project is an interesting case. I think it's great -- genuinely great, and probably the most significant horror movie of the 1990s -- but I'm frequently baffled when it comes to defending the film to its detractors. I know that, for some people (especially in the case of horror films) movies are little more than entertainment, so I'm not exactly surprised to encounter people who say things like, "
Paranormal Activity is way better!"
And I admit that only weirdos like me can claim to actually "enjoy" this movie (it's a bit like "enjoying"
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre) I would hope that most people with a reasonably sophisticated sense of film technique could at least "admire" it.
Still. I really do want to explain myself. I want to make people understand what makes
The Blair Witch Project so damned great; they still might not enjoy it, exactly, but understanding and appreciating its merits would be a good start.
If I had to pinpoint just a few elements...
1. The acting. This is a movie that lives and dies with the quality of the performances. The fear and dread of these characters inhabits every furtive look, every crack in their voices, every helpless yell. I don't think authentic, visceral terror has ever been more convincingly rendered in the history of cinema (along with
TTCM). (And while this might not be "acting" exactly, let's not underestimate the presence of the townspeople sharing local lore in the film's opening reel. Those testimonials pay off in a tremendous way suspense-wise as things start to go wrong.)
2. The immediacy and intensity. I've never been lost in the woods -- not really. But the reason this film makes me so uneasy is because it makes the experience so palpable -- and there's essentially no relief once things get underway. The movie operates like a vice, and the increasing desperation of the three leads is what makes it so unbearable. Notice that things don't get worse by a brushstroke; it's a methodical, deliberate escalation, skillful in what it doesn't show and particular in what it does show.
3. The element of the unexplained. I know some viewers feel cheated by the movie. Conversely, I feel cheated every time a horror movie thinks so little of me that it feels the need to explain every single plot thread in excruciating detail.
The Blair Witch Project, more than any other film I can think of, does a wonderful job of withholding information to increase our fear. We don't know what it is pursuing the kids, why it left slime on their belongings, what Heather sees in the woods, whether that old crone was talking nonsense, why Mike is standing in the corner, etc.
Paranormal Activity doesn't have one iota of this film's moxie or skill. And I only use that film as a point of comparison because they were each touted as masterworks of indie horror, crafted on modest budgets. But really, I have a hard time thinking of
any subsequent horror film that measures up to
The Blair Witch Project. Further, if fear is the ultimate gauge for such films, I can say with certainty that nothing since has come close.
Which is a long way to say that, as much as I love horror movies, they don't scare me.
The Blair Witch Project scares me.
But yes, the whole "Go watch a Michael Bay movie" school of IMDb put-down was never particularly clever, and it's been run into the ground.
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Degree7
9 years ago
Well said.
I think it's well documented that there are objective qualities to an art form that can be acknowledged, even if your overall enjoyment or appraisal of it is subjective.
~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.
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waltvenditti-95482
9 years ago
Good points - all of them. There are a few other things worth mentioning here. But before I do that, let me just unburden myself of the observation that The Blair Witch Project is literally perfect as a story, as a horror film. I watched it last in a recent multi-day horror movie binge, and literally could not find a single thing wrong with it. You could argue over value of the "thesis" or the theme of it (which is don't disrespect old legends or warnings), or the whether there was a better way to communicate that theme or not, but you cannot argue about the execution, about the character development, or about the logic of the events.
And that brings me to my first point - there is literally not a single point in this film where you go, "oh, come on. Just do [blank]!" Having watched this film right after "The Taking of Deborah Logan", I was so relieved by the lack of scenes where the characters act illogically.
In The Taking of Deborah Logan, there are so many instances where you say "just shoot her!" or "just burn the damn bag!" (you know what I mean if you've seen it). The Taking is filled with characters who act like idiots, purely so they can keep the story going in a suspenseful manner. The Blair Witch, on the other hand, does not have any instances of that. The reason this film was so popular was because the characters act 100% as you or I might act in a similar situation. There is nothing unrealistic about their actions. They freak when you or I would freak, they argue when you or I would, they break down as you or I would.
Compare that to Paranormal Activity, which by comparison is a symposium of stupid. Sure the film is entertaining, but my god are the characters dumb. The fact that they did not leave after the first night of paranormal activity means you spend the entire movie going "oh my god, are you stupid? Just leave! Or call the cops and show them the film!". It's scary, but it's also dumb because you can't get over how stupid the characters act.
Next, the point you brought up about the fear of the unknown. What the people who bring that up as a criticism don't realize is that the more you know about a horror entity, the less scary it is. This ties in with the idea that when you don't know what something is, you don't know how to characterize it, how to respond to it. Is it a vampire? Oh, OK, get garlic and silver. Is it a satanic demon? OK, get a priest and a bible. Is it a mutant animal? OK, get a big gun.
In this film, there is literally nothing that lets us characterize the threat properly. We don't even know if it's the thing that the people described in the beginning of the film. All we know is that it's a cognitive threat (violates our understanding of the world) and it's a physical threat (is stalking the characters and will cause them bodily harm). All the gaps are filled in by our imagination, and all the lack of information means we don't know what to do or how to handle it. It is perfect this way. I guarantee that if the movie was made so that the full nature of the Blair Witch was revealed, all the critics would be going "oh my god, it's so stupid! It's just a [blank]!" Horror REQUIRES this unknown aspect; it requires that the threat be not just a physical threat but a cognitive one as well. The monster needs to violate our understanding of the natural world, which means it must be incomprehensible.
The Blair Witch does this perfectly.
Now, character development. The ending is satisfying because even though we don't know what happened, we accept the end because the characters has transformed. They've changed, which is something every story requires. The girl accepts that she was too bossy and naive, and accepts responsibility for the whole predicament. She also abandons her naive "tough-girl" persona and therefore abandons the part of her that was so patronizing in the beginning of the film. The male character, the one who makes it to the end, under goes a similar change, in that he acquires a sort of peace, an acceptance of the whole situation; contrast this with his previous arguing and emotional outbursts and you'll see what I mean. The male character that disappears before the other two, on the other hand, undergoes his own change as well. Before he vanishes, he breaks down, practically harassing the girl character while filming her. He brings her to tears if I remember right. So even he has a change - the woods ruined him, turned him into a terrible person. And remember he was the calm one in the beginning.
These might sound like stupid points, but every film, every story, requires changes like this. Even if they aren't drastic, it is a foundational element of story-telling. The book "Invisible Ink" lays this out well.
Blair Witch is perfect as a three-act story, it's perfect in it's emphasis on the characters and how they are effected by the paranormal events, it's perfect in all the technical aspects of film-making.
There are some crap-tastic movies that hit it big, but some movies that hit it big do so for a reason. There is a reason everyone knows this films name. It is a masterpiece. And I say that as someone who has spent the last three days watching crappy film after crappy film. I know what *beep* is.
But as an addendum, let me say that sometimes a movie is just not to your taste. I get it. The Wicker Man (1973) is supposedly the Citizen Kane of horror film, but man did I think it was stupid. Christopher Lee (Saruman in LoTR) considered it the best film he was ever in, but I just couldn't get into it. So taste is a big part of it. But I am not exaggerating when I say this film is a masterpiece that is more than deserving of its reputation.
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dwfubar-564-667323
8 years ago
People who consider themselves above the rest of us are the ones who loves this "movie", people who consider themselves film snobs
Or who I consider film snobs..
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dwfubar-564-667323
8 years ago
People who consider themselves above the rest of us are the ones who loves this "movie", people who consider themselves film snobs
Or who I consider film snobs..
reply
share