Blumhouse and Lionsgate Join Forces for Brand New ‘Blair Witch ’ Movie
share
Ugh.
It will be shit like everything else that came after the original.
End of story.
The original wasn't even that great.
It's legacy is built upon some falling for the marketing gimmick when it came out, it being a box office hit despite a ridiculously small budget, it's success opening the flood gates for other found-footage horror movies and also the fact some people are of the belief The Blair Witch Project was the very first movie of this type.
Strip that all away and taken at face value and you're left with a decent found-footage horror movie. [Rec] (2007) thoroughly rinsed it, the best of that sub-genre in my opinion by a vast distance. Hell House LLC (2015) and Host (2020) bested it. Not to mention Ghostwatch (1992) did the whole 'this is really happening' gimmick so much better.
I see many who champion this movie saying stuff like "You had to be there", in that you had to be a teenager back in 1999 who believed what you were watching was real and experiencing the hype at the time of it's release. If a movie has to rely on such a specific set of circumstances then it's probably not all that.
I agree. I thought The Blair Witch Project was very boring. Ghostwatch is better and a little known classic. I did enjoy Curse of the Blair Witch, the pusedo-documentary that came out around the time the film did.
share[Rec] was terrible.
shareWhatever….it was innovative and great at the time…I believe the number one thing a movie should be is great in it’s time….sometimes because the underlying story or concept becomes cliched or some of the technical aspects don’t age well…it may not appear so great later….but I think that’s irrelevant if the audience in real time is into it.
shareThat's where you and I differ.
There are some who defer to 'the first'. When asked what the best movie is in a franchise, they'll often name the original. When asked for the greatest zombie movie they'll pick Night of the Living Dead (1968). For a vampire movie Nosferatu (1922), for the best slasher Halloween (1978) and of course for a found-footage movie The Blair Witch Project (1999).
My hot take as a movie fan is I'll regularly rank sequels and remakes above originals, if I deem them superior. I also don't grant such reverence to 'the first'.
The reason I don't like judging a movie by it's original reception is because it's locked down for good, no opportunity for reappraisal or criticism. I also consider it a rigging of the system in favor of older movies, trying to protect them. For example some would say it's not fair to compare Halloween to later slasher movies but these same people are more than happy to compare Halloween to movies that were released before it. Basically they grant Halloween an advantage over older work (newer technology/standards, loosened censorship and so on) whilst working to prevent other movies from sharing similar advantages over it.
This method heavily favors older movies and is very harsh on recent releases as people will judge new movies against everything under the sun whilst they protect older movies because 'it's not fair' to compare them to newer movies.
Rec is just a bigger budget, more glossy, and far fetched film that pales in comparison to the original Blair Witch Project.
This narrative that only people who thought it was real, praise it….well that’s all a lie.
The reason that Blair Witch still gets talked about today while Rec is already forgotten about is the way that the film was put together.
Never in the history of Cinema did a film let all of its actors improvise their own lines and come up with stuff on the fly. This pumped up the realism on screen and made you believe that you weren’t looking at actors on screen but real people.
Rec is just another generic found footage that entirely misses the point on what made Blair Witch so unique and raw.
Nailed it, 100% agree.
shareHey man to each their own but you're completely off the mark with regards to [Rec] being forgotten. It got 3 sequels and a remake (with the remake getting it's own sequel). It's widely regarded as one of the top found-footage horror movies of all time and it's regularly voted as one of the greatest horror movies of all time.
I'm not sure what gave you the impression it was forgotten but in any case the fact it's a Spanish language movie works against in when judging it against The Blair Witch Project on English speaking sections of the internet.
Critics at TimeOut magazine voted [Rec] the 60th greatest horror movie of all time in 2024. (TBWP is #27)
https://www.timeout.com/film/best-horror-films
Horror fans on Reddit voted [Rec] as the 35th greatest horror movie of all time in 2022. (TBWP is #16)
https://letterboxd.com/dreadit/list/dreadits-top-horror-films-of-all-time-6th/
Horror fans on Reddit voted [Rec] as the scariest horror movie of all time in 2018. (TBWP is #74)
https://letterboxd.com/gambit1138/list/r-horrors-extremely-scary-movies/
Horror fans on Reddit voted [Rec] as the 12th scariest movie of all time in 2022. (TBWP is at #5)
https://letterboxd.com/dreadit/list/dreadits-scariest-movies-of-all-time/
It's consistently voted as the second greatest found-footage movie only bested by TBWP, regularly voted as one of the scariest movies of all time and is almost always included in recent fan and critic lists of the outright greatest horror movies of all time.
'Not to mention Ghostwatch (1992) did the whole 'this is really happening' gimmick so much better.'
I watched Ghostwatch when it was first shown on Halloween in 1992 and really enjoyed it. Hoped for years it would be repeated but of course it never was. Bought the DVD a few years back and was pleasantly surprised how well a lot of it holds up.