Blair Witch: 12 years later

I have a confession to make.

Up until the night before, I had never seen the Blair Witch Project.

It's a funny thing to say considering it's been out forever, I'm a huge horror fan, and I've seen all the hype, the backlash, the bad parodies. Hell I even played one of the games based off the movies. I just never did it but for 5 dollars at Target I thought what the hell. So I bought it and intended to watch it with an open mind.

The end result? I can understand why people thought it was over hyped. Personally I didn't find it that particularly scary. And yet I didn't think it was a BAD film. Let me attempt to explain.

What I mean is I did like the idea of the film, the granddaddy of "found footage" films. The three main characters all gave great performances with nary a false note and the film moved at a fast clip. It's just not as scary as the reviewers claimed. Maybe I'm desensitized to horror or whatever but a good sixty minutes is them doing the documentary and progressively get lost. There were only a few scenes of true terror.

They were and SPOILERS for the two people who hadn't seen it yet.
-The tent shaking scene
-Heather learning of Josh's probable demise via severed tongue and teeth.
-The finding of the stick figures.
-The last ten minutes in the house of Rustin Parr.

These moments though are far and between. But once again I can't say it was a bad film. It just feels disjointed; two different films mashed together really. The ending was really good how they framed it, but looking back the people who compared it to the unnerving power of The Exorcist just sound silly now.

The thing is I can't really consider it horror. If I had to give it anything, it would be psychological but even that is loose in my usual definition. When I think of psychological I think of Spiral (a great flick I need to watch again) or The Machinist.

So I guess in closing I'll say this; It was still good despite the above, I can understand why people harped on it badly afterwards, and I really don't need/want to see it again. It was a filler movie nothing more.

I've ordered Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 off Amazon which should be here in a few days. I'm wondering to see if I fall on the side of the "cult classic" fans or the "this is fucking crap" detractors. We shall see and I'll post about it later.

Until next time, fly high and fly well.