Greeting readers, HashtagBrownies here. I'm gonna be presenting the next film tonight...
And it's the best horror movie ever (Or the 34th best according to you bozos!).
What's the film you may ask? Well, it was released in 1999, it's only 80 minutes long, and it tells of a group of people being tormented by an evil, unstoppable force. Yup, it's...
What? No not Stuart Little! (Good guess though!).
34.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Runtime: 1Hr 21Mins
Production Company: Haxan Films
Distributed by Artisan Entertainment
Production Budget: $60,000
Box Office: $248,600,000
Nine Votes
131 Points (25, 20, 19, 16, 15, 14, 12, 5, 5)
High Voter: @
HashtagBrownies (Oh look it’s me!)
Released during a time when Found Footage was only a genre barely experimented with, and a time where people couldn't fathom the idea of films like Cloverfield or Marble Hornets, The Blair Witch Project came along and changed horror forever...
...And brought ALL the Paranormal activity movies along with it.
(Ok I'll be nice, I actually liked the first one).
I'm actually surprised it made it this far up the list as it appears to be a very mixed film. Some people think it's a masterpiece in terms of low budget cinema, and others think it's 'A boring ass movie where people argue about a map for 80 minutes'.
I think it's actually a brilliantly made film. The performances are so authentic (Whenever Heather screams it sounds like a woman seeing her child being murdered.) The refusal to show any actual 'witch' or real jumpscares seems very intentional (I would argue that Heather's terrified gasp and yelp after she opens the little 'package' counts as an effective jumpscare). It genuinely feels like we're watching the edited together scraps of footage of some real life people's last moments. The blunt title card and absence of music seems obvious but it's still so off-putting.
The film is actually incredibly well shot, thought most of it is accidental. The dutch angle during the first 'map' scene, Heather not filming the mysterious figure during the 'WHAT THE F*CK IS THAT?' scene despite it being the director's intention, the lighting during Heather's apology scene, The way the sun reflects off the B&W camera when it films the stick figures, I could go on. Each scene is dominated by the bare autumn trees that look like ominous, sharp, scary daggers.
It's an incredibly lonely movie: Apart from a dead mouse, NO-ONE apart from the main characters is seen after the 13 minute mark. Just the general atmosphere of the characters being all alone is quite disturbing: At least in films like Halloween the victims are surrounded by neighbours and actually get to SEE their tormentor. In this film that's just not the case.
-And lest we forget...
That damn house!
Why is it No.1 on my list? That's a good question. It's the only horror movie that GENUINELY terrifies me. I saw it when I was young, and it started to leave an impact on me after several viewings. It's a very personal film for me, the clothing of Heather seems as iconic as Freddy's striped jumper. I'm no psychologist, but I think the factors above contribute to why I think this is the scariest movie I've ever seen.
If you haven't seen the film yet, please do. If you like it, that's great.If you don't, well you probably only would've spent that 80 minutes wanking anyway!