Horrifying Reality
The Blair Witch
movie is a horror film with a questionable ending. A young man named James takes
a group of friends and locals out to the woods where his sister mysteriously
disappeared. The very first night, the locals and a select group of friends experience
a taste of the Blair Witch rumors, with a tree falling, for them to wake up to
branch made symbols tied on trees around the campsite. As James and his friend
were the only ones remaining as everyone else has disappeared into the forest,
they find the house and supposedly see Heather, James’s sister. No one makes it
out of the forest to tell the tale, which keeps the Blair Witch mystery a
mystery. The movie Blair Witch is a
horror film that satisfies todays characteristics of a horror movie.
Blair Witch is
categorized as a horror film, and it definitely fits into this category. This
movie is different than other horror movies in a numerous amount of ways. The main
difference is that most horror movies end with a sense of victory for the
victim or explorer in this case. Blair
Witch ended by the ghost, or the dark side, victorious by capturing all the
people who set out to explore the Blair Witch mystery. Most horror films are
also set in distinguished settings like cities or houses or anything like that.
The setting of Blair Witch is
entirely in the woods. Other horror movies may have a scene or two where people
end up alone in the woods, but this movie in particular is set entirely in the
woods. The trees and the wilderness provide more of a frightening feel because of
the quiet setting, but suspense is created from any noise made in the woods. In
this movie if you shut your eyes for a couple seconds something was bound to happen.
An important feature about the setting of the movie is the fact that no
witnesses are around, like horror films in popular settings, there are law
enforcement, or local people around. In the middle of the woods, there is no
service, no outside sources to help you. Horror films are meant to do this to scare
you but they also intend to relate to you, or the things happening around you.
Horror movies serve many purposes, but in the article by
Karina Wilson, she highlights the two main ones “they deliver thrills… also
provide a mirror image of the anxieties of their time” (“Horror Films”). Wilson
goes on to say “Horror movies
provide a unique space for free discourse about the moral, political and
societal shifts in our communal paradigms” with that being said horror movies
are not intended to relate to the big things around you but the little things that
we as a society overlook (“Horror Films”). Wilson says that horror
movies depend on the type of generation that is happening at that current time.
Wilson believes that “audiences willingly offer themselves up to sadistic
storytellers to be scared witless, and they are happy to pay for the privilege”
(“Horror Films”). Audiences love horror films because it keeps them on edge, it
keeps them on their toes, and possibly providing a more realistic experience
than other movies, with all the violence and horrible things happening today.
Wilson says that the 21st century horror flicks are solely based on “ghosts
and zombies” as they have come back into the movie industry (“Horror Films”).
Another thing, if movies didn’t relate to things that we could relate to today,
then how well would we understand a horror movie? We may still get a thrill out
of it but we find it easier to understand a film when its related to topics in
our generation. With Blair Witch we
can still get a thrill out of the movie and we can relate to it in some extent.
To me, horror movies are always scary, if it does not scare me or the audience
members then it’s not a very good horror movie. There is a line between horror
movies and the movies that cover bad things happening in the world, relating to
the audience of the generation is good but turning it into something that
scares you rather than inform you is the key part here.
This version of Blair
Witch is very similar to The Blair
Witch Project which was a movie based off of recovered footage as well. The
only difference between these two versions are the updated technology we have
today. Drones were not as popular back when The
Blair Witch Project came out in 1999.
A good idea before going to watch Blair
Witch “is to go in blind” (“Blair Witch Review”). Going in blind is great
for any movie you haven’t heard about before but it also could not be a smart
decision. Going in blind, makes the audience keep an open mind with the movie,
the only reason the audience shouldn’t do this is because this movie is part of
a sequel which in turn means you should see the first movie before the next. That’s
not the case for all movies. For Example, the entire Fast and Furious series, you need to watch the previous version so
you can better relate and understand the next one. In this case, you really
didn’t need to see the original Blair Witch to understand this version, because
they are fairly similar but different with the use of technology and some
different characters. Chris Tilly explains that “The original Blair Witch Project is one of the most
important movies in horror history, single-handedly putting the ‘found footage’
genre on the map” (“Blair Witch Review”). This movie being crafted by Adam Wingard
and Simon Barrett who made other movies called You’re Next and The Guest, both movies with similar layouts “the
journey starting out light-hearted, becoming tense as a perceived threat
becomes ever more real, and then turning darker as night falls and things go
bump in the night” (“Blair Witch Review”). These two started this movie as if
nothing were going to happen, the actors were laughing and joking with each
other, and all of a sudden things start dwindling apart, people turn on each
other and this mystery becomes a horrifying, true reality.
Referring
back to the way the movie ended, Tilly describes that “The grandstanding finale
toys with the audience much like the Blair Witch toying with her prey” (“Blair
Witch Review”). I was very confused and quite disappointed that this was the
way it had to end, I am so used to seeing horror movies ending happily ever
after, and when I didn’t get that feeling I left the theatre with a sense of
confusion. Tilly describes this feeling as “a fear that eventually transforms
into grim acceptance of a terrible fate” (“Blair Witch Review”). With this Blair Witch sequel, it makes sense for
the movie to end the way that it did, because now they can produce another
Blair Witch mystery movie because it wasn’t solved in the previous one,
“Blair
Witch is a terrific sequel that stays true to the spirit of the original while
at the same time developing and expanding upon the legend” it is not like The Fast and Furious movies where they
do different missions or tasks, Blair
Witch is one task, one mystery that once its solved there isn’t a need to
make another movie about the mysterious woods (“Blair Witch Review”). This
movie was eye opening in multiple ways, tilly decides that “building on the
legend of the Blair Witch in a way that answers some questions yet poses many
more” was the best way for this movie to be produced, so that way it leaves the
audience in question, almost as if at the end of the movie it should have said
“to be continued” (“Blair Witch Review”).
With all that being said, the purpose of Blair Witch and other horror movies is
to provide a thrilling experience and to relate to the time period of the
generation we live in. The 2 articles that I referenced to earlier provided
legitimate information about Blair Witch
and the genre of Horror movies. The movie Blair
Witch was a great movie that will lead to another movie of the Blair Witch
mystery, ending by leaving us questioning the mystery when the people who
explored the mystery could not tell others about their experiences. The article
by Karina Wilson provided strong factual evidence that explained what horror
movies were really for, which is to thrill and relate. In the article by Chris
Tilly, he reviews the Blair Witch and
tells us his opinion of the movie and why he thinks it was an effective film.
Works
Cited
“Horror Films: Why We
Like to Watch.” Horror Film History.
Daily Telegraph, 11th August
2008.
11th August 2008.
Tilly, Chris. “Blair
Witch Review.” Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett. Chris Tilly, 12th
September
2016. 12th September 2016
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