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See The Blair Witch Project at the Oriental Theatre, an iconic landmark on Milwaukee's East Side, consistently recognized as one of the top movie palaces in the.
Contents.Plot In 2014, James Donahue finds a video on containing an image of a woman he believes to be his sister, who near while investigating the legend of the. Believing she is still alive, he heads into the woods, accompanied by his friend Peter Jones, Peter's girlfriend Ashley Bennett, and film student Lisa Arlington, who wants to film James' search as a, The Absence of Closure. Locals Talia and Lane, who found and uploaded the video, join them.While walking through the woods and upon setting up camp for the night, Lane and Talia discuss the disappearance of Heather and her film crew, the 1940-41 murders by Rustin Parr, and other mysterious occurrences, which they ascribe to the Blair Witch. They hear noises during the night, then awaken at 2 p.m. To find strange stick figures hanging from the trees. When Lisa notices in Lane's backpack, he and Talia admit to creating the figures in order to convince the group to believe, but also point out that there is no explanation for the strange noises during the night and sleeping through the day.
James and his friends banish Lane and Talia from the group and head out of the woods.After hours of walking, the four surprisingly arrive back at their original campsite. Lisa pilots a to obtain their location, but it malfunctions. Ashley becomes sick due to a wound on her foot, forcing the group to camp again. When Peter inspects Ashley's wounded foot, he notices what he thinks may be a parasite inside the wound.
Peter leaves the camp for firewood, and is chased by an unknown entity; a tree falls on him, then he disappears.Lane and Talia appear in the night, claiming they have been wandering for five days without a sunrise. Lane believes the camp is a hallucination and runs off, leaving the disheveled and ravenously hungry Talia.
The next morning, James and Lisa are stunned to find that it is still dark outside at 7am and discover larger stick figures. Talia sees clumps of her hair tied to one of the figures. Ashley accuses Talia of crafting them and snaps the figure with Talia's hair in half; Talia herself is then snapped in half. An unseen force lifts their tent and the group is separated. Ashley finds the drone and climbs a tree to recover it, but is knocked out and falls from the tree, the unknown entity dragging her away.A rainstorm ensues as Lisa and James stumble across Rustin Parr's house, which James had previously stated to have been burned down after his execution.
James hears someone he thinks is Heather scream upstairs, enters the house and sees Peter standing in the corner. He chases after the figure he believes to be Heather, confronted by a teleporting disheveled figure; upon its vanishing he barricades himself.Lisa spots a tall, pale, long-limbed creature moving through the trees, and she runs into the house's basement. She finds a hostile Lane who traps her in a tunnel, saying, “you have to do what she tells you.” She crawls through the tunnel to a different part of the house, where she stabs and kills Lane when he attacks her. Lisa flees when the long-limbed creature emerges from the tunnel and chases her through the house. Lisa runs up to the attic with Lane's camcorder, creating the video that lured them all to the woods.She reunites with James in the attic and they try to barricade the door.
A bright light shines from outside the building. James tells Lisa to face the corner of the room and desperately apologizes to her before something enters the room. James is tricked into turning around, believing that he hears Heather's voice, and vanishes from sight. Lisa uses Lane's camcorder to view what is behind her and begins walking backward. However, hearing James' apology again, she turns and vanishes, with a flash of a yellowed arm, before her camera falls to the ground.
After a few moments, the camera gives out.Cast. as James Donahue. as Lisa Arlington. as Peter. Corbin Reid as Ashley. as Talia. Wes Robinson as LaneProduction Development While promoting at the, director and writer ran into original The Blair Witch Project co-filmmaker and producer, and asked them why there were not any more Blair Witch films.
Although nothing came of the meeting at the time, a few months later, Wingard and Barrett were asked to meet with to potentially work in a secret project. Barrett recalled that, in the initial pitch meeting, Lionsgate had already crafted a story for a new Blair Witch film, and simply asked if they would be interested in making it.
Barrett said that the 'only thing I really pitched was the other characters; they’d originally conceived the film as more similar to the first film, following its narrative fairly closely, with only three or four characters, I think, but I wanted more characters to give us more scare sequences. I also wanted a unique dynamic within the group from the start, so I pitched the idea of introducing some Burkittsville locals to the group.' Barrett would later note that the team found the genre more challenging, as they have only previously worked with it on the V/H/S. Barrett noted that with the V/H/S series, there was an inherent entertainment value, where the segments 'were never meant to feel entirely real', an element that did not work for the Blair Witch series. Speaking on the issue to, Barrett stated 'even if our scares didn’t work in V/H/S, hopefully people would still be entertained, and if they weren’t, well, another short would start in a few minutes'; he added that if a scare did not work in Blair Witch, 'we’d have nothing to fall back on, we’d just have failed completely, and publicly.'
To prevent this from happening, Barrett and Winger extensively went over each 'scare' to discover why it was scary and how the audience would react to it. For some sequences, multiple approaches were tried differently, 'to give us options in the editing room.' Filming Principal photography took place in the spring of 2015, in a set of woods in in Canada.
Scenes taking place in the famous Blair Witch House were shot in a sound stage where the House was entirely built.Connections to The Blair Witch Project Prior to the film's premiere at the 2016, the fact that the film was a Blair Witch sequel remained a closely guarded secret, as the film was shot under the title The Woods. According to the film's writer, Barrett, the film's secrecy was done to prevent backlash among Internet commenters, who the filmmakers felt would react negatively to news of a.Prior to the official premiere, Lionsgate went as far as to release a trailer for the film incorporating actual footage, while still keeping the film's lineage a secret.
The film was still publicly known as The Woods even at Comic-Con, prior to its first screening, with reporting that the initial theater for the screening was filled with posters for the fake film. After the screening (during which audiences realized that the film was a sequel), all the promotional material in the theater was changed to reflect the film's actual title. Release The film premiered at the on September 11, 2016 and was theatrically released on September 16, 2016. Reception Box office Blair Witch grossed $20.8 million in North America and $24.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $45.2 million, against a production budget of $5 million.In the United States and Canada, the film was released on September 16, 2016, and was initially projected to gross at least $20 million with a chance to get as high as $26 million in its opening weekend, from 3,121 theaters. Lionsgate's expectations were more conservative, however, with a projected $15–18 million opening, although rival studios were predicting significantly higher numbers, noting how horror films saw solid performances throughout 2016, including,. However, after grossing $765,000 from its Thursday previews and $4.1 million on its first day, opening projections were lowered to $10 million.
It ended up grossing $9.7 million in its opening weekend, below expectations and the lowest opening weekend of the series. The film was considered a box office disappointment by analysts.The film received a day-and-date release in many countries in conjunction with its North American debut.The film cost $5 million to produce, with an additional $20 million spent on promotion, advertising and marketing costs. Critical response Blair Witch received mixed reviews, with critics noting it as an improvement on Book of Shadows while criticizing the writing and special effects. On, the film has an approval rating of 37% based on 216 reviews, with an average rating of 5.18/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ' Blair Witch doles out a handful of effective scares, but aside from a few new twists, it mainly offers a belated rehash of the original – and far more memorable – first film.' On, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 41 critics. Audiences polled by gave the film an average grade of 'D+' on an A+ to F scale.
According to 's Joey Nolfi, while Blair Witch is generally regarded as an improvement over, 'moviegoers and film journalists essentially told Blair Witch to stand in the corner.critical reviews and audience exit polling.are still some of the worst of any 2016 release thus far.' Michael Roffman of wrote that 'Nothing about the film is scary, nothing is remotely disturbing, and there’s this boring familiarity to the proceedings, namely because it’s more or less a beat-by-beat remake of the original.' 's Leslie Felperin criticized the film, commenting that it is 'a dull retread rather than a full-on reinvention,' enlarging the cast numbers this time but sticking to the same basic beats.
Scott Tobias of felt that the makers of Blair Witch made a poor decision by making the film less subtle than the original. Thomas Simpson of the said that the film 'lacks any real scares' and that, after watching it, 'you shouldn’t have any issues turning the light off at night.' The 's condemned the film by saying that 'the take-away from Blair Witch is not terror, but sorrow,' and gave it 1.5 stars out of 4.Josh Kurp of gave the film a mixed review, saying ' Blair Witch is scary, but it lacks surprise, and without surprise, you’re left with a bunch of kind-of annoying people shakily filming themselves wandering the woods and reacting to loud noises.'
Gave the film three out of five stars in a review for, calling it 'efficient if unadventurous.' 's Jordan Hoffman felt that the film was inferior to, a previous film by Wingard and writer, and said Blair Witch 's 'jump-scares will make for a fun night at the movies, but it’s like chomping on hamburgers—when this creative team has previously served us a prime rib.' Conversely, reviewer Chris Tilly declared that Blair Witch is 'so good it'll make you forget that Book of Shadows ever happened.' Mark Eccleston of wrote that the film has 'genuine, jarring scares.and an unsettling late surprise that makes it well worth popping to you nearest multiplex to have the holy crap scared out of you.'
's writes, ' Blair Witch is that game-changer horror fans desperately have been waiting for.' Miska gave the film a 4.5 out of 5 rating, and included it in his list of the 'Best Horror Films of 2016'. Soundtrack Blair Witch (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)by. In the tie-in documentary to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Shadow of the Blair Witch, the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are presented in-universe as a film adaptation based on the 'Black Hills murders' that took place shortly after the events of The Blair Witch Project. This documentary presents the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 as a film within a film. Shadow of the Blair Witch follows 'the real Jeff Patterson’s defense team as the case prepares for trial and as the public reacts to plans to fictionalize the case’s events for the big screen from the defense's point-of-view.
Protests of the film Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are discussed within the documentary coming from both the families of those involved with the case and from the Wiccan community as a whole. Rachel Moskowitz and Andre Brooks respectively portray the 'real' Kim Diamond and Jeffrey Patterson within the documentary. Though glimpsed briefly, the figure indeed appears to be Heather Donahue as she appeared in the closing scenes of, complete with her torn cardigan and hat.
In an interview with, the film's director, it was later confirmed that the archival footage of Heather Donahue was intentionally meant to portray the Blair Witch in the form of Heather. Early on in the film, as the group makes its way deep into the woods, Lisa asks Lane about his camera, an older model that she notes uses the exact same tape as the one he claims to have found. The footage Lisa records on Lane’s camera while running through the shack is the same footage Lane found in the woods before the group ever actually went there, implying that they have been caught in aReferences.
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New York-based film critic Ethan Alter was kind enough to share an excerpt from his new book 'Film Firsts: The 25 Movies That Created Contemporary American Cinema.' With the 15th anniversary of ' taking place this year, we thought that chapter would give you a good taste of what Mr. Alter's book is all about. He dissects the film, offering insight into its production and its impact.
Alter has been published in Premiere, TV Guide, and Entertainment Weekly. He currently contributes reviews and articles to such outlets as Film Journal International, IndieWire and Yahoo Movies.
Click to buy his book. The Film: By faking it so real, the makers of 'The Blair Witch Project' struck box-office pay dirt and launched the found-footage horror genre.An awful lot of fiction went into making the ostensibly factual horror movie 'The Blair Witch Project' a reality. Start with the premise, which is handily summarized in a title card preceding the film: 'In 1994, three film students armed with more cameras than common sense wandered into the Maryland woods to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch. They never returned, but a year later the footage of their doomed trip was unearthed and presented for the world to see.' Let’s debunk this scenario point by point.
First, the footage seen in 'The Blair Witch Project' was shot in 1997, not 1994. Secondly, the film students weren’t actual film students, but actors who had auditioned to be part of this half-inspired, half-foolhardy production.
Finally, the Blair Witch herself—along with all her accordant mythology—was an invention, dreamed up by the movie’s directors, and, and later embellished beyond the film in a series of tie-in books by other writers.About the only thing in 'The Blair Witch Project' that is authentic are the scenes of the three “students,” Heather (played by ), Josh , and Mike , hiking through the forests surrounding Burkittsville, Maryland. The trio really did spend several days in the wilderness, carrying their own supplies, making up their own dialogue (extrapolated from a detailed story outline typed up by the directors), and filming their journey with a pair of cameras, a Hi-8 video recorder, and a 16mm camera shooting black-and-white film. But even that nugget of truth is wrapped in fiction, as the actors were following a path prepared for them by the filmmakers, who plotted the course through Maryland’s Seneca Creek State Park with GPS units. And during the shoot, the directors regularly interacted with the performers off camera, requesting multiple takes of the same scene and passing along acting notes, story reminders. And things to react to, be they physical objects or suitably spooky noises.
The cast and crew even had a special code word—“Taco”—that they used whenever they needed to escape the movie’s reality into actual reality. For a film that derives its drama and its scares from being immediate and in the moment, so much of it was carefully planned out in advance.And yet the impressive thing about 'The Blair Witch Project' is that, while you’re watching it, you don’t see the strings. Sure, there are cracks in the scenario if you laser in closely enough, especially during repeat viewings. But all that advance legwork that the filmmakers put in lends the film an internal consistency and a narrative drive that its descendants in what has become known as the “found-footage” genre often lack. A found-footage descendant like 2007’s ',' for example, operates mainly on a scare-to-scare basis, using the found-footage aesthetic (commonly defined by a first-person point-of-view camera, jumpy editing, and mockdocumentary interviews and/or confessionals, among other elements) to stage effective “Boo!” moments, but not necessarily putting a great deal of thought or effort into what comes between them. In contrast, 'The Blair Witch Project' doesn’t isolate its predesignated scary bits—the scenes the filmmakers have specifically designed ahead of time to elicit screams from the crowd—from the rest of the narrative; instead, the whole movie flows together, building naturally and inevitably toward the characters’ horrific fates.
To this day, 'Blair Witch' remains one of the most profitable independent films ever released, and much of that success can be attributed to the innovative way it used the Internet to attract the kind of attention for free that the bigger studios generally pay top dollar for. Blairwitch.com didn’t just blandly sell the movie; it offered visitors a unique experience that existed separately from the film while still reinforcing the title and central concept in people’s minds.
In the wake of 'The Blair Witch Project,' the Internet’s role in movie marketing underwent a reassessment in Hollywood’s boardrooms, with a greater emphasis placed on incorporating user-friendly original content ranging from games and exclusive behind-the-scenes videos to galleries of artwork and fan competitions. Today, virtually every blockbuster released by a big studio has a major Internet presence that encompasses a tricked-out website along with a Facebook page, a Twitter feed, and even a Tumblr account. If 'Space Jam' or 'You’ve Got Mail' were made in the present, it wouldn’t be enough for them to simply have a website; they’d be expected to provide a full-fledged web experience.
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