Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome to a brand new episode of
Speaker 1: Second Take Cinema, coming at you from the Glorious Impala
Speaker 1: Film's headquarters in sunny South End on Sea. I am
Speaker 1: your host, Jamie Evans, joined as per usual by mister
Speaker 1: Rory Jocelyn. That's me, and today we are giving a
Speaker 1: second take to one of the most successful independent movies
Speaker 1: of all time. Light your campfires, prepare your s'mores or
Speaker 1: whatever campfire based snack you prefer, as we give a
Speaker 1: second take to The Blair Witch Project. The Blair Witch
Speaker 1: Project is a nineteen ninety nine American psychological horror movie, written,
Speaker 1: directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, starring
Speaker 1: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard. This film
Speaker 1: had a total budget at the end of everything of
Speaker 1: about two hundred thousand dollars. However, the actual production budget,
Speaker 1: I have always heard and my research seems to indicate,
Speaker 1: was actually more in the thirty thousand dollar range. Oh really,
Speaker 1: I thought it was fifteen I thought it was, but
Speaker 1: my most recent researcher said thirty thousand, which, if that
Speaker 1: doesn't just send you a message that even this movie
Speaker 1: that has no crew except for two directors and three actors,
Speaker 1: still cost thirty grand just to film it, so in total,
Speaker 1: it had a budget of two hundred thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: grossed a whopping two hundred and forty eight point six
Speaker 1: million dollars at the box office.
Speaker 2: That was a record at the time, wasn't it in
Speaker 2: terms of profitability?
Speaker 1: Yes, it was the most successful independent film of all
Speaker 1: time until it was dethroned by Paranormal Activity, which I
Speaker 1: believe was made for only fifteen thousand right. The Blear
Speaker 1: Witch Project drew a claim from critics, with the review
Speaker 1: aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes giving the film a score of
Speaker 1: eighty six percent based one hundred and sixty five reviews
Speaker 1: from critics. The website's consensus reads full of creepy, campfire scares,
Speaker 1: mock doc The Blair Witch Project keeps audiences in the
Speaker 1: dark about its titular villain, proving once more that imagination
Speaker 1: can be as scary as anything on screen. The Blair
Speaker 1: Witch Project's found footage technique received near universal praise, although
Speaker 1: this was not the first film to use it. The
Speaker 1: independent film was declared a milestone in film history due
Speaker 1: to its critical and box office success. Roger Ebert of
Speaker 1: the Chicago Sun Times gave the film four stars and
Speaker 1: called it an extraordinarily effective horror movie. Peter Travers of
Speaker 1: Rolling Stone called it a groundbreaker in fright that reinvents
Speaker 1: scary for the new millennium. And Todd McCarthy of Variety, Oh.
Speaker 2: That's certainly proven true. Look how many movies are like
Speaker 2: this now? None of them?
Speaker 1: And Todd McCarthy of Variety said, an intensely imaginative piece
Speaker 1: of conceptual filmmaking that also delivers the goods As a
Speaker 1: dread drenched horror movie, The Blair Witch Project puts a
Speaker 1: clever modern twist on the universal fear of the dark
Speaker 1: and things that go bump in the night. However, some
Speaker 1: critics were less enthusiastic, with Andrew Saris of The New
Speaker 1: York Observer deeming it overrated as well as a rendition
Speaker 1: of the ultimate triumph of the sun Dance scam, make
Speaker 1: a heartless home movie, get enough critics to blurb in
Speaker 1: near unisons scary and watch the sucker's flock to be fleeced.
Speaker 1: A critic from the Christian Science Monitor, I'm.
Speaker 2: Glad we're going for the real Real Good Film Journals.
Speaker 1: A critic from the Christian Science Monitor, said that while
Speaker 1: the film's concept and scares were innovative, he felt it
Speaker 1: could have been shot as a thirty minute short, since
Speaker 1: its shaky camera work and fuzzy images get monotonous after
Speaker 1: a while, and there's not much room for character development
Speaker 1: within the very limited plot. R. L. Schaefer of IGN
Speaker 1: scored it two out of ten and described it as boring,
Speaker 1: really boring, and a Z grade low rent horror outing
Speaker 1: with no real scares into a genuine big budget spectacle. So,
Speaker 1: as always, we'll start this by talking about when we
Speaker 1: first saw the film and gave our first take to
Speaker 1: the film. I saw this one relatively early on when
Speaker 1: I was first getting into horror movies. Yeah, I could
Speaker 1: only have been thirteen or fourteen when I saw this,
Speaker 1: and I got it on DVD, And interestingly enough, I
Speaker 1: actually got a new experience watching it this time because
Speaker 1: my original DVD copy was actually in.
Speaker 2: The wrong aspect ratio, so widescreen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So when I first put this on, I was like,
Speaker 1: why is it a tiny box in the middle of
Speaker 1: my screen? What's going on here? I did a little
Speaker 1: bit of research and it turns out that the original
Speaker 1: DVD pressings of this film, the film was artificially blown
Speaker 1: up in post yes to fit the full screen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this would have been filmed on camcord is
Speaker 2: in ninety seven, so they would have all been standard
Speaker 2: deaf they would have been there probably would not have
Speaker 2: been digital either.
Speaker 1: No, it was a herd. They used two cameras. One
Speaker 1: was a high eight yeap and the other was a
Speaker 1: sixteen millimeter.
Speaker 2: Right, okay, so sixteen millimeter film, so that's that. To
Speaker 2: be fair, that accounts for a decent filmic, grainy look.
Speaker 2: The high eight would have been a essentially looked like
Speaker 2: a videotape, miniature videotape and again not not great in
Speaker 2: cinematic levels, but for what they were going for, absolutely
Speaker 2: makes sense. Yeah, because of that, because of the era,
Speaker 2: because it was pre two thousand, it would not have
Speaker 2: been widescreen.
Speaker 1: No, whereas this was a new DVD because my actual
Speaker 1: old DVD I had to get rid of it got
Speaker 1: disc rot. Oh okay, I think that's what it's called.
Speaker 1: There's just like a blemish in the middle of the disc.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's basically where it's not been sealed properly. Oxygen
Speaker 2: gets in and decays the data, right, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 2: coating on the underside of all of you discs.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so this was interesting because I got to
Speaker 1: see it in its original aspect ratio for the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which was interesting, a little bit of getting used to.
Speaker 1: But when I did, it had a little charm to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But no, I saw the film when I was about fourteen,
Speaker 1: still young enough and still early enough in the internet
Speaker 1: age that I'm not sure I ever fully bought into
Speaker 1: the hype it being true. Yeah, I remember distinctly.
Speaker 2: It was more towards the late nineties at that because
Speaker 2: by the time of the early two thousands it was
Speaker 2: well known that it was certainly by the time they
Speaker 2: made a sequel. Yeah, and you're like, fuck off that it's.
Speaker 1: Not really the thing. I remember thinking when I watched
Speaker 1: it the first time. I've got a load of friends
Speaker 1: who were older than me who insisted it was real.
Speaker 1: They were like, yeah, they actually found these tapes out
Speaker 1: in the woods. And I remember watching it and the
Speaker 1: whole time there was a little bit of me. There
Speaker 1: was part of me going yeah, yeah, this is real.
Speaker 1: But there was always this little voice in the back
Speaker 1: of my head going, even at fourteen, going, if this
Speaker 1: was real, it wouldn't have come out in a cinema
Speaker 1: because this would be police evidence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it would be.
Speaker 1: In lock up somewhere. Then I did watch because on
Speaker 1: my DVD it also had for anyone who doesn't know,
Speaker 1: although I don't know anyone who doesn't know. At this
Speaker 1: point this film had that extra budget they got given
Speaker 1: for marketing, they actually mostly spent it making fake documentaries
Speaker 1: that further blurred the line as to whether this was
Speaker 1: real or not. And those were on the DVD and
Speaker 1: I remember watching them and they were from the History Channel,
Speaker 1: and being young and naive and History Channel hadn't completely
Speaker 1: ruined its credibility at that point, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly with ancient aliens. I remember watching these documentaries and
Speaker 1: being like, oh shit, no.
Speaker 2: It must be true.
Speaker 1: The channels covering it, or at least the witch must exist,
Speaker 1: Like maybe these kids didn't go missing, but the legend
Speaker 1: of the Blair Witch must be a real legend. It's not.
Speaker 1: It's completely invented for this film.
Speaker 2: Nice it is done well with that, because that's gone
Speaker 2: into the horror lexicon, hasn't it. Yeah, So they did
Speaker 2: a good job been setting up establishing a franchise. I
Speaker 2: just don't think it's one They could actually sequalize him,
Speaker 2: though they tried to.
Speaker 1: No, and I did as part of the build up
Speaker 1: for this episode doing my job properly, I actually tracked
Speaker 1: down and watched all of those documentaries again. Okay, so
Speaker 1: I got to relive them a little bit, which was cool. Okay,
Speaker 1: how about you do you remember the first time? Oh?
Speaker 1: And I will just say as well, I actually watched
Speaker 1: this in a tent at night. Not this time, but
Speaker 1: when I watched it eight years and years and years ago.
Speaker 1: I watched it in a tent at night.
Speaker 2: See that changed the circumstance a little bit.
Speaker 1: It adds to it a little bit. Yeah, it does
Speaker 1: add to it a little bit. Yeah. Do you remember
Speaker 1: the first time you saw it?
Speaker 2: I have seen it before. I actually can't remember when.
Speaker 2: It would have been over ten years ago, easily. It
Speaker 2: was a long long time ago, and it was out
Speaker 2: of curiosity. I can't remember if someone showed it to
Speaker 2: me or if it was just out of curiosity. At
Speaker 2: some point I came across watching this film and I thought,
Speaker 2: you know what, I'll give it a try, and I
Speaker 2: watched it all the way through. To be fair, it
Speaker 2: didn't work for me. Why I didn't work for me
Speaker 2: It is similar to yourself when you were fourteen. Logically
Speaker 2: it can't be real, and unfortunately, once I hit that level,
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. I remember when I was in university
Speaker 2: doing theater plays. There was a we went and saw
Speaker 2: a horror play in London and there were it was
Speaker 2: really creepy, like the lights were off and they had
Speaker 2: like all these people who were able to like hang
Speaker 2: upside down and just move really quickly. It was called
Speaker 2: Tropicana the play, and you'd get like it would you
Speaker 2: get all this strobe lighting and you just see women
Speaker 2: walking at you and then just disappearing before they get
Speaker 2: to you, and they must have just had some epic
Speaker 2: speed getting themselves back onto the roof and things like that.
Speaker 2: Fantastic bit of work. All the girls I was with
Speaker 2: absolutely petrified. I wasn't at all scared because the reason
Speaker 2: was it's not me being who and I fucking are bad,
Speaker 2: not that at all. Literally, it was just a case
Speaker 2: of well off paid to see a performance. They're not
Speaker 2: allowed to touch me by law, And knowing that that
Speaker 2: was the law meant that anyone who comes straight at me,
Speaker 2: if they so much as touched me, I could go
Speaker 2: rup sing like and they're not gonna murder me. I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna They're not gonna charge me ten pounds or
Speaker 2: whatever for entrance fee to then murder me.
Speaker 1: Now theater in London only ten pounds that were.
Speaker 2: Back in Dame. I'm lying it probably was to be fair.
Speaker 2: I went with the university, so that I think it
Speaker 2: might have been ten pounds, but it was probably subsidized.
Speaker 2: And also I remember that that was not the final
Speaker 2: like that that performance it was like a pre yes,
Speaker 2: So basically they get an idea of whether or not
Speaker 2: it works without running the risk of an actual audience,
Speaker 2: I suppose. But yeah, so things like that. So by
Speaker 2: the point I'd watched it, I was beyond done with
Speaker 2: Blair witch as could it be real sort of thing.
Speaker 2: I hated it when I first watched it. I hate
Speaker 2: it now, and I'm not going to be mean because
Speaker 2: I acknowledged that essentially the reasons I hate it are
Speaker 2: the reasons it works. So it's not that the film
Speaker 2: does the things wrong. Actually it does the things very right.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of things that are a bit questionable,
Speaker 2: but generally the film does everything right. Really dodgy looking
Speaker 2: camera footage, horrible shaky cam like up the wazoo, the
Speaker 2: worst you've probably seen in films, except for maybe that
Speaker 2: shit quant a Solace, which is even worse. Yeah, egregious wobblycam,
Speaker 2: horrible visual looks. The sound is not properly balanced. There's
Speaker 2: bits where it's too quiet, there's bits where it's too loud.
Speaker 2: It's bits where the sound doesn't really work properly. But
Speaker 2: all of that adds to the atmosphere that this film
Speaker 2: generates as being a deep not deep being a being
Speaker 2: a found footage film, because if you were walking around
Speaker 2: with a handicam, your audio is only all on board cam.
Speaker 2: It's not going to be super clear all the time.
Speaker 2: Certainly if you're filming people at a distance. Certainly if
Speaker 2: you're filming them inside moving cars in the middle of
Speaker 2: a wood, the footage is going to be grainy as
Speaker 2: you walk uping down with it. Because this was before
Speaker 2: we had those gyroscope handicam balancing things that we have now. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they save a lot in this sort of a in
Speaker 2: this sort of vibe. Because yeah, but this for me,
Speaker 2: I had to watch this in fifteen to twenty minute bursts.
Speaker 2: I had to keep stopping it because I was getting migraines.
Speaker 2: It's that bad. So everything it does it does right.
Speaker 2: I just hate all of those things, and I could not.
Speaker 2: I would be so pissed off if I'd spent like
Speaker 2: twelve quid for a cinema ticket. And that's what I saw,
Speaker 2: was that unprofessional bollocks.
Speaker 1: Would you not have known from the trailers though, that
Speaker 1: that's what it is?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I suppose so. And that's that's essentially
Speaker 2: why I never watched it until I had the opportunity
Speaker 2: to see it for free somehow, because again, all of
Speaker 2: the things that it does, it does really well, it
Speaker 2: does really cleverly. And I don't want to spend the
Speaker 2: whole time ripping on this film because it's not actually
Speaker 2: fair because again, as I say, the things I despise
Speaker 2: in this film are things it does for the right reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're kind of the point of the film. Time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm just going to acknowledge now you're not
Speaker 2: going to hear high praise from me for this film.
Speaker 2: But I didn't want to spend the entire review being
Speaker 2: a Debbie Downer. And going, well, shit, all this shitrov.
Speaker 2: I wanted to basically get it out there. I hate
Speaker 2: this film, but I'm going to review it analytically, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to talk about the reasons it does what
Speaker 2: it does, rather than whether or not I like that.
Speaker 2: I'll just get it out of the way. Don't like it.
Speaker 2: I don't remember the exact time, but I remember dreading
Speaker 2: watching this film when you brought it up, right, this
Speaker 2: is one of the few films where you've gone, oh, well,
Speaker 2: let's try this one. I'm like, oh, fuck off, because literally,
Speaker 2: I just I knew i'd get ahead, and I did.
Speaker 2: I got a migraine.
Speaker 1: That's really surprising because I was surprised. I don't get
Speaker 1: that with this. Yeah, but I'm really prone to motion sickness.
Speaker 2: Yeah I'm not really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get motion sickness in cars all the time.
Speaker 2: I do if i'm watching something.
Speaker 1: To my surprise, I still really like this film, Okay,
Speaker 1: And I was not expected because my thing with Bleir,
Speaker 1: which I don't watch it regularly.
Speaker 2: Now it's project I don't think you could.
Speaker 1: No, And I always thought I always thought it wouldn't
Speaker 1: work as a second take at all. I always thought,
Speaker 1: you know, it's one where it's had done. Yeah, once
Speaker 1: you've seen it and you know that you never see
Speaker 1: anything in it, it's kind of over, you know, you
Speaker 1: know how it ends.
Speaker 2: You're not going to get a surprise watching it a
Speaker 2: second time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And don't get me wrong, I will say nothing
Speaker 1: has ever topped my first viewing of it. I think
Speaker 1: because I was young, because the Internet hadn't taken off
Speaker 1: in the way it is yet, because there was still
Speaker 1: some doubt as to where like at that age, there
Speaker 1: is still some doubt as to well, maybe maybe it's real,
Speaker 1: Whereas there's not a question in my mind or anyone's
Speaker 1: mind now because we know it's not real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we know that the actors aren't dead because they've
Speaker 2: come out, they've spoken about in various interviews, et cetera.
Speaker 1: They're trying to sue, aren't they, because they're claiming they
Speaker 1: never got paid fairly for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sure what the truth is on that,
Speaker 2: because they would have agreed to a certain price. But
Speaker 2: I think it's because because it is their names, and
Speaker 2: because essentially the filmmaker's got a lot of money once
Speaker 2: it was a success and they didn't.
Speaker 1: I actually don't think the filmmakers did either. I listened
Speaker 1: to an interview with the filmmakers. I think the distribution
Speaker 1: company screwed them right, so they got the bulk of
Speaker 1: the money right. Because the two directors have gone on
Speaker 1: to do other stuff, but never high budget, they didn't
Speaker 1: get offered high budgets after this. I fact, one of
Speaker 1: them said, and this will sound like a familiar story
Speaker 1: to you. I remember listening to an interview with one
Speaker 1: of them. It was only one of them. It was
Speaker 1: either Daniel Myrik or Eduardo Sanchez. I think it was
Speaker 1: Eduardo Sanchez, and he said the problem with having the
Speaker 1: biggest indie hit.
Speaker 2: Of all time at that point is everyone expects you
Speaker 2: to keep being indie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is when the studio go cool, time for you
Speaker 1: to do your next film. You can make it for
Speaker 1: that amount and you go, no, Only Blair Witch works
Speaker 1: at that amount because it's so stripped down. If you
Speaker 1: want people understand, certain scripts require certain budgets. And the
Speaker 1: reason you make a cheap ass thing like Blair, which
Speaker 1: because it is cheap ass and it's designed to be,
Speaker 1: is because you can't get the budgets. Yet once you've
Speaker 1: made that and made a success, you really.
Speaker 2: Should get more budgets. Yeah, because you've proven you can
Speaker 2: make a success. But you're right, there are times where
Speaker 2: the studios, et cetera, or whoever holds the money basically goes, well,
Speaker 2: this has been made for fuck money. The next thing
Speaker 2: should cost fuck a money.
Speaker 1: Exactly it.
Speaker 2: It's some people don't understand scale yea.
Speaker 1: To my surprise, though, I think the film still does
Speaker 1: have a creepy atmosphere to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely had that. I will go into it
Speaker 2: as we go through. Sorry, I don't mean to keep
Speaker 2: cutting on. I will throw positive there is some positives
Speaker 2: I can throw it this. I honestly didn't remember the
Speaker 2: build of the trios, slow degradation to madness and falling
Speaker 2: apart being quite as good as he is in the film.
Speaker 2: I had to pause it a lot less in the
Speaker 2: latter half because the story was more compelling. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: I watching it this time, I was like, Oh, I
Speaker 2: don't remember it actually being this clever.
Speaker 1: I love the bit. One of my favorite bits is
Speaker 1: when Michael reveals that he's kicked the map into the creek.
Speaker 2: That's like a villain turn almost, isn't it. And you're
Speaker 2: just like, oh, because they've gone through the whole thing,
Speaker 2: haven't they. Basically nobody knows where the map iss, Like, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's all just chill off, let's all just be friends.
Speaker 2: And then he ruins that a little bit later by going,
Speaker 2: you know, I kicked it into the creek.
Speaker 1: And he's laughing hysterically.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: A fun fact about this film, which again shows how
Speaker 1: amateur it was. I'm sure you noticed he has a
Speaker 1: bit of a weird left field pivot after that point,
Speaker 1: where Josh starts to go a bit mad instead and
Speaker 1: Michael's a lot friendlier. I don't know how true this is,
Speaker 1: but I heard that's because Josh actually couldn't hack being
Speaker 1: in them because they were legitimately in the woods. That
Speaker 1: is where. Yeah, this film, like anything you do like
Speaker 1: about the dialogue, the credit for that actually belongs to
Speaker 1: the actors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the directors mostly just oversaw, didn't they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, only key bits like when she reads the legend
Speaker 1: of Coffin Rock were written. Everything else was literally the
Speaker 1: actors went into the woods, and the directors were there too,
Speaker 1: but didn't make contact with them. They would just leave
Speaker 1: them instructions of where to go each day. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: a rough outline of Okay, at this point in the film,
Speaker 1: you're all starting to turn on each other. Yes, And
Speaker 1: I'm sure I read somewhere that basically it was meant
Speaker 1: to be Josh and Heather were the last two, which
Speaker 1: makes sense because they're the friends at the start, and
Speaker 1: Michael's kind of the third along almost yeah, yeah, But
Speaker 1: Josh couldn't hack it and quit halfway through the film,
Speaker 1: so they had to quickly pick only about eight days,
Speaker 1: I think. But the directors did do something that I
Speaker 1: personally would not do, and different directors agree on the
Speaker 1: ethics disagree on the ethics of this. As you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not found of method acting. I'm not frond of
Speaker 1: method directing either. I love Alfred Hitchcock, as you know,
Speaker 1: but the way he tortured Tippy Hendron is just wrong
Speaker 1: to me. In the girl in the Birds he scene,
Speaker 1: you know, because of the attic and the bird swoops
Speaker 1: at her and attacks her face. Yeah, he made her
Speaker 1: do that something like one hundred and twenty seven times
Speaker 1: and then used like the first or second take.
Speaker 2: That was also something that was stated about Kubrick. Kubrick
Speaker 2: with the Girl from the Shining Oh Shelley Devoll yeah,
Speaker 2: though she also had or has psychological issues, so I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how much of it came from her anxiety
Speaker 2: and how much of it was from him. I know
Speaker 2: he There was a lot of other people saying he
Speaker 2: liked to play pranks and do weird shit like that.
Speaker 2: He used to sometimes so that the maze, the garden
Speaker 2: Maze was an actual set, it wasn't a real garden maze,
Speaker 2: and he used to when crew went in there to
Speaker 2: try and get in and out from the set, he
Speaker 2: used to move it around so that they could get
Speaker 2: out again. So he'd do things like that for a laugh.
Speaker 2: But he'd also I think he was also doing a
Speaker 2: little bit of that method directing, where he would try
Speaker 2: and really fuck up Shelley duvol to try and get
Speaker 2: her into the mindset of being someone who's highly anxious.
Speaker 2: But it didn't mix well with what she was going through,
Speaker 2: and it ended up being this long term explosive problem
Speaker 2: of you know that he was an abuser. He may
Speaker 2: have been. I don't know, because I don't know the
Speaker 2: story from either side. I was never there, obviously, but
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where you do put yourself
Speaker 2: at risk as a director. I think if you go right,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna fuck you up, but it'd be good for
Speaker 2: the film. You're like, you're pushing a line.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And on this film they basically deliberately restricted
Speaker 1: their food intake to make them all grouchy. And then
Speaker 1: we're barely getting any sleep because they never knew what
Speaker 1: was going to happen at night. You know, No, they
Speaker 1: didn't know that the directors were going to come and
Speaker 1: start banging on the tent or whatever. Yeah, and the
Speaker 1: bit where you hear Heather scream what the fuck is
Speaker 1: that as they're running away. One of the directors actually
Speaker 1: had a costume on to be the Blair Witch, and
Speaker 1: they'd hoped the camera would swing around and pick it up.
Speaker 1: And you know, the camera does kind of, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't see it and pans back, which, my god, honestly,
Speaker 1: the best thing that could have happened. This film is
Speaker 1: ruined if you see the Witch ruined, and I can
Speaker 1: prove that because in the sequel they show you the
Speaker 1: Witch and it ruins it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. See, I'm not sure one hundred percent agree. I
Speaker 2: agree that you shouldn't see much of the Witch. However,
Speaker 2: that shot it would have been nice to see something,
Speaker 2: not a lot, like a shape. Yeah, a shape would
Speaker 2: have been fine. The bit where she's doing what I
Speaker 2: call the snot shot, which is actually it was in
Speaker 2: all the trailers, but it's actually not until the very end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the iconic shot that got parodied by like everything
Speaker 1: from Scary Movie to SNL.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, where, Yeah, you can see you right up
Speaker 2: her nose while she's shut it. Everywhere. The thing is
Speaker 2: where she's framed. She's framed right to the camera right,
Speaker 2: there's a huge black gap behind her. It would have
Speaker 2: been good if at some point you just see something
Speaker 2: come through and then pick and then push away again
Speaker 2: at some point. That would have been cool, Like just
Speaker 2: to use the darkness to your advantage and show a
Speaker 2: little something but not enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And then the only other place I would have been
Speaker 2: done those two bits, the only other point I would
Speaker 2: have done it is is right at the very end,
Speaker 2: after Heather dies and she drops her camera because it
Speaker 2: holds that shot for ages and fuck all happens and
Speaker 2: you still never see anything, and I'm like, well, this
Speaker 2: is bollocks. Yeah, that's a bollocks shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah. In the third one, you see the witch and
Speaker 1: she's se gi of course.
Speaker 2: Of course she is, because nothing's done better than when it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but no, I do agree. I like the way
Speaker 1: they start turning on each other. It's quite good. And
Speaker 1: I get as you said, people give Heather a little
Speaker 1: bit of a bad rap.
Speaker 2: They do this a lot with women in shows that
Speaker 2: they did the same as Skyler on Breaking Bad, that
Speaker 2: fucking she didn't support and it's like, yeah, you're like
Speaker 2: literally calling her a bitch because she's not supporting a criminal.
Speaker 1: And the point here is Heather is supposed to be
Speaker 1: a bit of a bitch. Yeah, Heather is Heather the
Speaker 1: actress is playing Heather the character really well, yes, if
Speaker 1: that was a male character who insists on still filming
Speaker 1: everything while they're lost, people just be like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: he's just a dedicated director.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think he would still come across
Speaker 2: as a dickhead. But yeah, I think you're right. There
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been as much say personal backland.
Speaker 1: People wouldn't call it a bad performance.
Speaker 2: That's the difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'd go this actor is doing a good job
Speaker 1: of playing a dickhead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree with you. You get that
Speaker 2: a lot because Skyla does do a few shitty things
Speaker 2: in Breaking bad, but like nowhere near enough. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 2: but and that is bad, that is terrible. But it's
Speaker 2: not that they mostly go well, she doesn't really protect
Speaker 2: Walter and you're like, he's the villain, Like, yeah, fucking
Speaker 2: what it's it's there seems to be this thing where
Speaker 2: But if it was the other way around and you
Speaker 2: had a female villain lead character and the husband maybe
Speaker 2: slept with someone else, but basically it was just like, look,
Speaker 2: I can't really support this fucking psycho turn she's going on.
Speaker 2: I don't think you would have had the personal backlash. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you're right, it happens a lot with this sort
Speaker 2: of thing. People have a kickoff because the woman is
Speaker 2: being bad. It's like sometimes someone can just be assholes.
Speaker 1: Like it's interesting you didn't like a lot of the
Speaker 1: opening by that, do you mean do you just mean
Speaker 1: the stuffhere they're fighting around in the hotel room, or
Speaker 1: do you include like the interviews with the townspeople, because
Speaker 1: I quite like the interviews with the townspeople. No a
Speaker 1: real documentary feel.
Speaker 2: No, I'll be honest. The interview with townspeople was pretty good.
Speaker 2: It ended up feeling a bit over long. That beginning stretch,
Speaker 2: even with the interviews, because they'd added all the extra shit,
Speaker 2: so the bit where they're fucking about in the in
Speaker 2: the cabin, like the hotel beforehand and all that sort
Speaker 2: of stuff. When would this ever go into the documentary.
Speaker 2: That's something else that kind of breaks the emergion a
Speaker 2: little bit for me, is that I get that that
Speaker 2: is the reason for that is you're setting up that
Speaker 2: this is a documentary team and that's all Those three
Speaker 2: are realistically the only people we're going to be seeing
Speaker 2: throughout most of the film, so you know you want
Speaker 2: to catch them in early. But there was just so
Speaker 2: much of it. And I think some of the problem
Speaker 2: I had as well was the sound. There were certain
Speaker 2: points where the sound was awful, and I know that
Speaker 2: that is again made for realism, but where it became
Speaker 2: so difficult to try and hear what they were saying
Speaker 2: and not not giving a shit, and I was like,
Speaker 2: you might as well cut the scene then if I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna be able to hear what they're saying, what's
Speaker 2: the fucking point.
Speaker 1: I have to admit I didn't have that problem, but
Speaker 1: I kin'd of see what you mean.
Speaker 2: I did have to yoyo the audio a little bit
Speaker 2: on this one, right, there were certain parts where it
Speaker 2: was like the voices were kind of be down here,
Speaker 2: like hey, Josh, are were going on? And the next
Speaker 2: scene it would cut and again this is all very realistic.
Speaker 2: It would cut and then then by like a or something,
Speaker 2: and then the sound of a quite like really loud
Speaker 2: in the audio field. I'm like, fucking turn that down.
Speaker 1: Then, yeah, i will admit there are there are times
Speaker 1: where it jumps from one to the other in an instant.
Speaker 2: Now, the issue with that that pulled me out of
Speaker 2: the film in this in the beginning part of the
Speaker 2: film is because essentially you've got one of two lanes.
Speaker 2: You've got the fact that you're just showing the footage
Speaker 2: as it was found, as you found footage, in which case, fine,
Speaker 2: it all stays consistent or inconsistent. But the problem is
Speaker 2: is clearly this has been repackaged by the film studio
Speaker 2: that quote unquote found the found footage for an audience
Speaker 2: to see, because it's been edited together and you get
Speaker 2: certain certain scenes you see from multiple angles when you
Speaker 2: see it from different people's cameras, So it's clearly been edited,
Speaker 2: in which case, balance the sound. You're either doing the
Speaker 2: film studio has edited this, in which case balance the sound,
Speaker 2: or you're doing it is all found footage, in which
Speaker 2: case you can't really multicam. I personally go with the
Speaker 2: balance sound because that improves the film, whereas only using
Speaker 2: one of your three cameras actually takes away from your film.
Speaker 2: But they picked option number three, keep the ship sound
Speaker 2: and multiicamir.
Speaker 1: Well, they only have two cameras to be fair. They yeah,
Speaker 1: they have the high eight and the sixteen millimeter, so
Speaker 1: they have the color one and the black and white one.
Speaker 2: Have one.
Speaker 1: Mike's the sound guy, not the camera guy.
Speaker 2: I was I was wondering why Mikey was in so
Speaker 2: many friends and they never used his cam. It's because
Speaker 2: he doesn't have one. No, he's the sound That's why
Speaker 2: he's the guy you see the most. That's why they
Speaker 2: keep saying to him about She keeps saying where's where's
Speaker 2: the dat? Or We've got to get the dat back?
Speaker 2: That that is the name of the sound system. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: The two interviews I like most at the beginning is
Speaker 1: the woman with the kid that completely unplanned. They just
Speaker 1: got really lucky, starts freaking out yeah, and being like no, no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they got so lucky with you.
Speaker 2: That's just the kid freaking out.
Speaker 1: And I really like so another guy.
Speaker 2: I like the guy's fishing.
Speaker 1: Yes, they're the next one. I was going to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: they were cool because they are actors. Now, basically they
Speaker 1: tricked the three leads. The three leads didn't know that
Speaker 1: the townspeople were pre hired actors who've been given stories
Speaker 1: to tell. They thought they were into englegit townspeople. So
Speaker 1: did the actors know it was a fake because they
Speaker 1: couldn't have known it was a fake thing. Then, because
Speaker 1: that the actors must have thought that the blay which
Speaker 1: was a real they yeah, they told them it was
Speaker 1: a real legend and the film was fictional, but the
Speaker 1: legend was real and this part of the film was
Speaker 1: going to be a real documentary.
Speaker 2: That's quite smart because that makes more sense as to
Speaker 2: why the actors would actually freak out without performing when
Speaker 2: they do ship to him in the woods.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the two guys at the fishing creek, that's brilliant.
Speaker 1: I really love the way they because the one's younger,
Speaker 1: ones older, Yeah, and I love the way like the
Speaker 1: younger ones a bit more skepticallyarly, and he's like, well, supposedly,
Speaker 1: and he tells supposedly about it it happened, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, whatever, you're crazy, old man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The interviewing side of it I was fine with. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was just all the fluff in the middle. It
Speaker 2: takes too long to get to the story. And to
Speaker 2: be fair, I say it takes too long. It only
Speaker 2: takes about twenty minutes. I think, where was it? Yeah,
Speaker 2: seventeen minutes, So it takes seventeen minutes before they go
Speaker 2: into the woods and then set up camp. You might
Speaker 2: think that I'm being a bit overly harsh. The problem
Speaker 2: is is when you've got on migraine from watching the
Speaker 2: damn thing for seventeen straight minutes, and then you've got
Speaker 2: another hour and ten minutes to go.
Speaker 1: Well, it's not another out. The film's only eighteen minutes,
Speaker 1: you know, is it. Yeah, Blair Witch Project, it's only
Speaker 1: got a run time of eighty one minutes, No eighty
Speaker 1: one minutes, and it's.
Speaker 2: Maybe versions longer.
Speaker 1: It's cut down from twenty hours of footage they shot. Geez,
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what I imagine most of that other
Speaker 1: twenty hours is just them walking through the woods.
Speaker 2: I have a question, Actually there's a point, so did
Speaker 2: you where is it? So after the seventeen minute mark
Speaker 2: that we get the first signs of an actual, the
Speaker 2: actual narrative going, where basically Josh says he heard some
Speaker 2: cackling in the middle of the night. The other two
Speaker 2: don't believe him. They think he's just taking the piss.
Speaker 2: The next day, Heather shoots a mouse and she's like
Speaker 2: filming the mouse, and she says, what killed this dead mouse? Witchcraft?
Speaker 2: And then Josh replies, how about God? Which I thought
Speaker 2: was an interesting line. I didn't know if there was
Speaker 2: meant to be more meaning to that line or whether
Speaker 2: it was just a joke because it's in like a
Speaker 2: thraw away. But yeah, they discussed that. I'd like to
Speaker 2: discuss that line a little bit if you had any
Speaker 2: alternate views on that line, if you think that was
Speaker 2: relevant or just a bit of No.
Speaker 1: I just interpreted as a sort of a natural causes
Speaker 1: type thing, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fair enough, And then we get this is where
Speaker 2: it keeps on stalling with random shit. We get a
Speaker 2: bit about Mike's chest hair, which that never comes back.
Speaker 1: It looks like is it Uruguay is in it or something?
Speaker 2: Well, they start calling out, yeah, different countries in the
Speaker 2: shape of his chest hair. But yeah, that was just
Speaker 2: a weird, random thing. And then they took take footage
Speaker 2: of Heather having a piss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's weird.
Speaker 2: And when you sit there and go, well, you know,
Speaker 2: the actors were just filming whatever, like that could have
Speaker 2: been a scene that they were told to film. Kind
Speaker 2: of feels like it was. Especially when you know that
Speaker 2: obviously you'd go, well, clearly it's fake because they're using
Speaker 2: her character's name, but the character names are the actor name,
Speaker 2: which is a stroker genius because it means any of
Speaker 2: your outtakes quote unquote can still be used when they
Speaker 2: refer to each other. But it also means when you
Speaker 2: see that scene where they're like filming a taking a piss,
Speaker 2: you're sort of said, they go, is that an outtake
Speaker 2: or was that a grotty little fucker?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I know some of the actors have come out
Speaker 1: since saying that they regret letting it use their real names. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because it's actually limited roles in the future for them.
Speaker 2: But they're already dead. I'm not going to go through.
Speaker 2: There is another part at just before the twenty two
Speaker 2: minute mark, they need to do a river crossing across
Speaker 2: a tree trunk, and this is the only part where
Speaker 2: the sound becomes not quite but it's kind of non
Speaker 2: diagetic sound. We see from the sixteen millimeter as I'm
Speaker 2: guessing Josh filming Heather crossing the tree trunk after Mikey
Speaker 2: and Josh I've already gone. But the audio over the
Speaker 2: top of it is Heather talking about, you know, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't know if I've got the ability to cross
Speaker 2: this while we're seeing a visibly cross and you can
Speaker 2: see on the footage she's not talking at that point,
Speaker 2: which means that the audio mismatches the video. Now I
Speaker 2: understand why that's done from a narrative sense. It's actually
Speaker 2: done for expediency. You get her nervousness matched with the
Speaker 2: fact that we're not delaying the story progressing. So as
Speaker 2: a narrative piece, that makes sense. But actually it's the
Speaker 2: one time I could I spotted where it doesn't fit
Speaker 2: the theme of the film, which is this is all
Speaker 2: found footage. It didn't bother me, but it just as
Speaker 2: soon as it happened, I was that hagger. Yeah, but yeah,
Speaker 2: twenty two minutes. It's the twenty two minute mark they
Speaker 2: start to find the mounds of rocks, which is the
Speaker 2: earliest hint that we get at the Blair Witch itself,
Speaker 2: and eventually that comes back a lot later as well
Speaker 2: with I do like the.
Speaker 1: Legit concern in a voice when she goes, please, some
Speaker 1: of you didn't just not that over? Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that works really well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's defiling something.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well they think it's a Native American thing, don't they, Yes.
Speaker 2: They do. At twenty six minutes, Heather can hear what
Speaker 2: she thinks sounds like fireworks, and they think that it's
Speaker 2: kids outside messing with her. Now, the reason I'm mentioning
Speaker 2: this is I've heard a theory of this film. It's
Speaker 2: not obviously people can take away what they want from
Speaker 2: this movie a theory, and I'm not saying this is
Speaker 2: correct or even my view. I just thought it'd be
Speaker 2: interesting one to raise. There is a theory that the
Speaker 2: actual what actually happens in this film is that Heather
Speaker 2: is murdered, but she's murdered by Mikey and Josh, and
Speaker 2: that the idea is that while they're out there, they're
Speaker 2: slowly gaslighting her, and this is the first time we
Speaker 2: really start to see that come forward, because we can
Speaker 2: hear it and the cameras that there's something going on,
Speaker 2: there's something exploding outside. The two boys don't seem at
Speaker 2: all bothered, despite the fact that you probably would still
Speaker 2: be at least a little bothered that there's some explosions
Speaker 2: happening outside of your tent. But she's obviously freaking out,
Speaker 2: not knowing what it is. And then it's just some kids,
Speaker 2: let's get on with it, like shut up. It's possible
Speaker 2: that footage was from the directors trying to freak them
Speaker 2: out with some fireworks and the two main actors going, oh,
Speaker 2: we can give a shit tonight, we'll go to sleep,
Speaker 2: and it just so happens that that locks into this narrative.
Speaker 2: But yeah, what's your thoughts on the idea that the
Speaker 2: film is about two guys gaslighting a woman to get
Speaker 2: her ready for the process of murdering her. Certainly, since
Speaker 2: by the time we see the blair Witch stuff come up, Josh,
Speaker 2: I believe has already disappeared.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the I have heard that theory before. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: definitely an interesting theory. I think the fact this sequels
Speaker 1: disproves it in the Cannon because canonically the Blair Witch
Speaker 1: does exist.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, but but ignoring the secrets, just
Speaker 2: taking it as it is interesting.
Speaker 1: I do prefer a spooky supernatural story, of course, but
Speaker 1: I can see where the theory comes from. I think
Speaker 1: it falls apart a bit when later on they do
Speaker 1: hear like the baby crying and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the baby crying was weird.
Speaker 1: Oh that's the scariest bit in the whole film, in
Speaker 1: my opinion.
Speaker 2: You do hear Josh as well at the end inside
Speaker 2: the house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is nothing creepier than hearing babies where there
Speaker 1: is no baby. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Like I don't know why as well, because it shouldn't
Speaker 2: be that creepy hearing because the baby's not gonna hurt you. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but it's the suggestion that maybe it's the suggestion because
Speaker 2: we know that generally mothers in most mammal species are
Speaker 2: very overprotective, let's say, of children. And I don't mean
Speaker 2: that they shouldn't be protective, but like they can be
Speaker 2: violently So a lot of different animals can be violently
Speaker 2: aggressive towards anyone that goes near their baby, whether you
Speaker 2: mean to or not the fact you can hear it
Speaker 2: but don't know where it is. You're like, I could
Speaker 2: be nearly going near something's baby and they're gonna murder
Speaker 2: me for it, and I didn't mean to piss anyone off.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's to do with that. Yeah, but it is
Speaker 2: very strange. It's like some people find it creepy when
Speaker 2: they hear babies laughing. Yeah, it doesn't work with adults laughing.
Speaker 2: It's something to do with it being a baby, maybe
Speaker 2: because there's the suggestion of innocence, and if you're in
Speaker 2: the middle of nowhere, why is there an innocent here?
Speaker 2: Maybe it's I don't know. It is strange because it
Speaker 2: is something to do specifically with baby, is that? Or
Speaker 2: maybe it's just our fear of responsibility.
Speaker 1: Maybe I do really like the ending of this film.
Speaker 2: Well in the House, Yeah, yeah, it definitely The house
Speaker 2: helps a lot. The one thing I do have a
Speaker 2: negative on the House is the age of the house.
Speaker 1: How old it is?
Speaker 2: It's not that old.
Speaker 1: Well, so as the thing is that house is a
Speaker 1: legitimate historical relic in America. Bosh, America is not that old.
Speaker 1: It's from the eighteen hundreds, oh is it? Yeah? That
Speaker 1: house is legitimately from the eighteen hundreds and has since
Speaker 1: been torn down because Blair which fans wouldn't stop going
Speaker 1: to it and damaging it, and the council I guess
Speaker 1: you'd call it, said, right, we're going to knock it down.
Speaker 1: Blair Witch fans signed a petition go away, no, no,
Speaker 1: save it. It got loads of signatures, so the council went, fine,
Speaker 1: we won't knock it down, and then once the furora
Speaker 1: had died down, they quietly went and demolished it.
Speaker 2: Oh that's shitty because.
Speaker 1: People wouldn't stop going and it was because the house
Speaker 1: was becoming unsafe to be in because people were like
Speaker 1: damaging the floorboards and things, and they were like, one
Speaker 1: of these days someone's going to go in and the
Speaker 1: floor's going to collapse.
Speaker 2: It's things like that always make me laugh because I'm like, look,
Speaker 2: you've managed to get something, not by choice, just because
Speaker 2: you know they didn't approve the film, per say, but
Speaker 2: as a council you've been gifted something here. You've been
Speaker 2: gifted a location that millions want to go to, or
Speaker 2: thousands maybe want to go to because of a love
Speaker 2: of a movie. Nowhere else has this location Now, sure
Speaker 2: it's a deredate, Sure it's unsafe. Surely what you should do,
Speaker 2: who is invest in not tighten it up, making it
Speaker 2: look new. Make it look safe, though, yeah, make it
Speaker 2: physically safe. Charge people to come, Like, why the fuck
Speaker 2: not we do it with Stonehenge. You're allowed near Stonehenge
Speaker 2: as long as you pay your entry fee. It's it
Speaker 2: just seems madness to me that you know, you've as
Speaker 2: a counselor you've got Oh, we've got this thing that
Speaker 2: could really bring in tourism. We can build on the
Speaker 2: blair Witch concept as part of our town.
Speaker 1: It actually ties into the sequel, but I'll talk to that.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that at the end, right, Okay, But yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's a real old house. And yeah, it's kind of
Speaker 1: shit that she just runs up and down it. That
Speaker 1: bit I'm not a big fan of. But I love
Speaker 1: the bloody handprints on the wall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was really cool. And I love that Were
Speaker 2: they in the basement or were they in because they
Speaker 2: go into the loft first thinking Josh's scream from the loft,
Speaker 2: and then they hear the baby scream and then the
Speaker 2: Josh screaming from the basement instead, So they go down
Speaker 2: to the basement. Yeah, and when she comes in, my
Speaker 2: keyars in the corner facing the corner which earlier on
Speaker 2: when they told the story about the serial kills, how
Speaker 2: the last lot was found.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's how he used to kill people. How Stimpa
Speaker 1: used to kill people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, what I find interesting about about this is,
Speaker 2: again I suppose we don't really get the answers in
Speaker 2: this film. The Blair Witch is somehow using Josh to
Speaker 2: her advantage, whether or not Josh is actually alive at
Speaker 2: that point and screaming for help. But I think what
Speaker 2: the suggestion actually is is that the Blair Witch is
Speaker 2: able to do a very strong amount of imitation, because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of different noises and voices that they
Speaker 2: seem to get that can only really come from the Witch,
Speaker 2: but he's clearly not the Witch's own voice. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: a bit strange that the Witch would decide to use
Speaker 2: imitation to creep people out. But yeah, simultaneously, I don't
Speaker 2: know what the bloody handprints were all about. It'd be
Speaker 2: interesting to see how much of that was added by
Speaker 2: the filmmakers, or if those handprints were actually there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you could be people used to go there in the
Speaker 2: local town before Blair Witch and just like fingerpaint hands
Speaker 2: to the wall to show like how many children have
Speaker 2: been here, how many people have been here, and that
Speaker 2: they saw that just went we've got film now, Yeah,
Speaker 2: could you would? It was very creepy house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's brilliant. I'd love to have seen it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That happens seven and a half minutes from the end,
Speaker 2: so it's really not very long that you're in that house. Uh.
Speaker 2: It's the best bit of the film though, because it's
Speaker 2: the only bit of the film that's really a horror.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The rest of it's creepy. Yeah, but it's not really
Speaker 2: a horror, more of a thriller. Maybe the house is
Speaker 2: pure horror.
Speaker 1: I've always said this film is a bit like a
Speaker 1: punchline film. Yeah, in that obviously it's not funny, but
Speaker 1: the whole film is just preparing you for that one
Speaker 1: like three minute sequence iever long it is there in
Speaker 1: them Yeah, yeah, house, which is why I could I
Speaker 1: can totally understand why these people who don't like this film, Like,
Speaker 1: I can absolutely understand it.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of build up for quite literally nothing.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not okay, so well you don't see
Speaker 2: much now, you see nothing, but what you do see
Speaker 2: within that nothing is very creepy. If they've managed to
Speaker 2: pick their nothing wisely, I suppose, which is a strange
Speaker 2: thing to say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, another interesting thing. I just want to talk
Speaker 1: about about this film, and then I'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the sequels and we can move on. I
Speaker 1: think what's so unique about Blair Witch Project is I
Speaker 1: really think there is no other point in time you
Speaker 1: could make it and have it have the same historical impact.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So this this came out what ninety seven, ninety
Speaker 2: nine because essentially at this time there was the rise
Speaker 2: of the Internet. The Internet existed in the nineties, but
Speaker 2: it was still very much in an early stage.
Speaker 1: Ye. This is widely regarded. I don't know how true
Speaker 1: it is, but it generally is recognized as the first
Speaker 1: film where its marketing campaign was primarily via the Internet.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and part of that came from the fact that
Speaker 2: in those days of the Internet, God, in the decent
Speaker 2: days of the Internet before it was all algorithms, fucking
Speaker 2: algorithms of ruined the Internet so much. Man. But anyway,
Speaker 2: in the early days of the Internet, the idea was
Speaker 2: that you could find whatever you want by actually doing
Speaker 2: a search and the search not being paid algorithm bullshit.
Speaker 2: There was a rise of what they called viral marketing. Now, obviously,
Speaker 2: viral marketing has been around for decades before the Internet.
Speaker 2: It's not new. But the way that viral marketing was
Speaker 2: used when the Internet came along, because of its long,
Speaker 2: extended reach and the sort of content you were able
Speaker 2: to get to people, really extended how far you could
Speaker 2: take viral marketing. It wasn't unique to this film that
Speaker 2: that sort of viral marketing was happening, but certainly when
Speaker 2: it came to the impact, Blair Witch did it best
Speaker 2: because there was a lot of because people like creepy shit,
Speaker 2: let's be honest, like creepy pasta content as it was called.
Speaker 2: It's not really called that anymore, even to be honest,
Speaker 2: but all that sort of creepy footage on what happened
Speaker 2: to this, like these people disappeared, or this scary story
Speaker 2: about a video game, or about this person disappearing in
Speaker 2: the woods one day, or there's a lot of horror
Speaker 2: st content online. Look at YouTube. There's a huge portion
Speaker 2: of it where there's just people telling stories. You sadly
Speaker 2: have got annoyed with it eventually, because it was all
Speaker 2: the same stories, but these dark stories of what happened
Speaker 2: on the web or what happened in the videos on this, this, this,
Speaker 2: and this. You couldn't get that much viral shit out
Speaker 2: until the Internet came along, and then suddenly people were
Speaker 2: building websites about, you know, creepy shit, and you'd go
Speaker 2: on these websites, Oh, a new creepy story for you,
Speaker 2: and you'd get not just someone telling a tall tale,
Speaker 2: you'd get the written word. You'd have audio of it.
Speaker 2: Maybe you'd have video of it that was downloadable, because
Speaker 2: it was before the days of YouTube, so it's before
Speaker 2: the days of streamable video. But I used to do
Speaker 2: this on a dreamcast. You could download a quick mouth
Speaker 2: file on your dreamcast from a website and play the
Speaker 2: video file. These things were were doable in the nineties.
Speaker 2: This film really was the first one to find that
Speaker 2: and go, let's take that up to eleven.
Speaker 1: But I also think the film wouldn't have been picked
Speaker 1: up at any other time period. You know, the nineties,
Speaker 1: you have the rise of Indiewood, as they call it,
Speaker 1: where Hollywood suddenly became interested in indie films thanks to
Speaker 1: Tarantino and the success of pulp fiction yep, and you
Speaker 1: get these medium range studios like Artisan who start going
Speaker 1: to Sundance and taking a bit more of a risk
Speaker 1: on weird films like this. Yeah, I don't necessarily think
Speaker 1: this would get picked up any time other than the
Speaker 1: late nineties, because obviously that Indiewood attitude as well and
Speaker 1: truly died at this point.
Speaker 2: I think the other reason is, as much as I
Speaker 2: understand again, I understand why it works for the film,
Speaker 2: the really bad camera work. It kind of lucked out
Speaker 2: on the time period because during the late nineties and
Speaker 2: early two thousands, even though just the way they edited
Speaker 2: stuff was really frenetic, so they found like fast movement
Speaker 2: blurs and like sort of janky camera work was kind
Speaker 2: of edgebra so you had a lot of that, like
Speaker 2: even down to the hole, you wouldn't steal a car.
Speaker 2: That trailer was edited in the same fashion. It's all janky,
Speaker 2: quick moving camera and all this shit. Because it was edgy,
Speaker 2: it was cool, that's what everyone wants to see. Ra
Speaker 2: bam in your face. And because it came out during
Speaker 2: the time where that was acceptable, it didn't feel quite
Speaker 2: as egregious. It felt a bit weird. That was a
Speaker 2: whole film rather than just like a fucking thirty second advert,
Speaker 2: and not to steal pirate videos. But yeah, it fit
Speaker 2: into a timeframe where edgy camera work and cutting was
Speaker 2: the norm. If you tried to release a film like
Speaker 2: that now, no one would have it, yeh, because you'd
Speaker 2: sit there and go, fucking just just get one of
Speaker 2: them fucking sticks that helps balance your phone or just
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, likes. There's a million ways
Speaker 2: you can stabilize and people expect you to well.
Speaker 1: So that leads me perfectly into the sequels. Then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this actually became a bit of a franchise. You know.
Speaker 1: There were three different video games based on the Blear
Speaker 1: Witch were there back in the nineties on the PC,
Speaker 1: which are basically really difficult to find now.
Speaker 2: Oh they like flash games.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they were. They look like cheap
Speaker 1: one of them looks like a cheap as an Evil clone.
Speaker 1: There's then been a modern game that came out around
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen, which I have got. I haven't
Speaker 1: played it yet, but I've heard it's really good. Apparently
Speaker 1: it's really scary, right, but I think it's scary in
Speaker 1: the same way that like slender Man, the Return was scary,
Speaker 1: where it's it's all just focused on the build up
Speaker 1: to win. The Witch might turn up.
Speaker 2: And I played slender Man. I think it was the
Speaker 2: eight pages or something, right, thirteen pages out of an
Speaker 2: amount of pages, and you walk around a shitty looking
Speaker 2: woods and try and find pieces of paper and then
Speaker 2: eventually your vision gets blurred and if you're not, if
Speaker 2: you don't make it in die the slender Man.
Speaker 1: Now I could be wrong, but I think that's what
Speaker 1: it is. There was then a series of young adult
Speaker 1: novels for the Blair Witch. Yeah, no, what I know?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this was a much bigger franchise than you'd think.
Speaker 1: But of course it was. When you say young adult
Speaker 1: novels aimed at like eleven to fourteen years oh okay, cool,
Speaker 1: I okay, I thought you meant like dirty dogs. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: do you want to get fused by the Blair Witch?
Speaker 1: But like literally, But in terms of movies, this two sequels.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: The first of those sequels comes a few years later.
Speaker 1: It's called Book of Shadows Blair Witch two. Now, there
Speaker 1: is an interesting thing about Book of Shadows, which is
Speaker 1: they got this director in to do it, and I've
Speaker 1: actually forgotten the director's name, so I apologize. And they
Speaker 1: said to him, hey, we want to hire you to
Speaker 1: do blair Witch too. So they didn't go back to
Speaker 1: the original creators no, which to be sure, I don't
Speaker 1: think they They might have gone to them and they
Speaker 1: weren't interested, but they went to this guy and said,
Speaker 1: we want to do blair Witch too, And this guy said, okay,
Speaker 1: well you can't do the same trick again because no
Speaker 1: one's going to fall for it a second time. What
Speaker 1: he wanted to do instead was, as I just said earlier,
Speaker 1: that house got flooded with so many visitors and they
Speaker 1: were damaging it. Yeah, And there was also disturbances being
Speaker 1: caused in the town and townspeople being harassed by people
Speaker 1: who thought it was real and were turning up and
Speaker 1: being like, well, we want to make a documentary about
Speaker 1: blair Witch. Tell us about blear.
Speaker 2: Witch, and everyone's just yeah, because they expect to see
Speaker 2: the townsfolk from the film. Yeah, but their actors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So they just got up to it and they're
Speaker 1: like what, And you of course got some people in
Speaker 1: the town who said, well, this is a money making opportunity.
Speaker 1: So they would do things like tours of the woods.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to see, no, but they'd charged people to
Speaker 1: tech them in woods for a night and then take
Speaker 1: them home again. And he wanted to do a film
Speaker 1: about that, like a meta narrative about how the release
Speaker 1: and success of the first film had ruled in life
Speaker 1: in this town. Sure, and then try and thread some
Speaker 1: supernatural elements into it, which would have been really interesting.
Speaker 1: And he shot most of that and the studio went, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: we don't like this. We're gonna get you to re
Speaker 1: edit it please into a generic horror movie. Ugh, and
Speaker 1: we want you to shoot some stuff where like the
Speaker 1: witch has possessed one of them and is making them
Speaker 1: kill the others. So it ended up being a bit
Speaker 1: of a dud. Hence there was no sequel after that
Speaker 1: for a while. Yeah, that feels Oh did Bloomhouse not
Speaker 1: pick it up? No? Oh did bloom Oh Bloomhouse might
Speaker 1: have done the third one, actually, because there was one
Speaker 1: that's just called blair Witch. Yeah, that might be bloom
Speaker 1: And that was a lot.
Speaker 2: I remember that one was like fifteen years later or maybe.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty sixteen. That one comes out.
Speaker 2: Right, So it's nearly twenty years later.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so Blear Witch. They did another gimmick with that one,
Speaker 1: where they didn't tell anyone they were filming it, right,
Speaker 1: And then the way it got revealed was people went
Speaker 1: to either Comic Con or or something like Comic Con
Speaker 1: were told they were going to get a special screening
Speaker 1: of a new horror movie with a really generic title
Speaker 1: like The Woods or something like that. Right, people went in,
Speaker 1: and then just as the film was about to start,
Speaker 1: the director was like, surprise, it's a Blair Witch movie. Right.
Speaker 1: And that's one of these sort of legacy sequels where
Speaker 1: it ignores that the second film ever happened and just
Speaker 1: goes back to the first.
Speaker 2: Sounds very much like Bloemhouse because they did that with Halloweens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it follows the younger brother of Heather who
Speaker 1: he's watched the footage and then I think some other
Speaker 1: people have gone into that house afterwards and they filmed
Speaker 1: some footage there and put it on the internet, right,
Speaker 1: And in the footage they've put on the internet, he's
Speaker 1: convinced that you can glimpse Heather right in the foot
Speaker 1: in the footage.
Speaker 2: Is that any good that film.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's so the problem is it's all found
Speaker 1: footage again, but it's twenty sixteen, so there's no film grain.
Speaker 1: It's all digital. It's overdone in the sense that they've
Speaker 1: got like drones and things like that, which looks great
Speaker 1: because you get these lovely sweeping shots over the tree line.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and it's just this endless forest of trees,
Speaker 1: which look that is cool, wonderful, but it ruins the feel.
Speaker 2: See. What I would have done is I would have
Speaker 2: had them have that and go right, we're going to
Speaker 2: bring drones with us so we can get as much
Speaker 2: footage as possible. And the first thing that goes is
Speaker 2: the blair Witch takes those out. So then because that way,
Speaker 2: it starts off open and then gets more claustrophobic as
Speaker 2: she works her way into them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't disase that how they do it, or yeah
Speaker 1: they do. I don't dislike blair Witch. I like it,
Speaker 1: but it's it is the exact thing you would expect
Speaker 1: between Okay, this is the original truly indie one yep.
Speaker 1: And this is one that's got a budget behind it
Speaker 1: and it's got a famous director out, Adam Wingard, who
Speaker 1: went on to do Godzilla VI Kong. There's no sucking
Speaker 1: in Blear Witch. So instead of just people going missing,
Speaker 1: you are seeing people die, like a tree falls on
Speaker 1: one person. Another person gets this thing where like a
Speaker 1: tree starts to grow out of their leg and it
Speaker 1: looks really visceral and cool. But then you get they
Speaker 1: meet two other people in the woods, and you know
Speaker 1: there's a suggestion, but it's only ever a suggestion in
Speaker 1: the original that the woods are physically changing around them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because they did the same direction for one day and
Speaker 1: somehow loop yeah, blear, which makes that that's like fully
Speaker 1: established that that's happening, right, And also that there's a
Speaker 1: time loop because they meet these two people, well the
Speaker 1: time loop, sorry, that time works differently in the woods
Speaker 1: because they meet these two people, fall out with those
Speaker 1: two people over something I can't remember what. Those two
Speaker 1: people go off on their own. Then they're not in
Speaker 1: like most of the film. Then at the end of
Speaker 1: the film they bump into them again. But those two people,
Speaker 1: like the blokes grown a beard, like, dude, it's been
Speaker 1: two days since we saw you, and he's like, we've
Speaker 1: been wandering around this forest for three months. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then as I say at the end, you see the Witch. Now,
Speaker 1: to be fair, the first time you see the Witch
Speaker 1: is fine, and it's done really well where you just
Speaker 1: glimpse her. The cameras like moving around the trees and
Speaker 1: you just glimpse her move behind a tree and she
Speaker 1: looks like, yeah, she's tall with long limbs. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing. It's not creative. Just glimpsing her was fine
Speaker 1: because I remember being I watched it in the cinema
Speaker 1: and in the cinema and do that.
Speaker 2: Just get the guy who was in the guy who's
Speaker 2: in Star Trek Discovery, Doug Giants. Just get Doug Jonts.
Speaker 1: I don't know, way taller than that. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but just trick that. Oh yeah, you just you just
Speaker 1: trick that. Yeah, the first time you glimpse her. It
Speaker 1: works because you you have a moment we're just like,
Speaker 1: did I just see the Witch?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I just saw the Witch? And then you
Speaker 1: get like a full on bit where she's on camera
Speaker 1: for like five straight minutes at one point, okay five
Speaker 1: minutes exaggeration like one minute, but still it's still too much.
Speaker 2: It's too much. You want you want to keep your
Speaker 2: monster hidden and certainly with the Blair Witch. And if
Speaker 2: you're going to show the Blair Witch after all this time,
Speaker 2: make it's something unique.
Speaker 1: Yeah, make it a better design.
Speaker 2: Yeah, don't just go Wells London man.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. It is a film that I've never
Speaker 1: felt needed sequels. It never had sequels.
Speaker 2: I agree it kind of ruins the point of the film,
Speaker 2: which is that it's found footage. If you sequalize it,
Speaker 2: the only other thing that you could maybe do as
Speaker 2: a sequel, and you'd have to do it in the
Speaker 2: same style. So I'm definitely not the man to make
Speaker 2: that film is you could do, but you'd have to
Speaker 2: also try and set it in the era. You do that,
Speaker 2: you hear other there's another group in the woods who
Speaker 2: never run across our main guys, but while the ship's
Speaker 2: happening to them from the first film, they're hearing it,
Speaker 2: so all the fireworks going off could be from these
Speaker 2: other people, and they're like, Okay, what's that. It's not
Speaker 2: actually the blair Witch, it's this other group. But then
Speaker 2: as that they come across like the Blair Wi symbology
Speaker 2: and stuff a lot quicker. But you could give you
Speaker 2: you don't need to do this, But like you could
Speaker 2: do anything with that. You could have that they find
Speaker 2: things that freak out the other party, but it's actually
Speaker 2: happening to them getting murdered. So the party in the
Speaker 2: first Blair Witch Project is actually hearing other people getting
Speaker 2: mrked by the witch, which is why she takes so
Speaker 2: long to get to them. She's not actually delaying getting
Speaker 2: to them or playing with them.
Speaker 1: Assard a long list of people to kill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's just a lot of motherfuckers in these words
Speaker 2: the diet, you know what I mean? You could do
Speaker 2: something like that, maybe as a not I'm just spitballing
Speaker 2: ideas off the top of my head, but like those
Speaker 2: are ways you could be invented. But again, the problem
Speaker 2: you've got is where it's now so far away from
Speaker 2: the original Blair Witch Project. In order for that to
Speaker 2: look authentic, really, you'd have to film it the same way.
Speaker 2: You need to go back to the handicams of the
Speaker 2: nineties and maybe a sixteen millimeter. You can't bring drones in,
Speaker 2: you can't bring in high deaf cameras and stabilizers. And
Speaker 2: because you have, even if you had gave the film
Speaker 2: a budget that would make the film then not work
Speaker 2: because you just sit there and go, well, why was
Speaker 2: none of this in the original exactly, So you kind
Speaker 2: of you've locked the film into the era in which
Speaker 2: it was made as well, which is why again, as
Speaker 2: you say, makes very little sense to sequalize it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's Hollywood, and we can't let something just
Speaker 1: be by itself.
Speaker 2: It's hard.
Speaker 1: If it made money, If it made money, this's gotta
Speaker 1: be sequels.
Speaker 2: There's got to be some. Yeah, some. Well, I think
Speaker 2: that's enough about it. I have one more thing, sorry, yeah, no,
Speaker 2: go ahead, So I have one more thing, which is
Speaker 2: there was a line that I really liked in the film,
Speaker 2: and it's from Josh. I think it's from Josh or Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it's just before Josh disappears at forty nine minutes,
Speaker 2: there's a fight between Heather and Mike, and then a
Speaker 2: little bit after that. I think it's Josh's looking through
Speaker 2: the camera that Heathers keeps using to film them.
Speaker 1: Oh, is it where he's talking about it's not quite reality.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I see why you like this video camera so much.
Speaker 2: It's not quite reality. It's totally like a filtered reality.
Speaker 2: I thought that was an interesting line as well. Doesn't
Speaker 2: really pay off. But I kind of like the idea
Speaker 2: that the camera might be able to pick up. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's not right for this film, but I kind of
Speaker 2: like the idea if it had a kind of almost
Speaker 2: a camera obscurer sort of effect from fatal frame, where
Speaker 2: the camera is able to pick up details that they
Speaker 2: can't quite get with their naked eye, that would be
Speaker 2: kind of cool. It's again, it's not utilized, but I
Speaker 2: just thought that was a good line.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like the bit where he's filming Heather as
Speaker 1: well and he's like torturing her, yeah, and he's like
Speaker 1: that's your motivation, yeah, yeah, taking the piss and she's like,
Speaker 1: what do you want? And he's like, I want to
Speaker 1: make movies, Heather. That's actually a line that said really creepily.
Speaker 1: That's probably the bit that closest leans into the theory
Speaker 1: that yeah, he's at him and Michael are actually killers.
Speaker 1: Yeah is what he's like, I want to make movies, Heather. Well,
Speaker 1: there you have it, folks. That is Rory and myself
Speaker 1: giving a second take to the Blair Witch Project. We
Speaker 1: will be back next week with another film to give
Speaker 1: the second take treatment to. In the meantime, you can
Speaker 1: find us over on x at the Imparlor Films or
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Imparlor Revolution, where you can keep up
Speaker 1: to date with latest releases other shows that we do.
Speaker 1: You can find links to our discord our Patreon if
Speaker 1: you'd like to help support the show. We also do
Speaker 1: a couple of other shows, including VGMP, the Video Game
Speaker 1: Movie Podcast. We also do two fiction shows. Lens of
Speaker 1: the Moon is a sci fi cosmic horror series written
Speaker 1: by a great Canadian author and Haunted, the audio drama
Speaker 1: created by Yours Truly that I run with my business
Speaker 1: partner Benton that is sort of an X Files meets
Speaker 1: Doctor Who horror adventure type series that you can check out.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much for joining us today as we
Speaker 1: talk about the Blair Witch Project, and we will see
Speaker 1: you next time.