It's tl;dr, but his point is valid, basically that BWP owes a massive debt of gratitude to CH (and, it seems The Last Broadcast) for its "originality".Alien Redrum wrote:You'd be surprised. I've had arguments about it on this very board. It's stupid.
Hell, here's a guy who wrote a big diatribe about it --> http://www.leftfieldcinema.com/comparat ... ch-project" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
I didn't read it. It's too wordy.
Alien Redrum wrote:BWP is a shit sandwich.
No. No it doesn't. Cannibal Holocaust was 20 years old before BWP came along and, let's face it, outside of its notoriety, wasn't that popular of a movie in mainstream. Should it give some credit to CH for starting the genre? Yes. Massive debt of gratitude? No. If anything, BWP took the found footage and made it popular. And I bet there are people who would have never heard of CH if it weren't for BWP.DJBenz wrote:It's tl;dr, but his point is valid, basically that BWP owes a massive debt of gratitude to CH...
Absolutely not. They both are found footage films, they both take place in the woods. That's it. I've seen both. TLB should be thankful of BWP that it got them on the map. I take it by this statement you haven't seen TLB because if you had, not only would you be pissed off even moreso than BWP, you would know that statement is very inaccurate.DJBenz wrote: (and, it seems The Last Broadcast) for its "originality".
Indeed it did take found footage and make it popular, and it owes CH a massive debt of gratitude for that. We're not just talking vaguely linked premises like NotLD and White Zombie, we're talking exactly the same concept for the bulk of the movie. That BWP went on to make found footage popular is irrelevant, CH still created the concept they used.Alien Redrum wrote:No. No it doesn't. Cannibal Holocaust was 20 years old before BWP came along and, let's face it, outside of its notoriety, wasn't that popular of a movie in mainstream. Should it give some credit to CH for starting the genre? Yes. Massive debt of gratitude? No. If anything, BWP took the found footage and made it popular.
Absolute cockwaste.And I bet there are people who would have never heard of CH if it weren't for BWP.
The woods? That's it? So the fact that the characters in TLB are investigating the myth of the Jersey Devil isn't in any way similar to the kids of BWP investigating the myth of the Blair Witch? OK, it's just the woods. And the found footage.Absolutely not. They both are found footage films, they both take place in the woods. That's it. I've seen both.
I haven't seen TLB, my point is not that it may or may not be a better or worse movie than BWP, but that BWP, for all the crowing and wanking over its originality, wasn't particularly original.(That sounds dickish, but it's not intended to be. I just fucking hate that argument/debate/whatever that BWP ripped off TLB. They might have similar themes, but two totally different movies. And OH MY GOD does LB ending suck.)
You're a shit film, lol, sorry I had to after Alien called you a shit sandwich.DJBenz wrote:Indeed it did take found footage and make it popular, and it owes CH a massive debt of gratitude for that. We're not just talking vaguely linked premises like NotLD and White Zombie, we're talking exactly the same concept for the bulk of the movie. That BWP went on to make found footage popular is irrelevant, CH still created the concept they used.Alien Redrum wrote:No. No it doesn't. Cannibal Holocaust was 20 years old before BWP came along and, let's face it, outside of its notoriety, wasn't that popular of a movie in mainstream. Should it give some credit to CH for starting the genre? Yes. Massive debt of gratitude? No. If anything, BWP took the found footage and made it popular.
Absolute cockwaste.And I bet there are people who would have never heard of CH if it weren't for BWP.
The woods? That's it? So the fact that the characters in TLB are investigating the myth of the Jersey Devil isn't in any way similar to the kids of BWP investigating the myth of the Blair Witch? OK, it's just the woods. And the found footage.Absolutely not. They both are found footage films, they both take place in the woods. That's it. I've seen both.
I haven't seen TLB, my point is not that it may or may not be a better or worse movie than BWP, but that BWP, for all the crowing and wanking over its originality, wasn't particularly original.(That sounds dickish, but it's not intended to be. I just fucking hate that argument/debate/whatever that BWP ripped off TLB. They might have similar themes, but two totally different movies. And OH MY GOD does LB ending suck.)
And it was a shit film to boot.
Then your argument is moot. Watch it, then get back to me.DJBenz wrote:I haven't seen TLB
The argument isn't moot, it's clear from the synopses of both films that there are striking similarities in concept.Alien Redrum wrote:Then your argument is moot. Watch it, then get back to me.DJBenz wrote:I haven't seen TLB
I'm convinced you are just doing this to get a rise out of me.DJBenz wrote:The argument isn't moot, it's clear from the synopses of both films that there are striking similarities in concept.Alien Redrum wrote:Then your argument is moot. Watch it, then get back to me.DJBenz wrote:I haven't seen TLB
Look up 'concept' in a dictionary and get back to me.
Well put, I was in my twenties when it came out in theaters so I was able to enjoy it from the get go.Sham wrote:The summer I celebrated my tenth birthday, I remember seeing advertisements for The Blair Witch Project all over TV and in most magazines at the checkout line. All of them described the movie as being "scary as hell" and "scarier than The Exorcist." Naturally, since I had just discovered horror films a couple years earlier with Scream, I couldn't wait to see more, and this seemed to be the end all, be all of scary movies. The night before I went to the theater, I stayed up late with my mom to watch Curse of the Blair Witch on Sci-Fi (yeah, that's right, Sci-Fi, not Syfy), and not even 24 hours later, I was in the ticket line with my best friend, who hated horror movies but came along anyway to see what all the fuss was about. Going in, we both believed everything we were about to see was true.
Our experience seeing The Blair Witch Project in the theater was nowhere near as enjoyable as AR's, and it's because The Blair Witch Project is not a ten-year-old's horror movie. Of course a ten-year-old is going to be disappointed by a square-framed, rounded-edged movie taking up only a fraction of the screen. Of course a ten-year-old is going to be upset that all of the horror he thinks he's going to see is actually left to the imagination. Of course a ten-year-old isn't going to understand the desperation that comes with being completely self-sufficient in a primitive environment.
I spent all of my teen years labeling The Blair Witch Project as one of the worst movies of any genre I had ever seen, and had I not revisited the movie a decade later, I would still think it's as bad as the ten-year-old in me remembers. Roger Ebert put it brilliantly when he wrote in his review: "The Blair Witch Project is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. Any kid can tell you that. Not that he believes it at the time."
I can honestly say The Blair Witch Project is one of my very favorite horror movies. It's not a film to be shared in a theater with hundreds of people, but an experience to be had alone in the darkness of your home. That's how I revisited the film, and it was exhausting and terrifying. I've seen the movie several times since, and it just gets better and better with each viewing. It's the quintessential film in the found footage subgenre and a template for how to make a movie with few to no resources. I absolutely love it, and for all the reasons the ten-year-old in me hated it.
It's posts like this that make truly miss your reviews.Sham wrote:The summer I celebrated my tenth birthday, I remember seeing advertisements for The Blair Witch Project all over TV and in most magazines at the checkout line. All of them described the movie as being "scary as hell" and "scarier than The Exorcist." Naturally, since I had just discovered horror films a couple years earlier with Scream, I couldn't wait to see more, and this seemed to be the end all, be all of scary movies. The night before I went to the theater, I stayed up late with my mom to watch Curse of the Blair Witch on Sci-Fi (yeah, that's right, Sci-Fi, not Syfy), and not even 24 hours later, I was in the ticket line with my best friend, who hated horror movies but came along anyway to see what all the fuss was about. Going in, we both believed everything we were about to see was true.
Our experience seeing The Blair Witch Project in the theater was nowhere near as enjoyable as AR's, and it's because The Blair Witch Project is not a ten-year-old's horror movie. Of course a ten-year-old is going to be disappointed by a square-framed, rounded-edged movie taking up only a fraction of the screen. Of course a ten-year-old is going to be upset that all of the horror he thinks he's going to see is actually left to the imagination. Of course a ten-year-old isn't going to understand the desperation that comes with being completely self-sufficient in a primitive environment.
I spent all of my teen years labeling The Blair Witch Project as one of the worst movies of any genre I had ever seen, and had I not revisited the movie a decade later, I would still think it's as bad as the ten-year-old in me remembers. Roger Ebert put it brilliantly when he wrote in his review: "The Blair Witch Project is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. Any kid can tell you that. Not that he believes it at the time."
I can honestly say The Blair Witch Project is one of my very favorite horror movies. It's not a film to be shared in a theater with hundreds of people, but an experience to be had alone in the darkness of your home. That's how I revisited the film, and it was exhausting and terrifying. I've seen the movie several times since, and it just gets better and better with each viewing. It's the quintessential film in the found footage subgenre and a template for how to make a movie with few to no resources. I absolutely love it, and for all the reasons the ten-year-old in me hated it.
