“The Blair Witch Project is one of the smartest horror films around”
- Bold Statement Bro
Whenever I ask someone whether they’ve seen the Blair Witch Project they usually reply with ‘yeah, its shit’. A simple statement to sum up a film they’ve probably never actually seen.
The Blair Witch Project is highly acclaimed as being the most popular indie movie of all time earning $248,639,099 worldwide. As one of the first films to use hand held cameras and use them well; it kicked off a whole series of films like Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield. And yet it still has this stigma amongst audiences.
To be fair the suspense building at the start can be seen as boring but it’s necessary for the payoffs. Every little bit of noise or dialogue adds to the plot, it’s not just 3 teens chatting for an hour in the woods.
What’s most impressive is what they created with such a ridiculously small budget. They still managed to make it scarier than a lot of high budget horrors. It’s the same technique paranormal activity used years later; you don’t need to see the antagonist to be terrified of them. The Blair Witch Project does to woods what Jaws did to the sea. Guaranteed no one’s going camping for a while after seeing it.
Most surprising was the quality of acting, it’s actually not bad. Main lead Heather Donahue makes her characters breakdown believable. When they end up getting lost and going round in circles in the woods you start to share their sense of ‘oh shit, there’s no way out’.
The night scenes are brilliant. Yet again, like Paranormal Activity, the use of sound when everything is dark on the screen is highly affective. Screams heard from the woods are terrifying when you can hear the shallow breathe of the teens over the camera.
And there it is, everything the film has been building towards. The final showdown in an abandoned house in the middle of the woods. Your heads been filled with local tales of murderers that lived there and the increasingly scary encounters the teens have had with the Blair Witch. It does not disappoint.
You might not have watched The Blair Witch Project but you will have subconsciously seen a lot of references to it, with techniques so commonly used you might as well see where it all started.
Blade Runner 2
Michael Green, co-writer of the Green Lantern is going to pen Blade Runner 2.
The confusion I had with this was that I read Ridley Scott wanted Harrison Ford back to play his original character. For anyone who’s seen the film you will know we are left with the ever debatable question to whether Rick Deckard is a replicant or not. It’s a crucial ambiguity that lets us experience the film how we want. We also know that a replicants lifespan is only 4 years, so with Harrison Ford coming back on screen nearly 3 times the original age of his character it kind of spoils this ambiguity we have in the original film.
There are many things I want to see from this sequel. Firstly, I want to explore the world in more depth. Hopefully the artists working on the film will create some unbelievable and endless set designs. Secondly, I don’t want to see Rick Deckard. Although he was an amazing character and learning his back story would answer a lot of questions, I think it would ruin too many of the answers we already made up ourselves. Blade runner is best left as the incredible feat that it is. I’m excited for a 2nd film but I hope it’s a re-vamp, in the same way Ridley Scott made Promethous to resemble but not directly link to Alien. It needs new characters, beautifully vast sets but the same basic ideas.
Ben Wheatleys new twisted trip of a film is released in cinemas, on DVD and on Film4 on the 5th July.
With so many mediums you have no excuse not to see this! However, I suggest not reading anything about the film before you see it. If its as darkly twisted as Kill List you want to slowly delve into its madness as it plays out on screen.
You’ve got blue on you.
The final part to the Cornetto trilogy will be hitting cinemas July 19th. Circle the date in your calender, its not one to miss.
How do you re-make a film that gave birth to a mass of horror cliches without making it… cliched. Trick is, you don’t. You have fun with what you’ve got but be innovative to scare the audience. But that’s not what this does. This evil dead is serious.
The first 20 minutes are like a bad soap opera, the dialogue seems like its from scriptwriting 101 and the actors use less expressions than Kristen Stewart. But after those 20 minutes of drivel and pep talking we get into the good stuff.
Without being able to make the story particularly scary (as there’s nothing scary about a lass with yellow contacts breathing heavily at you) they rely on the gore for thrills. Which works surprisingly well and makes the latter part of the film decent. Evil dead might also be the bloodiest film I’ve watched all year, there was a shared sense of shock and awe in the cinema at the razorblade to the tongue scene.
And of course there are references, with the original producers working on this re-make most of it is just old ideas redone with new technology. Some are done well, others aren’t. The ‘molesting tree scene’ seems to have just been thrown in in an attempt to shock anyone who hasn’t already seen it.
Overall
It’s never easy to re-make a beloved cult classic but with Evil dead they seem to have missed the point of why the original is so loved. No one watches that film without finding it hilarious and then immediately being scared to death by a gruesome deadite. This evil dead seems like its grown up and lost its sense of humour.
(click for trailer)
Be warned there is a post credits scene.
Six tapes, six directors and one mixed film.
V/H/S sounds exciting, you have six directors all talented in the horror field coming together to put in their ideas for short video nasty’s but with so many clips the repetition of watching tapes gets old quick.
The film revolves around a group of guys who’s past time is smashing up buildings and running a seedy film making scheme. They are hired to recover a rare tape from a desolate house for a big pay off. Once there they find more than they expected by means of a passed out guy in the living room surrounded by a selection of video tapes, each one containing disturbing found footage.
The main problem with V/H/S is that half the clips are great and half aren’t fully developed. Ti West and David Bruckner easily outshine the others with their ‘Second Honeymoon’ and ‘Amateur Night’. While Glenn McQuaids ‘Tuesday the 17th’ is plagued by bad acting and unrealistic gore and Joe Swanbergs ‘The sick thing that happened to Emily when she was younger’ is scary and interesting but too confusing and undeveloped to deliver a proper story.
They definitely saved the best for last with Adam Wingards ‘Tape 56’ being the high point of the film. Its the stereotypical cult story that was easy to convey in the short time and offers plenty of scares. The creativeness put into this ‘house of horrors’ is what really sets it apart from the rest.
Overall
It looks authentic and has a few jumpy moments but with every good tape comes a bad tape straight after.
With a second V/H/S already in the works I hope to see better things from the new mix of Directors.
(click for trailer)
On the set of The Place Beyond the Pines (W Magazine | March 2013)
(via fuckyeahdirectors)
Release of the week - The place beyond the pines
Seeing as Ryan Gosling has vowed to quit acting this year this is a good chance to catch one of his last performances.
Derek Cianfrance the Director of Blue valentine brings us his biggest movie to date. The place beyond the pines is the story of motorcycle stunt rider Luke (Ryan Gosling) who turns to breaking the law to support his wife and child. This puts him neck and neck with cop-turned-politician Avery Cross (played by Bradley Cooper).
It looks like a game of cat and mouse between two rising stars from the past year. It’ll be interesting to see whether Cianfrance has managed to pull of the emotional terminal like he did in Blue Valentine.
Batman: Arkham Origins
The next title in the Batman: Arkham franchise will be Batman: Arkham Origins. It’s set for release on October 25th this year.
The game is a prequel that is set several years before the two existing Arkham titles. It will show a young and inexperienced Batman encountering a familiar villains for the first time. Assassin Deathstroke (featured above) will be one of the new foes to the franchise.
This time round they are also using a new developer. Warner Bros. will be working on the game rather than Rocksteady Studios. This could of course make a huge difference to the gameplay compared to the first two games but i’m still looking forward to buying it.
From the makers of ‘insidious’ and ‘Paranormal Activity’ comes Dark Skies.
Judging by the trailer this looks like insidious but with aliens. However, f its as scary as insidious then we are in for a treat.
The plot centres around one family who suffer a series of increasingly disturbing events to which there is no normal explanation. Just like Insidious there is a dark force present that is wanting to take them, to where? we’ll just have to wait and see.
Released 2013
