The Blair Witch Project popularised the found footage genre, taking inexperienced actors, giving them a camera and throwing them into the woods for a mostly improvised wild goose chase that, when edited down to 81 minutes of nerve-wracking tension, became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon, making $248 million against a $25k budget. More through necessity than desire, this movie allowed the viewer's mind to populate the cinematic space and create most of the frightening images themselves: the film just gave audiences the location and set the mood. Best Moment: The frighteningly ambiguous ending, in which the youngsters finally face off against what has been terrorising them in the woods. Sequel: A conventional narrative sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, was rushed into production for release the very next year, and despite being commercially successful (albeit not on the scale of the first film), was a critical dud.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
