Sidious-66
Super Freak
Love the original and one of the best cinema experiences of the 90's. I still try to view the movie at least once a year on DVD/Blu Ray. Never had much love for the sequels but this one does look good thus far.
I think it mostly worked effectively for those who were around at the time, and saw it at the theaters when there was this mystery around the movie, and even those who knew better suspended disbelief pretty well for the purpose of going to see this film. I was in that category. And if you knew nothing about the film and could watch it now, cold, at the theaters, in that environment where you don't feel the safety of home and whatnot, it could probably still have that effect. But of course, the cat is now out of the bag, and that's not a possibility for most. But the film felt real, because the actors acted like real people, and the found footage actually felt like real, amateur, hand-held footage (something you never see nowadays).They definitely created a new sub genre with found footage, and were geniuses when it came to utilizing the Internet in a way it had never been harnessed to market the movie. The movie (for me) was fine for one viewing, but I tried to watch it again a year or so ago, and found it very tedious.
I think it mostly worked effectively for those who were around at the time, and saw it at the theaters when there was this mystery around the movie, and even those who knew better suspended disbelief pretty well for the purpose of going to see this film. I was in that category. And if you knew nothing about the film and could watch it now, cold, at the theaters, in that environment where you don't feel the safety of home and whatnot, it could probably still have that effect. But of course, the cat is now out of the bag, and that's not a possibility for most. But the film felt real, because the actors acted like real people, and the found footage actually felt like real, amateur, hand-held footage (something you never see nowadays).
For that reason, it did work at the time, but couldn't hold up to multiple viewings, particularly after it was revealed publicly to be totally fake. And it wasn't like it established some really interesting new mythology. It was standard, spooky woods stuff, that worked because of the methodology. So, no surprise a conventional sequel didn't work. But a remake or sequel or whatever now makes sense to capitalize on some nostalgia. Some old fogeys like me think fondly about it, I'm sure. And folks who were kids at the time probably held it in the same mythical category that many of my age group held the Nightmare on Elm Street movies.
I thought it was real, part of me still does...
When the subject of it being fiction vs fact came up back then with friends and aquaintances, I usually just had to ask them if they really thought discovered footage implicating possible violent outcome for those who would now be considered missing persons would be able to be shown to audiences at large (for money, no less) instead of being secreted away as evidence in whatever investigation authorities would undoubtedly be conducting. Something like that would almost be as illegal as making/showing snuff films.
I remember The Blair Witch Project for two things:
Pioneering viral marketing
Pionerring found footage movies
I went to see it back in1999 and thought it was pretty creepy. This new development has piqued my interest.
Well this was before the internet, people were a little bit more naive
Were you living in a village in the rainforest back then? Internet was pretty prevalent in 1999.
No social media bud. No youtube. Only used the internet for homework and hentai.
It sounded ridiculous in 99, too. I think the only people who bought into it were the ones who got sucked into the online stuff. But it was exciting that they were using that spproach.
I wasn't active online back then. My first time hearing about BW was a review in my local paper the week before it came out. I'll never forget seeing it in the theater - the square frame on the huge screen made it feel like everyone was leaning forward to watch. It didn't look like a movie.
I still love it and revisit it every couple of years.
Fun reading about everyone's experiences with it.
It was groundbreaking in its own right, just not something that can ever be repeated in other films to achieve the same reality blurring lines. The genuiness of the actors and the modesty of their approach to filmmaking definitely sucked the Audience in.
The filmmakers/promoters of the film had a stroke of brilliance in the way they marketed it to the masses. Unprecedented at the time, a model many have tried and failed to repeat.
crows, you werent alone in believing it was real, so don't feel too bad about it, even if I do give you a hard time.
Yup - a perfect example of how limitations breed creativity. My main gripe with the new one - which I did really enjoy as a companion piece - is the mediocrity of the acting/script. Not that the original crew was three Pacinos (Three Amigos sequel? note to self...) but they were naturalistic as hell. Also the much higher quality of modern video makes it visually indistinguishable from any other film.
The more I think about one particular idea in the new one, the more I want to see it again. There's one obvious payoff but I'm wondering if a repeat viewing may reveal more.
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