The paradox - a poetically perfect one - is that it’s a genre that was spawned, and has largely remained, underground. (Yes, there were other influences, going back to “Psycho,” but Michael Myers in “Halloween” was simply Leatherface with a suburban makeover.) Likewise, “Blair Witch” revolutionized the found-footage genre for the digital-recorder era. But it’s been the peculiar destiny of “The Blair Witch Project” to be the most influential horror film since “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.” It was that 1974 classic that spawned the slasher genre. It’s an extraordinary stunt, one that’s meant to be consumed - perhaps - just one time only. I loved “The Blair Witch Project” the first time I saw it - I was swept up in its look, its mood, its night-bloom existential terror - but even as a fan, I admit it’s not a horror film you can really go back to the way you can to “Psycho” or “Carrie” or “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” or “Audition,” to revel in its scary glory a second time.
Seventeen years later, I’m tempted to say that both sides were right.
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The red staters saw a movie that was all foreplay and no climax, with endless tedious handheld camerawork, a threadbare ramble that devolved into a murky technological tease. The blue staters saw a tense and tingly nightmare that unfolded not just in the usual darkness but in genuine godforsaken night, with a cackling revelation - the spectre of the witch - always waiting just around the corner. That can happen, of course, but there was a singular and notable line-in-the-sand quality to the reaction that swirled around and against “The Blair Witch Project.” You might say that it was the first blue-state-vs.-red-state indie movie (I mean that metaphorically rather than in any literal political way), the quirk being that the members of both states were seated right next to each other. As in: If I had a nickel for every person who saw “The Blair Witch Project” and wanted to tar and feather the projectionist… Yet the second way that “The Blair Witch Project” was a fascinating phenom is that it quickly became the most reviled big-hit indie movie of all time.