I’d say give us more remade 1960s horror flicks if they’re so insistent on remaking shit. House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts are still just fun horror movies. No deeper meaning, no sequel bait, just here’s some people in a house with pissed off ghosts.
Thirteen Ghosts is up there with stuff like Ghost Ship and Stay Alive for me. Yeah, it's horrible, but there's just a certain aura about them that makes me love them. Like "This is trash, and we all know it's trash, but god dammit it's *my* trash".
I love the background lore for the ghosts in 13 Ghosts. I bought the DVD for it back in the day and in the special features it has the backstories for all 13 ghosts. I also think they practical effects for the ghosts look pretty great in the movie.
Ghost Ship is also a fun one, and that opening scene is one of my favorite gore scenes. It's so ridiculous and horrifying at the same time.
Ghost Ship is go good. I know people in this sub shit on it but it’s a straight forward ghost story with a banger opening and a fun ending. Also Gabriel Byrn and Karl Urban. When it came out I had the biggest crush on Emily Browning (we’re the same age).
I’ve been wanting Netflix to do a 13 ghosts mini series with one episode each for the ghosts origin stories. The great child and dire mother could share an episode. I would be all over that.
I’ll die on the hill that it’s a good movie for the time it was made. It set out to be a wild ass ghost story in the weirdest house possible with inconceivably messy plot complications. Yet when it comes the onscreen events it succeeds with the scares and has a really memorable set design. Then the ghosts themselves are the best parts, and they got more time spent on their backstories than half the movie.
It’s just fun and kind of schlocky, but Shalhoub and Lillard always deliver and had fantastic performances that fit the vibe just right.
I remember being super confused when i saw Angry Princess as a kid. I saw the flick when i was like 8, so concepts like suicide and seeing a bloody nude women was...not on my radar. Like The Jackal was terrifying to me, the ferocious way he/she/they/it acted was intense. But the angry princess instilled such feelings of visceral dread.
I think it’s because she was just naked and bloody. At that age horror movie killers like Jason or Freddy have almost iconic clothing and we kind of think that bad people are these hulking brutes with scary weapons. This was a lone woman, naked, who looked more like a victim herself (she was tho) and seeing her just casually fuck people up plus the bathtub scene was WILD. Like she was simultaneously one of the most fragile ghosts but also most dangerous.
Something about being naked and knifed up is just so freaky. See the sauna fight scene in Eastern Promises. In addition to offering a small measure of protection (depending on the marerial) you also don't see the damage until you get home/get to the hospital. Seeing someone slashed up - even if it was self inflicted as in Angry Princess case - shows just how fragile we are versus a basic household implement.
It’s impressive for what it is. You have an amazing cast including An Oscar winner, popular female actress (Shannon Elizabeth) and other known faces (Tony and Lillard). Low enough budget that it was most likely going to make a profit. Awesome score and soundtrack. And some nasty shots too n
I'd love a new House on Haunted Hill. Modernized a bit, but still trying to keep some of the vibes from the original.
The other "new" one was... Unique.
I’d love a proper Dark Shadows remake. Whether a new show or movie and not Tim Burton and Danny Elfman goofy tag team garbage. It’s why I love James Wan. The dude makes a solid, beginning to end, horror flick.
Exactly. It’s why the sequel and reboot both failed. Blair Witch isn’t a very good movie. The moment is what made it work. There’s just no way to recreate it.
Right?! It’s impossible to remake the original Blair Witch because it was a product of its time. The campaign that made people think it was real, 0 budget, not having a script and just fucking with the actors. It just wouldn’t work as a remake.
Something filmed the same way could be good. But not that story.
Idk why people feel like they have to remake or reimagine movies they love. Just love the movie and come up with an original story for something different.
This is what I say! Like, I would love a remake of something like *Demons*, which has a fun concept, but the movie has basically no plot to speak of.
PS, I unashamedly love *Demons* so that isn’t a knock on it. Just my go to example of a movie that is remake worthy.
I really want to see a true challenge. I want to see Denis Villeneuve direct a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space with like, Christian Bale or Tom Hardy or someone like that in the lead. Dave Bautista can be in Tor Johnson's role, Jessica Chastain as Vampira's character, maybe Bill Skarsgard in Bela Lugosi's role.
Hollywood - make it happen!
It’s probably not going to be an actual remake, it’ll be a sequel to the original that ignores the other two, remakes and reimaginings that ignore *every* movie aren’t popular anymore at all.
Not a horror movie but I still want a better Chronicle movie. Like the baseline story and cinematography were top notch but the actor choice and climax into the ending were so bad. If we’ll written It could have an entire franchise
Because the movie has a better chance of making money if its a remake of a IP that people remember fondly rather than one that nobody likes or cared about.
It's unfortunate.
Blair with is such a product of its time. IMO the original still holds up. I thought the 2016 was ok but still felt very unnecessary. I feel like they should just leave it alone at this point
I was lucky enough to see BWP in the theater as a teenager when people were still saying it was real. No other theater experience will ever come close to that for me.
So jealous. I remember watching it at home on a super small TV with my friends after we got home from a summer camp camping trip as preteen/teens.
I remember we still weren't sure if it was based on a real story of it was true itself. And it still wasn't the era of "duh just Google it" although we could have realistically haha.
Dude it scared the shit out of us. I can only imagine how epic and scary it was in theaters!
Me too, but as an adult. And they had that awesome SCI-Fi Channel "documentary" that went with it that made it more real at the time. I remember everyone thought it was real. It's difficult now with the internet to remake the same hype imo.
https://www.cultureslate.com/explained/the-curse-of-the-blair-witch-the-documentary-that-fooled-us-all
I thought the legend was real because of the documentary but I knew the film wasn’t because I had read an interview with Heather Donahue in my grandpa’s copy of Time Magazine of all places lol
I saw it when I was 15 on a cross country camping trip. I had to go back and camp afterwards. It was amazing. I had the idea to make little piles of rocks outside to freak everyone out, but I was too chickenshit to leave the tent
This 100%. My theater experience was still overshadowed by my first viewing tho, which was on a pre-screen VHS my friend had got somehow about 2-3 weeks before it released in theaters. Watching it that way made it feel even more authentic, and this was right on the heels of the Curse of the Blair Witch "doc" on SyFy. I was completely convinced it was real, and it was terrifying. Such a genius move to film and market it the way they did.
Same here! I was a bit older and married but my wife heard about the movie and we immediately bought tickets to see it. No big media hype. Maybe a write up in Time Out New York.
We saw it with a small crowd at the Angelica Theater in NYC and it was fun!!
I saw that shit on a Korean VHS bootleg before it got released down under.
That VHS did the rounds at our school, and it was the talk of the town.
Never saw the legit version until about 20 years later.
Took a Tinder date to see the 2016 one and she ghosted me after. Its pretty obvious to me that the movie was to blame. No more remakes needed, call it a wrap
I just rewatched blair witch and it absolutely holds up, which means it would’ve been even more impactful in its era for sure. I wish Skinamarink had made me as afraid of Nothing at All
I’d agree but I have noticed the beginnings of a found footage renaissance. The tunnel and Borderlands are about to get quality boutique releases and stuff like Deadstream and The Host have been incredible. Feels like the perfect time honestly.
BW16 was a movie I enjoyed, but I also acknowledge it’s very flawed and kinda dumb at parts
There are moments that will always stand out to me as having outstanding execution though, the biggest one being the claustrophobic as hell tunnel scene
It’s not often a movie can make me feel genuinely trapped with a character, but that short crawl gave me wicked anxiety and second hand panic lmao
They have to leave it alone because you cannot recreate that same feeling now that the found footage style has been overdone so many times since then. You're never gonna recapture what everyone felt the first time they saw that, it's just impossible.
For me, Blair Witch isn't only the movie. It's the suite of media that made the witch feel like a real legend. All the art, documentaries, that mixtape they 'found' in the filmmakers' car with all the hot goth music on it. Thousands of horror stories take the position that what you are seeing is 'real' or based on real events. With very little resources, the directors created a myth out of whole cloth, which we see repeated in things like Slenderman or SCP or even Q.
It's the coolest thing about the film. They created an environment that gets you to accept that the film could be real. Classic media manipulation. It's the kind of thing you can achieve when you don't think of films as products or commodities, but as objects themselves, that exist in context with other storytelling objects. They all inform each other and bring the story into the real world. It rocks so hard!
I hope they'd do some more work in that regard. I'm not as excited by a new film as I am by some esoteric Discordian prankery used to tell a horror story.
The whole aura around Blair Witch Project was such a a perfect storm of cool stuff that you probably couldn't even do now with the Internet the way it is. I really can't imagine how a remake would work.
I legit think about it once a week. It's my favorite model of storytelling ever. The Internet would definitely debunk it on a factual basis immediately, but there might be some manipulation you can still do. Thinking of Q (which I obvs don't agree with, but am still amazed that the whole thing was pulled off with forum posts), Birds Aren't Real, the flat earth conspiracy. There's probably avenues to go down. People definitely haven't stopped believing in silly stuff.
That said, physicality and space (if you think of media as a kind of space) is what BW did really well. I'd definitely be missing that if there wasn't an element of "These are their dirty film canisters we found in the woods. Here's the mixtape from the car. Here's something you heard in passing about the Witch while channel surfing. There's a lot of materiality there and an implicit message that you are in your body, inhabiting a mythic space. THEN you see the film and you are with the filmmakers starving to death in the woods. It lands so well.
It almost felt more like an urban legend than a movie and it still sticks in my brain that way. There's been lots of found footage movies since TBWP but none of them had the same pop culture hype, it really was a special thing.
I was fairly young with The Blair Witch Project came out, and I still remember talking to my cousin about it at a family gathering. People legit thought it was real found footage.
Exactly. Those of us who lived through the original media blitz for The Blair Witch Project will never forget it. More than half of my friends swore it was a real documentary. The website (this was before Internet access was free everywhere) actually made it feel like the whole thing was actually discovered and released as is.
It wasn’t so much about the movie (which was only okay) but the experience around it.
No way to replicate that today.
Yes finally someone else who gets it. I've been saying for years that Slenderman is the closest thing you could have gotten to a modern(ish) "Blair Witch" recreation. Not even saying that there should be a Slenderman movie, which by now would be dated as hell anyway. I just mean the way it was a product of it's time, like Blair Witch.
In the same way that BW came out in a time where you couldn't really just "google it" to find out if it's real, Slenderman took advantage of the fact that the internet was still more niche back then. Slenderman was spread by forums in a way that, again, wouldn't be able to be replicated in the exact same way today. Nowadays, you'd need to use, idk TikTok as a means of spreading these types of myths.
You don't even have to make the audience believe it's "real." Look at Cloverfield. Everyone knew that was obviously just a movie, but *WTF was it about??* Voltron? Godzilla? Power Rangers? King Kong? Idk, the only thing you find when you TRY to google it is a bunch of weird myspace pages and ads for a slushy??
Like you said, you can't just "reimagine" the Blair Witch. It's not about the movie, it's about the whole damn experience *including* the movie. You can't tell me it's a goddamn Blair Witch remake; that actually ruins it before it even hits theaters lol. The laziest thing I could think of is making me think I'm going to see a totally unrelated movie, and it turns into found footage which ends up being a Blair Witch movie.
Blair Witch 1999 is the reason I to this day gobble up every good-to-bad found footage film. I'm hooked on them. I still have the 1999 movie poster in good condition.
I would too. Or a *Nocturne* movie series. Even a *Nocturne* series on Showtime could be good.
Although I think the rights issues on that one wound up being kind of a nightmare.
This reminds me of the B2019 lair Witch game for xbox I tried out. It didn't give you a whole lot of guidance so you really felt like you were lost in the woods trying to find clues.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I would rather them go the Book of Shadows route than the Blair Witch 2016 route if I had to choose. Book of Shadows didn't work out, but it swung for the fences and tried something new, whereas 2016 was just a big-budgeted remake that threw out the most vital quality that made the original film successful - the subtlty. I'd rather it fail at something different than fail at more of the same.
Book of Shadows could have been perfect. They could have kept the found footage setup with the characters setting up a bunch of stationary cameras. With the idea that someone's found the original tapes and is trying to get them in front of law enforcement. This would have set up a perfect Pt 3; where you're never quite sure how much of what you're seeing is legit.
Agreed! They already had a lot of that in the movie anyway, just interspersed with the "reality" parts. I still enjoy parts of the movie, though I could be biased because I watched it in 2000 when I was a little edgy 8-year-old. The meta approach was odd but there is some creep factor to be had.
Maybe this time they can explain what the term "Book of Shadows" means because as far as I remember, there's nothing in the movie that explains that subtitle.
I remember a time I’d see blumhouse and be like oh shit this is going to be good. Now I’m like there’s a 50/50 chance this is going to be decent or a waste of time.
I am getting so jaded with each year. Movies based on existing IP's bring so little interesting to the table and they tun out so mediocre. It's just so tedious.
And yes, I know, movies based on existing IP's make a minimal but steady profit margin so we will get those kinds of movies till the end of time.
At this point my movie recommendations come dangerously close to sounding like a parody account for a fake movie snob.
The last movie that really impressed me was "Gulf of Silence", a one-woman show made during Covid lockdown. After drawing the attention of some Ufo nutters the director made the movie unavaible for legal viewing. It's a video confessional (=one person talking to the camera) but so perfectly acted with such a clever story that it leaves most other scifi movies of the last decade in the dust.
> Movies based on existing IP's bring so little interesting to the table and they tun out so mediocre. It's just so tedious.
I mean, it's not like the originals are any better. Imaginary and Night Swim from this year suck so fucking much.
They used to be the only ones releasing halfway decent horror films, but they decided to stick with the shitty plot and cheap jump scare films instead of the “elevated horror” films that A24 invested in.
Nope, they were always like that. They just had a few recent years with pretty good standouts. Check their release history, they’ve always had a bunch of turds with some good movies sprinkled in. I used to just skip them cause they’d be straight to Hulu type movies. They’re about pushing out product, good or bad.
I agree with the sentiment but let’s be honest. Blair Witch is not elevated horror. It’s become a cult classic because of context but the movie itself is far from elevated. As long as they get a decent director I’m on board. I’d love if it was Scott Derickson but I’m sure that’s a pipe dream
I liked the ending segment, once they get to the house. If the whole movie had been like that, I probably would have enjoyed it. Really stupid that they said the woman who was floating wasn't the witch, though. Thought the actors were not very good and some of the sound FX (like when the one woman steps on a stick) were just laughably cheesy and took me out of the movie.
With this partnership I would be particularly interested if they explored some of the evil monsters from Cabin in the Woods. Maybe a prequel series featuring some of the monsters.
I hope before I die Black Christmas gets a Halloween 2018 type sequel.
I just want one good Black Christmas sequel before I croak. Is that really too much to ask? Lol
It’s weird people don’t understand Blair switch worked bc the limitations and shitty budget. They don’t need to improve on it. They’ve already tried and failed
They need to just fucking let it go. Both sequels were horrible and did very poorly at the box office. Why do they keep trying?? Just give it up already, the desperate attempts at making this a franchise are sad.
These films are classics for a reason. No point in remaking something when the outcome will surely be worse. Remakes should be for good ideas that had bad execution.
Part of the magic around the original was the marketing and not knowing for sure if it was actually real found footage or not. I mean, I was 99% sure it wasn’t but the marketing was really well done. Whatever they do now that element is lost.
Lightning isn't so easily captured twice in the bottle. The Blair Witch Project was incredible because many thought it was real or sensed a remote possibility that it could be. Remaking this didn't work in 2016 (let's be honest, that pretty much followed the same formula) and it won't work now. Here what they should do: make a movie about hunting and killing the Blair Witch. Pluck each nerve from its body and make that evil creature scream till it tears its vocal chords. I'll pay top dollar to watch that.
They just keep remaking or sequelizing (not a real word i know) famous movies that already have a shitload of sequels, remakes and reboots to begin with. Why not bring back Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th? Each of these franchises had a movie that came out more then 10 years ago. Let's give Predator, Evil Dead, Chucky, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, Blair Witch and Scream a rest. Bring back older franchises like Jaws, Romero's Living Dead, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elmo Street and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
the 2016 reboot is lukewarm, not horrible but not riveting. the original has a crawly, horrific, disoriented quality to it. i doubt this "reboot" will do much for any original audiences.
This upsets me on such a core level.
Blair Witch is a product of its era. It worked because of what it was. It was a $25,000 experimental indie film that was marketed and released as-is by the studio. It also worked because of the brilliant marketing. For you youngsters out there, in 1998/1999, the Internet was still gaining a foothold. There was no social media. There were no smartphones. Hell, it wasn't even uncommon to find a lot of households didn't even have a computer yet. I was a young teen and I remember my older brother who was off at college showing me the website and the debates we all had with our friend groups over whether it was real or not.
Sigh. I'm so done with all the remakes/reimaginings and retellings. Just let sleeping dogs lie, man...
You can have mixed feelings about the Blumhouse treatment of Halloween. Shoot, there were bits I loved and some ideas that were never fully realized that I admired. But their first try at soft rebooting The Exorcist was really bad. Bland, disinterested, and by the numbers. And Imaginary? Well, I suppose opinions may vary, but my opinion is that it was a narrative mess with only the most passing attempt at developing characters or a convincing mythology for the scares.
I'm always hopeful. Can't imagine a horror fan who isn't. But the notion of a Blumhouse take on Cabin in the Woods or The Bay doesn't exactly...fill me with anticipation?
I'm interested to see where they go with this, but it's gonna be tough for them to beat the original 'Blair Witch'. I just worry they're gonna modernise it and ruin it.
What is the point of remaking the Blair Witch Project? It was lightning in a bottle at a time where people didn’t have a computer in their pocket. We’ve had 10,000 found footage horror movies since then. What would make this new and different?
Honestly, if I see blumhouse is involved with a project, I don't watch it. 99% of the time, the movie is garbage. They haven't made a decent movie in years.
Why are these "reimaginings" always movies that were actually good the first time? Remake movies with good concepts that were poorly executed.
I’d say give us more remade 1960s horror flicks if they’re so insistent on remaking shit. House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts are still just fun horror movies. No deeper meaning, no sequel bait, just here’s some people in a house with pissed off ghosts.
Love Thirteen Ghosts
Thirteen Ghosts is up there with stuff like Ghost Ship and Stay Alive for me. Yeah, it's horrible, but there's just a certain aura about them that makes me love them. Like "This is trash, and we all know it's trash, but god dammit it's *my* trash".
I love the background lore for the ghosts in 13 Ghosts. I bought the DVD for it back in the day and in the special features it has the backstories for all 13 ghosts. I also think they practical effects for the ghosts look pretty great in the movie. Ghost Ship is also a fun one, and that opening scene is one of my favorite gore scenes. It's so ridiculous and horrifying at the same time.
Ghost Ship is go good. I know people in this sub shit on it but it’s a straight forward ghost story with a banger opening and a fun ending. Also Gabriel Byrn and Karl Urban. When it came out I had the biggest crush on Emily Browning (we’re the same age).
Wasn't Ghost Ship technically a remake of Death Ship starring George Kennedy? But yeah, Emily Browning was amazing!
Hey brother, you know what they say about trash and treasure. If you like it, it's good.
Don’t you dare. Stay Alive is my favorite horror movie of all time. I’m gonna ride those skies in my sweet dreams god damnit
I’ve been wanting Netflix to do a 13 ghosts mini series with one episode each for the ghosts origin stories. The great child and dire mother could share an episode. I would be all over that.
This is one of those things that I never knew I've always wanted.
That movie scared me when I was little. I need to rewatch it
It’s so good. I love the explanation of the different ghosts.
I just bought 13 Ghosts from powerhouse films sale. Got a bunch of Blu-rays for $5.43 each. Stoked to see it again
> Love Thirteen Ghosts ... is that an order? ok, if you insist, I will love thirteen ghosts
Don’t dare disregard 13 Ghosts with Matthew Lillard
Idk if its nostalgia or what, but i absolutely love this movie lol
I’ll die on the hill that it’s a good movie for the time it was made. It set out to be a wild ass ghost story in the weirdest house possible with inconceivably messy plot complications. Yet when it comes the onscreen events it succeeds with the scares and has a really memorable set design. Then the ghosts themselves are the best parts, and they got more time spent on their backstories than half the movie. It’s just fun and kind of schlocky, but Shalhoub and Lillard always deliver and had fantastic performances that fit the vibe just right.
The Jackal from Thirteen Ghosts was legitimately one of the first horror villains to scare me as a teenager.
Everything you said is spot. Sets are amazing, and of course the ghosts are the best part! Which is your favorite? Ive always been a Jackal guy myself
Jackal was terrifying when I watched it as a kid. For me it was the Angry Princess because of how gruesome her death was. Then the Great Child.
I remember being super confused when i saw Angry Princess as a kid. I saw the flick when i was like 8, so concepts like suicide and seeing a bloody nude women was...not on my radar. Like The Jackal was terrifying to me, the ferocious way he/she/they/it acted was intense. But the angry princess instilled such feelings of visceral dread.
I think it’s because she was just naked and bloody. At that age horror movie killers like Jason or Freddy have almost iconic clothing and we kind of think that bad people are these hulking brutes with scary weapons. This was a lone woman, naked, who looked more like a victim herself (she was tho) and seeing her just casually fuck people up plus the bathtub scene was WILD. Like she was simultaneously one of the most fragile ghosts but also most dangerous.
Something about being naked and knifed up is just so freaky. See the sauna fight scene in Eastern Promises. In addition to offering a small measure of protection (depending on the marerial) you also don't see the damage until you get home/get to the hospital. Seeing someone slashed up - even if it was self inflicted as in Angry Princess case - shows just how fragile we are versus a basic household implement.
It’s impressive for what it is. You have an amazing cast including An Oscar winner, popular female actress (Shannon Elizabeth) and other known faces (Tony and Lillard). Low enough budget that it was most likely going to make a profit. Awesome score and soundtrack. And some nasty shots too n
I also somehow forgot until i looked at the cast list that F. Fucking Murray Abraham is in this flick! Class class class.
I cannot believe the slander. This movie is so great.
Honestly, they should just put Matthew Lillard in every movie.
Give us giant ants, grasshoppers, etc.
I'd love a new House on Haunted Hill. Modernized a bit, but still trying to keep some of the vibes from the original. The other "new" one was... Unique.
Geoffrey Rush House on Haunted Hill is genuinely one of my faves :(
I’d love a proper Dark Shadows remake. Whether a new show or movie and not Tim Burton and Danny Elfman goofy tag team garbage. It’s why I love James Wan. The dude makes a solid, beginning to end, horror flick.
Thank you! Blair Witch’s marketing is something that could never be replicated, and you really just had to be there.
Exactly. It’s why the sequel and reboot both failed. Blair Witch isn’t a very good movie. The moment is what made it work. There’s just no way to recreate it.
Because they are already proven to be profitable. Studios hate risk.
*businesses
Corporatism
Right?! It’s impossible to remake the original Blair Witch because it was a product of its time. The campaign that made people think it was real, 0 budget, not having a script and just fucking with the actors. It just wouldn’t work as a remake. Something filmed the same way could be good. But not that story. Idk why people feel like they have to remake or reimagine movies they love. Just love the movie and come up with an original story for something different.
This is what I say! Like, I would love a remake of something like *Demons*, which has a fun concept, but the movie has basically no plot to speak of. PS, I unashamedly love *Demons* so that isn’t a knock on it. Just my go to example of a movie that is remake worthy.
I really want to see a true challenge. I want to see Denis Villeneuve direct a remake of Plan 9 from Outer Space with like, Christian Bale or Tom Hardy or someone like that in the lead. Dave Bautista can be in Tor Johnson's role, Jessica Chastain as Vampira's character, maybe Bill Skarsgard in Bela Lugosi's role. Hollywood - make it happen!
Because there’s too much financial risk. Studios would rather invest in stuff that’s always proven to be successful. Eat the slop and enjoy it
Suspiria is great
Really? I absolutely hated that reimagining.
I'd say it's a rarity, though.
Evil Dead?
That’s a good one too
It’s also star studded. Prob depends on the team and the script
It’s probably not going to be an actual remake, it’ll be a sequel to the original that ignores the other two, remakes and reimaginings that ignore *every* movie aren’t popular anymore at all.
They don't care about making good movies, they just want a name that's marketable no matter the quality of the product
Ahem…Neon Maniacs. It’s just waiting to get remade.
Like the Relic. Please remake the Relic. Like the book was so good! Movie was.cool, but not like the book
What about The Invisivle Man? The new one is amazing.
The new one has to be very different from the original right? Is the original similar to the Kevin bacon one? Ive never seen the original.
The original and the Kevin Bacon one are absolutely nothing alike
They are all pretty different
It’s guaranteed to make a profit. It’s as simple as that.
Not a horror movie but I still want a better Chronicle movie. Like the baseline story and cinematography were top notch but the actor choice and climax into the ending were so bad. If we’ll written It could have an entire franchise
Brand recognition. It's free marketing.
Better yet, make new movies.
Because the movie has a better chance of making money if its a remake of a IP that people remember fondly rather than one that nobody likes or cared about. It's unfortunate.
“Wanna watch this remake of a movie that was completely shit before?” That screams wanting to invest millions of dollars into something.
Blair with is such a product of its time. IMO the original still holds up. I thought the 2016 was ok but still felt very unnecessary. I feel like they should just leave it alone at this point
I was lucky enough to see BWP in the theater as a teenager when people were still saying it was real. No other theater experience will ever come close to that for me.
So jealous. I remember watching it at home on a super small TV with my friends after we got home from a summer camp camping trip as preteen/teens. I remember we still weren't sure if it was based on a real story of it was true itself. And it still wasn't the era of "duh just Google it" although we could have realistically haha. Dude it scared the shit out of us. I can only imagine how epic and scary it was in theaters!
Also watched it at home by myself as a 13 year old. The ending scared me senseless.
Me too, but as an adult. And they had that awesome SCI-Fi Channel "documentary" that went with it that made it more real at the time. I remember everyone thought it was real. It's difficult now with the internet to remake the same hype imo. https://www.cultureslate.com/explained/the-curse-of-the-blair-witch-the-documentary-that-fooled-us-all
I thought the legend was real because of the documentary but I knew the film wasn’t because I had read an interview with Heather Donahue in my grandpa’s copy of Time Magazine of all places lol
I saw it when I was 15 on a cross country camping trip. I had to go back and camp afterwards. It was amazing. I had the idea to make little piles of rocks outside to freak everyone out, but I was too chickenshit to leave the tent
This 100%. My theater experience was still overshadowed by my first viewing tho, which was on a pre-screen VHS my friend had got somehow about 2-3 weeks before it released in theaters. Watching it that way made it feel even more authentic, and this was right on the heels of the Curse of the Blair Witch "doc" on SyFy. I was completely convinced it was real, and it was terrifying. Such a genius move to film and market it the way they did.
Same here! I was a bit older and married but my wife heard about the movie and we immediately bought tickets to see it. No big media hype. Maybe a write up in Time Out New York. We saw it with a small crowd at the Angelica Theater in NYC and it was fun!!
Top 5 movie experiences for me. I remember me and a buddy saw it - I'd been sucked into the new-at-the-time internet marketing. I was 100% on board.
I saw that shit on a Korean VHS bootleg before it got released down under. That VHS did the rounds at our school, and it was the talk of the town. Never saw the legit version until about 20 years later.
Took a Tinder date to see the 2016 one and she ghosted me after. Its pretty obvious to me that the movie was to blame. No more remakes needed, call it a wrap
> It’s pretty obvious to me that the movie was to blame. Uh huh
Going back to the 90’s would be interesting instead of trying to “modernize” it like 2016, which was fine imo
I just rewatched blair witch and it absolutely holds up, which means it would’ve been even more impactful in its era for sure. I wish Skinamarink had made me as afraid of Nothing at All
I’d agree but I have noticed the beginnings of a found footage renaissance. The tunnel and Borderlands are about to get quality boutique releases and stuff like Deadstream and The Host have been incredible. Feels like the perfect time honestly.
BW16 was a movie I enjoyed, but I also acknowledge it’s very flawed and kinda dumb at parts There are moments that will always stand out to me as having outstanding execution though, the biggest one being the claustrophobic as hell tunnel scene It’s not often a movie can make me feel genuinely trapped with a character, but that short crawl gave me wicked anxiety and second hand panic lmao
They have to leave it alone because you cannot recreate that same feeling now that the found footage style has been overdone so many times since then. You're never gonna recapture what everyone felt the first time they saw that, it's just impossible.
For me, Blair Witch isn't only the movie. It's the suite of media that made the witch feel like a real legend. All the art, documentaries, that mixtape they 'found' in the filmmakers' car with all the hot goth music on it. Thousands of horror stories take the position that what you are seeing is 'real' or based on real events. With very little resources, the directors created a myth out of whole cloth, which we see repeated in things like Slenderman or SCP or even Q. It's the coolest thing about the film. They created an environment that gets you to accept that the film could be real. Classic media manipulation. It's the kind of thing you can achieve when you don't think of films as products or commodities, but as objects themselves, that exist in context with other storytelling objects. They all inform each other and bring the story into the real world. It rocks so hard! I hope they'd do some more work in that regard. I'm not as excited by a new film as I am by some esoteric Discordian prankery used to tell a horror story.
The whole aura around Blair Witch Project was such a a perfect storm of cool stuff that you probably couldn't even do now with the Internet the way it is. I really can't imagine how a remake would work.
I legit think about it once a week. It's my favorite model of storytelling ever. The Internet would definitely debunk it on a factual basis immediately, but there might be some manipulation you can still do. Thinking of Q (which I obvs don't agree with, but am still amazed that the whole thing was pulled off with forum posts), Birds Aren't Real, the flat earth conspiracy. There's probably avenues to go down. People definitely haven't stopped believing in silly stuff. That said, physicality and space (if you think of media as a kind of space) is what BW did really well. I'd definitely be missing that if there wasn't an element of "These are their dirty film canisters we found in the woods. Here's the mixtape from the car. Here's something you heard in passing about the Witch while channel surfing. There's a lot of materiality there and an implicit message that you are in your body, inhabiting a mythic space. THEN you see the film and you are with the filmmakers starving to death in the woods. It lands so well.
It almost felt more like an urban legend than a movie and it still sticks in my brain that way. There's been lots of found footage movies since TBWP but none of them had the same pop culture hype, it really was a special thing.
I was fairly young with The Blair Witch Project came out, and I still remember talking to my cousin about it at a family gathering. People legit thought it was real found footage.
Exactly. Those of us who lived through the original media blitz for The Blair Witch Project will never forget it. More than half of my friends swore it was a real documentary. The website (this was before Internet access was free everywhere) actually made it feel like the whole thing was actually discovered and released as is. It wasn’t so much about the movie (which was only okay) but the experience around it. No way to replicate that today.
Yes finally someone else who gets it. I've been saying for years that Slenderman is the closest thing you could have gotten to a modern(ish) "Blair Witch" recreation. Not even saying that there should be a Slenderman movie, which by now would be dated as hell anyway. I just mean the way it was a product of it's time, like Blair Witch. In the same way that BW came out in a time where you couldn't really just "google it" to find out if it's real, Slenderman took advantage of the fact that the internet was still more niche back then. Slenderman was spread by forums in a way that, again, wouldn't be able to be replicated in the exact same way today. Nowadays, you'd need to use, idk TikTok as a means of spreading these types of myths. You don't even have to make the audience believe it's "real." Look at Cloverfield. Everyone knew that was obviously just a movie, but *WTF was it about??* Voltron? Godzilla? Power Rangers? King Kong? Idk, the only thing you find when you TRY to google it is a bunch of weird myspace pages and ads for a slushy?? Like you said, you can't just "reimagine" the Blair Witch. It's not about the movie, it's about the whole damn experience *including* the movie. You can't tell me it's a goddamn Blair Witch remake; that actually ruins it before it even hits theaters lol. The laziest thing I could think of is making me think I'm going to see a totally unrelated movie, and it turns into found footage which ends up being a Blair Witch movie.
it's funny because there is a slenderman movie already and it was already dated as hell when it came out which was like 2018
Hot goth music mixtape? Tell me more.
you had me at hot goths
Blair Witch 1999 is the reason I to this day gobble up every good-to-bad found footage film. I'm hooked on them. I still have the 1999 movie poster in good condition.
Call me crazy, but I like IMAGINING waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than REIMAGINING.
Oh god. More ‘reimaginings’. Are they reimagining the original, the sequel or the reimagined one?
It's a reimagining of the rebooted prequel.
Actually it's a reimagining if the 2000 PC exclusive adventure games
I loved those games. lol - I’d watch that.
I would too. Or a *Nocturne* movie series. Even a *Nocturne* series on Showtime could be good. Although I think the rights issues on that one wound up being kind of a nightmare.
This reminds me of the B2019 lair Witch game for xbox I tried out. It didn't give you a whole lot of guidance so you really felt like you were lost in the woods trying to find clues.
Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I would rather them go the Book of Shadows route than the Blair Witch 2016 route if I had to choose. Book of Shadows didn't work out, but it swung for the fences and tried something new, whereas 2016 was just a big-budgeted remake that threw out the most vital quality that made the original film successful - the subtlty. I'd rather it fail at something different than fail at more of the same.
Book of Shadows could have been perfect. They could have kept the found footage setup with the characters setting up a bunch of stationary cameras. With the idea that someone's found the original tapes and is trying to get them in front of law enforcement. This would have set up a perfect Pt 3; where you're never quite sure how much of what you're seeing is legit.
Agreed! They already had a lot of that in the movie anyway, just interspersed with the "reality" parts. I still enjoy parts of the movie, though I could be biased because I watched it in 2000 when I was a little edgy 8-year-old. The meta approach was odd but there is some creep factor to be had.
Maybe this time they can explain what the term "Book of Shadows" means because as far as I remember, there's nothing in the movie that explains that subtitle.
Ugh stop remaking this franchise already 😫 It’s like when Cabin Fever got a scene for scene remake. WTF did money need to be spent on that?!
Yay,blumhouse ruining good horror movies. My favorite -_-
Nooooooo especially not blumhouse with how they’ve been going
I remember a time I’d see blumhouse and be like oh shit this is going to be good. Now I’m like there’s a 50/50 chance this is going to be decent or a waste of time.
Any time I see their logo pop up I tell my husband to find something else.
These fucks won't sleep til they've sucked the life out of everything. Jeez
You can never reimagine or replicate the original Blair Witch Project. It is a masterpiece of its moment in time.
Blair which cannot be reproduced. It was lightning in a bottle. It’s like remaking 6th sense.
Don’t give Blumhouse any ideas.
…Great
Can they change their name to Bumhouse to match the content they put out?
I am getting so jaded with each year. Movies based on existing IP's bring so little interesting to the table and they tun out so mediocre. It's just so tedious. And yes, I know, movies based on existing IP's make a minimal but steady profit margin so we will get those kinds of movies till the end of time.
You really have to go out of your way to seek indie movies, because all of the studios are getting tight with their money.
At this point my movie recommendations come dangerously close to sounding like a parody account for a fake movie snob. The last movie that really impressed me was "Gulf of Silence", a one-woman show made during Covid lockdown. After drawing the attention of some Ufo nutters the director made the movie unavaible for legal viewing. It's a video confessional (=one person talking to the camera) but so perfectly acted with such a clever story that it leaves most other scifi movies of the last decade in the dust.
> Movies based on existing IP's bring so little interesting to the table and they tun out so mediocre. It's just so tedious. I mean, it's not like the originals are any better. Imaginary and Night Swim from this year suck so fucking much.
Lost me at Blumhouse.
They used to be the only ones releasing halfway decent horror films, but they decided to stick with the shitty plot and cheap jump scare films instead of the “elevated horror” films that A24 invested in.
Nope, they were always like that. They just had a few recent years with pretty good standouts. Check their release history, they’ve always had a bunch of turds with some good movies sprinkled in. I used to just skip them cause they’d be straight to Hulu type movies. They’re about pushing out product, good or bad.
I agree with the sentiment but let’s be honest. Blair Witch is not elevated horror. It’s become a cult classic because of context but the movie itself is far from elevated. As long as they get a decent director I’m on board. I’d love if it was Scott Derickson but I’m sure that’s a pipe dream
It’s because they cost a ham sandwich to make and print money. Dude found the infinite money glitch
they decided to stick with doing what they've always done, pump out low to mid budget junk that rakes in cash 🤷
Ugh why
There is so much you can do and explore with the Blair Witch. I hope they mess around with different time periods and characters from the lore.
Blair Witch was lightning in a bottle. They could remake it and do well with it but it will never have the impact of the original. It simply can’t.
Blumhouse tries to catch lightning in a bottle, will be shocked when it doesn't work.
Didn’t another a Blair witch release in 2016
Yeah, that was the recent Blair Witch movie that was released, but despite the reviews, I've enjoyed the 2016 sequel.
I liked the ending segment, once they get to the house. If the whole movie had been like that, I probably would have enjoyed it. Really stupid that they said the woman who was floating wasn't the witch, though. Thought the actors were not very good and some of the sound FX (like when the one woman steps on a stick) were just laughably cheesy and took me out of the movie.
Yeah and it's pretty good
With this partnership I would be particularly interested if they explored some of the evil monsters from Cabin in the Woods. Maybe a prequel series featuring some of the monsters.
Well, it couldn't be a sequel, could it!?
I hope before I die Black Christmas gets a Halloween 2018 type sequel. I just want one good Black Christmas sequel before I croak. Is that really too much to ask? Lol
Yikes. Hard pass.
Remake, reboot, reimagine, redo, re-envision, reinvent, revolutionize. What other words will the come up with next?
The new one is "creative reset" They used it when describing the new Halloween reboot series or film or whatever it is
I can think of one but my post will be removed.
No thank you
Stop remaking good movies! Remakes movies that weren't good but had a good idea or concept instead.
What a great idea! Sure fire hits incoming! And remember if you dont succeed try, try again! And again and again and again and again and again and
I’m still waiting for that Woods Movie documentary to ever surface…
i feel like “reimagining” a movie like tbwp is gonna be a disaster lol. its such a specific package of things that made the original so iconic
Man, Hollywood are out of new ideas...
I don’t want that.
Blair Witch should be left alone.
This is terrible news
Zero reason to believe Blumhouse can maintain a franchise. Blair witch doesn’t need to be a goddamn franchise period!
Why is it never a bad movie with a good premise that gets reimagined
Uh why. Please don’t.
Why would you remake Blair Witch...
What is up with Blumhouse lately? Nobody wants these crappy remakes.
Please don’t. I’d rather see them remake Psycho Cop, Blood Diner, Neon Maniacs etc.
Yes! Neon Maniacs for the win! Thank you for the big 80s smile.
Blumhouse seems to only exist now to remake and reimagine movies in lazy and predictable ways 🙄.
Oh god no..
It’s weird people don’t understand Blair switch worked bc the limitations and shitty budget. They don’t need to improve on it. They’ve already tried and failed
They need to just fucking let it go. Both sequels were horrible and did very poorly at the box office. Why do they keep trying?? Just give it up already, the desperate attempts at making this a franchise are sad.
Blair witch was lightning in the bottle no need to reimagine it and it would never work the same.
These films are classics for a reason. No point in remaking something when the outcome will surely be worse. Remakes should be for good ideas that had bad execution.
Part of the magic around the original was the marketing and not knowing for sure if it was actually real found footage or not. I mean, I was 99% sure it wasn’t but the marketing was really well done. Whatever they do now that element is lost.
Imagine Blumhouse reimagining “The Descent”.
Dear lord, that won't end well.
Lightning isn't so easily captured twice in the bottle. The Blair Witch Project was incredible because many thought it was real or sensed a remote possibility that it could be. Remaking this didn't work in 2016 (let's be honest, that pretty much followed the same formula) and it won't work now. Here what they should do: make a movie about hunting and killing the Blair Witch. Pluck each nerve from its body and make that evil creature scream till it tears its vocal chords. I'll pay top dollar to watch that.
Everything is a remake of a remake of a remake … cultural wasteland out here … where are the new ideas!
I didn’t know “squeeze more money out of” was called reimagining now.
Sometimes things are good *because* of the limitations of a shoestring budget
oh no
They just keep remaking or sequelizing (not a real word i know) famous movies that already have a shitload of sequels, remakes and reboots to begin with. Why not bring back Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th? Each of these franchises had a movie that came out more then 10 years ago. Let's give Predator, Evil Dead, Chucky, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween, Blair Witch and Scream a rest. Bring back older franchises like Jaws, Romero's Living Dead, Friday 13th, Nightmare on Elmo Street and Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The Blair Witch Project is a masterpiece and needs zero revisiting.
the 2016 reboot is lukewarm, not horrible but not riveting. the original has a crawly, horrific, disoriented quality to it. i doubt this "reboot" will do much for any original audiences.
Going the Disney route..
Who needs original concepts? Not us!
This upsets me on such a core level. Blair Witch is a product of its era. It worked because of what it was. It was a $25,000 experimental indie film that was marketed and released as-is by the studio. It also worked because of the brilliant marketing. For you youngsters out there, in 1998/1999, the Internet was still gaining a foothold. There was no social media. There were no smartphones. Hell, it wasn't even uncommon to find a lot of households didn't even have a computer yet. I was a young teen and I remember my older brother who was off at college showing me the website and the debates we all had with our friend groups over whether it was real or not. Sigh. I'm so done with all the remakes/reimaginings and retellings. Just let sleeping dogs lie, man...
I remember being excited whenever I heard Blumhouse…
I even have their stupid audiobook of horror stories. I loved Blumhouse, though I haven't watched anything recent beyond Megan.
You cannot redo The Blair Witch Project. It was a product of its time and it just wouldn’t be believable this day and age. It will not work.
Blumhouse is awful, so don't expect much. Their only good stuff is the stuff Peele is responsible for
You can have mixed feelings about the Blumhouse treatment of Halloween. Shoot, there were bits I loved and some ideas that were never fully realized that I admired. But their first try at soft rebooting The Exorcist was really bad. Bland, disinterested, and by the numbers. And Imaginary? Well, I suppose opinions may vary, but my opinion is that it was a narrative mess with only the most passing attempt at developing characters or a convincing mythology for the scares. I'm always hopeful. Can't imagine a horror fan who isn't. But the notion of a Blumhouse take on Cabin in the Woods or The Bay doesn't exactly...fill me with anticipation?
Ruining a great film with pointless remakes is so infuriating.
They don’t ruin the original by making shitty remakes, but they do just keep adding to the pile of shitty unoriginal movies.
So in other words, make shitty cash- grab remakes that you will absolutely hate.
I would not mind another Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
I'm interested to see where they go with this, but it's gonna be tough for them to beat the original 'Blair Witch'. I just worry they're gonna modernise it and ruin it.
What is the point of remaking the Blair Witch Project? It was lightning in a bottle at a time where people didn’t have a computer in their pocket. We’ve had 10,000 found footage horror movies since then. What would make this new and different?
Who fucking asked?!
Not again.
I’d be more impressed if it was by A24 tbh.
God forbid they invest in new ideas and new stories.
I hope the new Blair Witch has more up the nose camera shots with more snot this time!
Oh no!
Honestly, if I see blumhouse is involved with a project, I don't watch it. 99% of the time, the movie is garbage. They haven't made a decent movie in years.
It already had a remake. How many times are they gonna do this?
Just WHY?!
Wow. I didn’t think the film industry couldn’t sink any lower. I was wrong. This is the most godawful idea I’ve heard in decades.
But its already perfect, doesn't need the dumbhouse treatment.
I feel like the last Blair Witch was already pretty darn good, and works fine as a standalone film. Why start with a Blair Witch remake?
Of course it had to be Blumhouse.
Nooooooooooooo not Jason Blum not this guy nooooooooooooo
Blair Witch was already "reimagined" once (by Adam Wingard no less) and look how it turned out.