'Blair Witch' Turns 25 🧙, 'Starve Acre' conjures folk-horror delight 🐇, & more!

Found footage frightens me in ways most other genres do not. Whether it's the pop-up terrors of the Fear Footage trilogy or the grainy, shadow play of The McPherson Tape, the format makes me squirm, shriek, and shrink in fear. Characterized by its first person POV, entirely shot on shaky cam, horror's most unsettling subgenre worms its way into the brain and creepy-crawls down into the nervous system. It then unleashes toxins into the blood system before arresting the organs and numbing the limbs. It's a full-body experience.

From the rib-rattling The Tunnel to the dreadful, coma-inducing Ratter and The Den, found footage forces you to confront your own mortality. The way the camera swims through the darkness -- as ghosts, ghouls, and goblins sink teeth into moist flesh -- gives you a front-row seat to your own demise. It's like unraveling your mortal coil in real time, leaving your soul stranded somewhere between the now and the hereafter. Your mind wanders, and you begin to believe that what you've witnessed has actually lurched out of the TV screen.

I've endured countless sleepless nights over the years. When the darkness seeps into the room, and you begin to see shapes oozing from cobwebbed corners, reality and fantasy blur. The list of films that have unnerved me most is practically endless. I submit to the Midnight Society: A Film for Friends, Leaving D.C., Deadware, In a Strangers House, Found Footage 3D, The Sacrament, Bad Ben, The Devil's Doorway, The Outwaters, Invited, Frogman, Deadstream, and Descent into Darkness: My European Nightmare. There's also the matter of such skin-decomposing series like Hell House LLC, Horror in the High Desert, and The Blackwell Ghost -- all worthy to be considered among the modern era's most disquieting entries.

Of course, today's found footage would not be quite the same without The Blair Witch Project. In this week's TimeWarp, guest contributor Matt Konopka (Killer Critics) dedicates an essay around the foundational and groundbreaking 1999 film. From its raw realism to the characters' unadulterated fear, Konopka delves into it all to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the film's wide relase on July 30, 2024. Sit back, relax, and get ready to be scared!

Yours Cruelly,
Bee

P.S. I have officially watched 100+ new releases of 2024 and put together a Letterboxd list of everything I've seen so far this year. Got a rec? Let me know on Twitter/X!

P.P.S. I recently became Tomatometer-Approved 🍅 It's been a very long journey to this moment, and I can't wait for what's to come. Got an upcoming film? Email me and let's chat!

Issue 008’s Letterboxd list can be found here

Still recovering from the last recommendation? Brace yourselves for another one - Lionel Shrivers' "We Need to Talk About Kevin."

This novel explores the unsettling realities of a school shooting through letters from Kevin's mother to her estranged husband. She grapples with the difficult question of whether her son was inherently evil or if her own parenting missteps and lack of connection contributed to his actions. Kinda relatable if you’re a parent, questioning everything you do and wondering if it’s going to fuck up your child right?

It's a challenging read that doesn't shy away from asking tough questions, making readers confront uncomfortable truths.

Don’t Look Away: An Appreciation for the Cast of The Blair Witch Project

Unleashed twenty-five years ago, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project shocked viewers with a film unlike anything they had seen before. Surrounding an eerie legend, it became the stuff of myth itself. Artisan Entertainment (now owned by Lionsgate) convinced the masses that their spooky little movie was genuine found footage from a trio of filmmakers who had died during the making of the film. These days, an actor can’t sneeze without the internet knowing about it, but things were different back in the late 90s. The studio even instructed the cast to lay low until after the film came out to sell their supposed disappearance (much to the detriment of the actors and their careers). Experiencing it for the first time in 1999, you couldn’t be sure that what you were seeing was fake. And that made it truly scary.

The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first found footage horror film (Cannibal Holocaust and The McPherson Tape had it beat by at least a decade), but this story about a trio of filmmakers who set out to document a legendary witch haunting the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland, resonated with audiences on its way to a profit of roughly $250 million on an estimated budget of 60k. Studios and filmmakers alike scrambled to recreate that success, ushering in the found footage horror era, but few have come close to matching the terror of the groundbreaking 1999 film.

Much of that can and should be attributed to the cast. Rei Hance (formerly known as Heather Donahue), Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard (all playing themselves), bring an ingredient that’s key to any found footage concoction…believability. You feel their encroaching terror once they realize they’re lost. You’re made uncomfortable by the way they scream and yell at one another. Your heart pounds with theirs upon the discovery of symbols made from sticks and childish laughter just outside their tent in the middle of the night. Heather’s iconic confession in which she admits her Captain Ahab-esque mission to find the Blair Witch has led them to their doom, frightened tears running down her cheeks…rarely has a performance captured that level of fear. Considering the actors also improvised most of their lines, the recent discussion regarding their lack of compensation breaks my heart. They deserved to become stars and were instead shoved back into the dark cabin of time, only to receive a mere pat on the back by the studio for their sacrifice.

It isn’t just their performances or camerawork—the cast did quite a bit of filming themselves to sell their credibility as filmmakers—but their overall experience that makes it tragic to learn how little they received in return. Peer under the veil of grainy film and you’ll find a production not so different from another classic…Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Both are complete and utter madness captured in a bottle, for better and worse. Where the cast of Texas found themselves going insane in part due to the sweltering heat, the trio at the heart of Blair Witch were breaking down thanks to cold, rainy conditions and torment induced by the crew. The stars suffered a brutal shoot, enduring sleep deprivation, lack of food and stunts by the crew like unexpectedly shaking their tent at night. I’m sure most of us disagree with the method, though the results are undeniable. Unfiltered and vicious emotions scream off the screen to the point where what’s acting and what’s real becomes indiscernible. No remake or sequel could ever recreate that sort of visceral sensation. Nor should they try.

Watching The Blair Witch Project again after recent remarks by the cast, there’s a moment that resonates in a gutting manner that it hadn’t quite before. Early on, the trio jokes that the first clap of their slate is like a ceremonial bloodletting. The characters don’t know it then, but they are, in fact, offering themselves as sacrifices to the Blair Witch. But so is the cast to the studio. To the audience. To the all-consuming nature of the film industry. Three people trapped within grainy frames, their portrayals a fascination for viewers that has made them eternal. Blood, sweat and tears spilled in the name of filmmaking.

Restricting most of the horror to off-screen, The Blair Witch Project remains scary because it’s what we don’t see that strikes terror in our hearts. Yet what happened to Rei Hance, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard is scariest of all. For twenty-five years, the world has been like Mike in that chilling final scene, facing the wall, looking away from the three people who played such a heavy role in why we love the film. It’s about time we looked their way and gave them their due.

We love films filled with blood and gore, so we chose 8 films that do just that. From raging zombies and other undead-like monsters to destructive clowns and childhood favorites-gone-wrong, we present to you, our readers, our favorite GORE-gous films. Check out the list (and Notes) on Letterboxd here.

The 100 Horror Movies in 92 Days Challenge is back! The even runs from August 1st through October 31st, allowing participants to watch (at least) 100 horror films during this time (and all must be a first-time watch!). Read the guidelines here.

Silver Scream Con, the horror convention that brought 5,000 blood-thirsty movie fans to Boston's North Shore in each of its first two iterations, brings the Three-quel everyone's been dying for to Worcester’s DCU Center on September 13-15, 2024. Tickets and information are available now at silverscreamcon.com.

The Fantasia International Film Festival will celebrate its upcoming 28th edition with an electrifying program of screenings, workshops, and launch events running from July 18 through August 4, 2024, returning yet again at the Concordia Hall and J.A. de Sève cinemas, with additional screens and events at Montréal’s Cinémathèque québécoise and Cinéma du Musée.