Hello Horror 2022 - Day 13 - The Blair Witch Project (1999)

  I have never wanted to watch this movie because of two words in the description:  "found footage".  God damn shaky cam.  It is the worst.  And whoever decided this should be a "modern classic" should be hung up by their toes.

Three idiot film students wander into the woods of Maryland in search of local ghost story, the Blair Witch.  They have no sense of navigation, no plan, and are soon hopelessly lost.  With each passing night, something in the woods hunts them.

Look, I grew up on the edge of a national forest.  I have been lost in the woods.  I have even gotten lost in Maryland.  My friend and I were hiking on well-traveled, well-marked trails and we took what we thought was a side trail that turned out to just be erosion.  It is very easy to get lost in the woods.  That's why you shouldn't go.  The woods are horrible.  All the trees look the same, there's random tripping hazards, weird noises, and animals that will legitimately kill and eat you.  Plus, you can get hypothermia in 50 degree (F) weather.  I have sympathy for people lost in the woods but not these characters.  Forty minutes in, I was #TeamWitch all the way.  I'm genuinely mad they didn't die faster.  They were fucking annoying and also bad filmmakers.

And at the risk of spoilers for a 22-year-old movie, the whole premise was wrong.  **SPOILERS IN WHITE**  They're out there searching for some lady with hypertrichosis and a lousy dress sense when they should have been looking for Mr. Pratt, the serial killer who put baby boomers in a corner.  None of the stories they heard had anything remotely connecting them, except for being in the woods.  The dead dudes whose bodies disappeared?  Zero connection to the witch.  Girl who saw a furry lady while fishing?  Zero connection.  Serial killer who confessed to seven murders but also "took them in the basement in pairs" which would imply an even number of victims?  Zero connection.  This is bad methodology and shoddy documentary work.  If they hadn't been murdered, they definitely weren't graduating.  **END SPOILERS**

I watched this on Peacock and the most disturbing thing about the film was that the subtitles were censored.  Like, the subtitles were PG-13 at best, while the movie dialogue was R.  If I were a member of the Deaf community, I would complain.  That's infantilizing as fuck.  Maybe try one of the other platforms like Paramount+, PlutoTV, Hulu, or Amazon Prime.  Or don't watch it at all and spare yourself the splitting headache.