As we all know, the first horror pseudo-documentary with widespread influence is "Blair the Witch". In 1999, this small-cost horror film turned out to be a good box office, defeating all kinds of movies released in the same period.
But the strange thing is that the pseudo-documentary style did not prevail in the horror films at that time. The next 2000 "Blair Witch 2" did not continue the pseudo-documentary style, but was filmed in a conventional movie style. The results can be imagined. Know.
This movie of Gouweixumin has neither the documentary suffocation of the previous film nor the excitement that a conventional horror film should have. Although the investment was increased, the box office and word-of-mouth was a fiasco.
It was not until 2016 that "Blair Witch" appeared quietly. From the production point of view, whether it is a pseudo-documentary style or story content, "Blair Witch" inherits "Blair Witch" and is a true sequel, just like "The Legend of Condor Heroes" "And the relationship between "The Legend of the Condor Heroes".
It is a pity that after 16 years, the style of horror pseudo-documentary has been rampant here, and Wen Ziren and other conventional horror films with academic style "Latent" and "Call of Souls" have become popular. The overall concept of "Blair Witch" itself is not as stunning as "Blair Witch".
In 1999, "Blair the Witch" was in the form of a horror pseudo-documentary. The photographic quality was rough and blurry, the camera shake had no visual aesthetics, and the story was unclear. But because of this feature, it is the same as the film’s publicity. The concept of "Videotapes of Missing College Students in the Years" fits perfectly. The film has a large blank space for imagination and echoes before and after the plot. For example, the previous interviewer dictated "When a witch kills a person, one person must face the wall". Become a reality, amazing.
There is also the dark night shot. There is no background light. The lens is completely dark. With the nervous and rapid breathing of the person holding the camera, no ghosts appear. All you need to do is to make a strange sound in the dark, which is the most real horror.
After careful analysis, the whole movie looks rough, but it's really fine-tuned.
In 2016, "Blair Witch" invested more in production, but did not inherit the horror essence of the previous work.
The first is that the quality of photography has become extremely clear due to modern digital technology, losing the original and natural roughness of the previous work.
The presentation of the fear of the dark night is not deep enough, and the atmosphere is scattered by the many "spiritual phenomena" deliberately created by the plot. In the previous work, the creation of horror was always based on the real and primitive fear element of "blackness" in the "black forest", making the audience more likely to feel fear.
However, "Blair Witch" added too many "spiritual phenomena" and lost the most important documentary sense of pseudo-documentary, so naturally it is impossible for people to feel the primitive and real fear.
In the plot, "Blair Witch" attempts to fill in the hole in the previous work, replacing the supernatural concept of "Legend of Witch" with the sci-fi concept of "alien", which reduces the horror of the movie.
The fear and suffocation of the previous work is caused by the mysterious and unknown, but the sequel tries to explain it hard, which is self-defeating.
But compared with other pseudo documentaries, the sequel is still worth watching.
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