In a genre that sustains itself by recycling tropes and stereotypes, Blair Witch Project took viewers somewhere they had never been, through its use of found footage. ![]() There was a vaguely similar approach used in 1980’s Cannibal Holocaust, as well as in Man Bites Dog and Ghostwatch from 1992, but the handicam aesthetic pioneered by Blair Witch Project filmmakers Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick was a first of its kind. ![]() Rose concluded his review by comparing the movie to Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds radio broadcast that fooled America into thinking it was actually under siege by aliens. “Like that youthfully impetuous near-hoax, Myrick and Sanchez’s movie is a work that plays - with form, technical possibilities, audience expectations and the idea of a show as a magic trick.”Īnd as with any good cinematic magic trick, it spawned a generation of scary movies employing the same sleight of hand. The 1990s lacked the kind of distinct cinematic DNA that was clearly traceable in previous decades. In the post–WWII era there were creature features that played to America’s fear of the Other, like The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954) and Them! (1954). The late 1960s through the 1970s saw boundary-pushing exploitation cinema like The Last House on the Left (1972) and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) emerge, and the 1980s were defined by the slasher. The ‘90s produced plenty of great horror, but it didn’t have a clear through-line.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |