Celebrating the films of 1999, Rotten Tomatoes kicks off a 12-month, retrospective series of features with an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the making of The Blair Witch Project. The groundbreaking, record-smashing indie horror flick made its debut at Sundance ten years ago this month, and RT writer Joe Utichi does a great job of reminding us of both the film’s legendary story and its lasting influence.
While I left The Blair Witch Project out of SpoutBlog’s five-day series of “Sundance Stories of Yore,” I wouldn’t have paid as great a tribute as Utichi has. Personally, I never appreciated the film in any way, but thanks to this video I’m now thinking differently about the merits of the production. I may never need to watch the actual film again, but I have to give the filmmakers credit for how they went about getting their 20 hours of footage.
That’s why it’s even more unfortunate that directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick haven’t done anything noteworthy since. At least Blair Witch actor Joshua Leonard has just made his “comeback” with a starring role in the 2009 Sundance hit Humpday. In the past ten years, he’s had small parts in films like Men of Honor, The Shaggy Dog and Prom Night, and interestingly enough he provided the voice of “Tyler Durden” in a video game version of Fight Club(another landmark film from 1999). But with Humpday, which like Blair Witch utilizes his talent for improvisation, he’s in the foreground once again. Now someone needs to give Heather Donahue and Michael C. Williams their due spotlights so we may continue to celebrate a Blair Witch renaissance.
As if the run-of-the-mill high school movie wasn’t scary enough (cough–High School Musical 3), Hollywood has been upping the ante for years by tossing unsuspecting teens into horrific situations. Audiences seem to enjoy watching vulnerable characters having the hormones scared out of them — or else they just enjoy seeing annoying teens get tortured.
Every high school teen horror flick has a stereotypical cast of characters straight out of cliche-ville: the jock/hot guy, the cheerleader/hot girl, the know-it-all nerd (male or female), the misunderstood girl, the new student, and a slew of others who normally end up as a victim for the killer/monster/plague at the heart of the movie. Maybe this is one of the reasons why the acclaimed Swedish preteen vampire film Let the Right One In (which comes out in limited release tomorrow) has been so successful at festivals: it finds ways to rework the nerd/bully/bad guy constructs that Hollywood has been regurgitating in teen movies for fifty years. After the jump, we take a look at the prototypical high school horror stories that make Right One feel so fresh.
A new New York State budget makes room for a tripling of film production tax incentives, designed to stop the flow of productions running away to nearby states like Connecticut.
The remake of Prom Night is expected to narrowly beat out Street Kings at the box office this weekend, and Sony distribution president Rory Bruer knows why. “Prom night is a common sort of experience,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. And really, this is what people look for when they go to the movies: a reflection of an experience they’ve had, plus murder.
Has the PG-13 rating become something of a teaser for R-rated content? I’ve had this suspicion for some time now, but I feel it’s confirmed with the new trailer for the Prom Night remake. The horror flick is another PG-13 redo of an R-rated movie, another example of the contrast between the marketing allowances of now and then. But wait, is it just me, or does the Prom Night trailer feature subject matter that is still inappropriate for kids aged 13 to 16 (and younger, since the rating requires no ID)? Maybe there’s none of the soft-core nudity of the original, but there’s still that idea that prom is time for getting it on in a hotel room. Sure, the idea is nothing new to most kids, but that doesn’t mean it has to be encouraged — even if a slasher film like this can be interpreted as a punishment to those sex-having teens.
Regardless, though, of whether or not this movie features anything graphically or thematically inappropriate (disclaimer: I am no puritan nor censor; I saw the original Prom Nightwhen I was some single-digit age, and I came out just fine), the point is that it’s something of a lie to act as though kids under 17 are not going to be attracted to those graphics and themes that are being hinted at. Even if the kids don’t end up seeking out the real-deal, they’re likely to imagine their own interpretations of what falls between the lines. Plus, isn’t it possible that a movie can communicate or stimulate a falsely tame image of sex and violence by presenting tamed-down sexual and violent material?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Celebrating the films of 1999, Rotten Tomatoes kicks off a 12-month, retrospective series of features with 
Quentin Tarantino will give 
