Tonight on TV Chanel "The Woods"; 6 short films, all spoofs of "The Blair Witch Project", separated by commercials.
I guess that this is technically an anthology movie, but in presentation and tone it comes across as nothing more than a feature length sketch show. A sketch show in which every third sketch (about 85% of the running time) is a different spoof of the same movie.
My absolute Favourite part of this movie was after the section "The Willy Witch Projects" during a piece from the linking segment. I was expecting the camera to move on to the next skit, as had been the pattern up to this point. Instead, the skit kept going... And credits started to roll over it.
I have never been so genuinely relieved to reach the end of a movie. Although I was alone in the room, I think I actually said "oh thank god" out loud!
Suffice to say, I won't be spending a great deal of time on this review. I've already lost an hour and 20 minutes to this heap of shit; it's not having too much more of my life.
Between it being filmed on consumer grade Equipment, and it's 3 or four standout 'trademark' scenes, Blair Witch is an incredibly easy film to parody, but those same factors lead inevitably to repetition when someone decides to string 6 spoofs together.
So we have 6 variants of the opening text ("two years later, their footage was found... And we decided to exploit it" etc.) 6 sets of interviews, 6 close-up scenes of someone sobbing an apology to the camera while wearing a wooly hat, 6 scenes of people feeling out at random things..
Worst of all, not one of the sketches is funny. At all. So rather than being subjected to 6 similar films which become dull through repetition, the viewer is tasked with sitting through 6 films which are atrocious on their own right, and which reputation does nothing to help.
2 of the spoofs are "urban", both racist in their own way. The first follows a trio of white film makers trying to document a witch from 'the hood' and plays the 'black people are scary criminals' card for all its worth. The second features a trio of black film makers, who want to make their own version of the Blair Witch Project "like then white bitches did". Scripted entirely in Ebonics, it relies of the same kind of casual racism that makes up most of Dave Chapell's shtick.
"The Bogus Witch Project" - the short from which the compilation takes its name, starts Pauly Shaw (remember him?) and is by far the worst of the bunch - quite the achievement.
Aside from the Blair Witch spoofs, there ar fake commercials for a show called "Horror Story Tellers" - lame ripoff of horror icons telling stories from their point of view (4 of those) a lame home shopping segment selling horror related artefacts (4 of those) and a couple of other random adverts.
The hi-light of the entire movie (damning with faint praise if ever the phrase fit) was an advert for an attorney who fights for compensation for horror-victems.
I hope I don't have to tell you to avoid this one.
CAUTION:
THE FOLLOWING TRAILER MAKES THE MOVIE LOOK WATCHABLE: IT LIES!
Disclaimer:
If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've been using "Bought from Poundland" as a tag since at least 2011.
At the end of October 2013 I decided that all of my 2014 movies would be purchased from Poundland, and began buying up horror movies, to ensure I would have enough come October 2014.
In March 2014 I took a part time job at Poundland.
In accordance with the companies social media policy, in September 2014 I contacted Poundland's social media team to check that I would be okay to carry on with my plan to use the "bought from Poundland" tag.
I have been given the go-ahead on condition that I make the following clear:
All the reviews on this blog are entirely the opinion of Will Tingle, the reviews are not endorsed by Poundland in any way and (as should be obvious from some of the more scathing ones) are certainly not reviews I have been paid to write.
In short: The views expressed in this blog are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Poundland or it's owners, shareholders, or management.
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