Ideas to Remember

[did-you-know]

There’s a section of Yellowstone National Park where you could probably get away with murder. 

The ‘Zone of Death’ is a 50- square-mile area on the Idaho side of the park that’s entirely uninhabited. If you committed a crime within the zone, there could be no jury because nobody lives there, a trial would be impossible, and, therefore, you could not be convicted. 

(Source, Source 2, Source 3)

[miloyiannopoulos]

Underpopulated Italian region offers visitors €25,000 to move in

Molise president finds novel way to breathe life into area as resident numbers dwindle

mutuals we’re wig

[hilarioushumorfromouterspace]

[landofshame]

Blair Witch Project: The Scariest Movie Ever Made

So, I’ve been yapping on about the Blair Witch today and yesterday because the new game just came out. (By the way, finished it. It was ok. 6/10. Story is bad but game is fun enough and it’s worth the price. Also, dog.)

And the fact that even after so many years creators still don’t seem to be able to recreate what made the original so scary, or memorable, has always been very interesting to me. So here I go, writing a post about it.

Ok so, The Blair Witch Project was at the time said to be “the scariest movie ever made”, and it’s a title it still holds depending on who you ask. This was of course partly because of the massive hype surrounding it at the time, with a very creative marketing campaign, having the actors not doing any appearances or interviews (strengthening the idea that they had really disappeared), and a website with (fake) news articles, interviews, and news footage of cases surrounding Burkittsville, mainly the murder of seven children by a hermit called Rustin Parr in the 1940′s. All of this of course added to the scariness of the movie back in the day. When the movie came out they did a poll and apparently nearly 40% of the people who saw it believed it to be real. And even after the actors started doing interviews after the release of the film, there were still people who held to that thought.

But let’s push all that aside. Because if you watch the movie now you of course don’t have that marketing campaign anymore, and we also know 100% that it’s a fictional story. But it’s STILL one of the scariest movies.  And so many years later both movies and games are still trying to recapture it, and failing. But why? Why do they keep failing? And why are the Blair Witch’s iconic scenes, so, well, iconic?

What makes the original so scary?

For the uninitiated, a brief summary of the setup: Three students go into the woods near Burkittsville to film a documentary about “the blair witch”, a local legend. Mysterious things happen to them. They never make it out. That’s it. That’s the setup, it’s very simple. And not only that, but the movie never shows any other people, creatures, even animals, during the entire movie. It’s just three people, the forest, and specific sounds and visuals. Oh, and dread. A whole lot of dread. What’s instantly important about these characters and the setting is that they are very, very normal people. They are real, normal, even kinda boring, people. Not “hollywood” normal. But real normal. They have no tragic backstories, no particular personality traits that make them more “movie-esque”. Normal. 

And the legend they are investigating, the blair witch, is not a very hidden or particular legend, it’s comparable to the mothman. Some people believe in it, some don’t, most are indifferent. Heather, Mike, and Josh are not filming a documentary about it because they believe in it either, they just think it’ll be an interesting topic for class. Not a big deal, and they’ll get a nice camping trip out of it at the same time.

Before they go into the woods they interview a lot of people in Burkittsville itself, asking them about every strange story and occurrence they know of, whether it has to do with the blair witch legend of not. They hear the story of the child murders, of “one child standing in the corner of the basement while Rust killed the others”, of people having run-ins with the witch, of people drowning in the creeks. 

There are two main points to take from this 

 People have “seen” the blair witch and lived 

All these stories and legends seem to be individual pieces that over time have become entwined because they have one thing in common: the forest.

It is not any witch that is the real horror, it’s not even Rust. It’s the forest. 

I could talk for a very long time about each individual scene and event in the movie, and what makes it scary, and how it works, and how it adds to the storyline, but we don’t have time so I’ll go straight to the point:

The forest seemingly creates events, sounds, visions, etc, from the legends the people have made up over the years. And because our main trio have also heard them, they also have them in their mind when in the forest, so they forest creates them. The forest itself is seemingly some kind of lovecraftian location, or a strange dimension of some kind. Everything in it is contained within itself. Time, space, what is real and what isn’t, is not relevant to it. And neither is anyone in it. 

But not only that. It also creates things of its own. Things that stand outside what is “known”. And it is these things that are sometimes the scariest of all. It is the unknown. Maybe they are from sources so old that not even the current locals know of it. Examples are Josh disappearing with only his teeth and hair being found, the stacked rocks, and the famous stick figures. 

They can’t escape the forest because it seems to loop around. They can’t go out at night because they hear the sounds of children and branches snapping, and they get angrier and more frustrated at each other from hunger and frustration and fear the entire time. And the angrier and more scared they get, the more the forest uses it.

It’s extremely subtle and complex, and absolutely terrifying.

Why do modern versions keep missing the mark?

The million dollar question. Why, oh why, do people keep getting it wrong. By the way, I am talking here about the 2016 Blair Witch movie, and the recent game. I’m not including “Book of Shadows” because it was not actively trying to recreate the original, like the other two do.

In my opinion it’s a fundamental misunderstanding of how the original works. What makes it scary. What it is, and what it’s not.

One of the biggest mistakes they make is that they assume the legend of the blair witch is 100% real, and not only that but that she is absolutely the puppet master behind it all. And that every little thing in the forest is done BY her. This is a big mistake, because it puts a certain face on every event, it creates order out of chaos.

The reality that everything that happens in the forest is chaotic, fiction and reality blending together, time and space warping, is much scarier. The idea that everything happens through you. Your thoughts, memories, but not in a specific way. The forest doesn’t care about you, personally. It doesn’t think, or feel, or is a being. It just IS. 

When Heather says her famous “I’m scared to close my eyes, I’m scared to open them” line, it perfectly summarizes the whole situation. The forest is all around them, and everything in it. It is there when she looks, and when she doesn’t. Things will appear through her, to her. 

The SECOND biggest mistake, is that they not only say the blair witch is real, but she APPEARS. You SEE her. She has a FORM. And it’s consistent.  Again, this is putting a face on the horror. They always say “what you don’t see is scarier”, but it’s not just that you don’t see the witch in the original, she might not even be real. And it adds the horrible feeling of “but if she’s not real, then what is, and what is doing these things, and how did the legend even happen and who are these stick figures for”

Thirdly, the gore. Both the game and the 2016 movie are incredibly bloody and I have never understood why. There is VERY little blood in the original, the only time it shows gore is when Heather finds Josh’s teeth. And that moment hits like a truck BECAUSE we haven’t seen any explicit violence or blood up to that point. There were the stories of the murdered children, but that was never shown, and there isn’t any blood in the house either. So why all the gore?

New media wants to mythologize all the visuals and characters from the original, without realizing the original was able to create all those visuals and ideas without explicitly showing any of it. The blair witch is not creature horror, nor is it even just psychological horror. It’s something else. 

It’s the horrifying ordeal of knowing you’re insignificant in a very particular way. It’s not any “witch”, or the spirit of a child murderer, or a stream, or a house, or little figures made out of sticks.

It’s you. It’s the forest. It’s the “other” 

[besosforpesos]

We are only 4 episodes in but I’m in love with this drama, perfect mix of humor and horror! It has been a long time since I have been hooked by a drama like this!

[buggirl]

[did-you-know]

Another weirdly amazing piece of nature: the llareta shrubs in the Atacama Desert / Source

[just-shower-thoughts]

Someone needs to make a haunted house where it’s not that scary and the props look poorly made, but the Exit is fake and the real haunted house starts when you think you left

[mxnrique]

snatched yo “i’m not like other girls” ass real quick!!!

[impuretale]

This movie had no business being as good as it was. Go watch it. 

[quasi-normalcy]

Noted

[gwendolynshepherds]

#… technically this scene passes the bechdel tesr#which is WILD unless youve watched the movie (via @swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual)

[neonperri]

If Jack Black doesn’t get an Oscar nom for this, it is proof that sf/action movies are being discriminated against, because he was FLAWLESS as a teenage girl, absolutely invisible behind his character, and that deserves massive recognition of his awesomeness. 

(I also appreciate the writing which had both girls calling each other out on perceived issues, and both girls acknowledging the fairness of those call-outs and subsequently valuing each other as equals and becoming buds. No girl-fights here, thank you.)

[trashmouse]

This movie was far more amazing than it should have been, and I’m pretty sure that was at least 90% because the cast was so fantastic.

[xzombiexkittenx]

Not once in the entire film did I forget Jack Black was a teenage girl. It was one of the most brilliant performances I have ever seen and I still can’t believe I’m saying that about Jack Black in Jumanji II.

[pom-seedss]

Is it tropey as hell? Yes.

Do they subvert some of the tropes some of the time? Heck yes.

Did they know they were going to be tropey as hell and made it the best possible versions of the tropes when they weren’t subverting them? Hell fucking yes.

[earth-phenomenon-blog]

Pamukkale, 19 km (12 miles) north of Denizli, is Turkey’s foremost mineral-bath spa because of its natural beauty: hot calcium-laden waters spring from the earth and cascade over a cliff. As they cool they form dramatic travertines of hard, brilliantly white calcium that form pools.

Pamukkale has been used as a spa since the second century BC.

[just-shower-thoughts]

Send a wedding invite to every billionaire you can find an address for, as there’s a good chance their assistants just send you a gift without ever confirming who you are or if their boss knows you.

[coldtake]

[courtenaybird]

[lizznotliz]

I wish I’d known this in undergrad.

[killsmedead]

Sending this to my coworkers on Monday.

[stucky-ficrecs]

Also helpful for that fic you read on that one site that time.

[ceruleancynic]

Reblogging for reference

[starsberrisnunicorns]

“A Thread of Tips” by Shelby

• #16 is missing but to find out more tips, follow her on twitter; be sure to thank her! 😁

disclaimer: check sites and tips before using at your own discretion.

[crazyintheeast]

This is the most valuable thing I have ever seen

[picsthatmakeyougohmm]

[365filmsbyauroranocte]

BoJack Horseman S04E12 ‘What Time Is It Right Now’

[scripturient-manipulator]

#i feel called out by the sad horse show

Bro that’s literally the entire show, horribly horribly accurate and articulating things people with depression and related mental illnesses feel but can’t voice

[did-you-know]

Library Extension is a Google Chrome add-on that makes it easier to borrow the books you see online. When you browse Amazon, Goodreads, and other various sites, it automatically searches your local libraries for the book you’re viewing, displays the availability of that item, and adds a ‘borrow’ button that takes you right to the library’s online catalog so you can instantly reserve the book instead of buying it. Source Source 2