I select a thematically appropriate horror movie for each day of the year and tell you about it.
Why?
It seemed like a good idea at the time.
How do you get to decide what qualifies as a horror movie and where each one goes on the calendar?
I am the Mayor of Horror Movies.
Are all these movies good?
Oh gosh no. But I recommend all of them to the adventurous viewer.
What’s with the CWs?
In horror movies, disturbing material is part of the entertainment package. But for some viewers, elements like sexual violence or bigotry ruin the fun. For those folks, I include content warnings. That said, the warnings are based on my personal reactions and should not be expected to cover all potential cinematic skeeviness, so proceed with caution.
Who are you, aside from the mayor?
I’m Shaenon K. Garrity. I’m mostly a cartoonist. I watch a lot of scary movies while I draw cartoons.
The movie combined with its innovative online marketing campaign was a unique experience, in the early days of the internet. My then girlfriend and I saw the movie poster for it and looked up the website, with its intricate history of the supposed backstory. She thought it was all real and was terrified, and I reassured her that it was all fake, which I was about 75% sure of.
Then we saw the movie at a midnight showing with some of our friends, which was actually less terrifying (though the shaky cam did make me a bit nauseous).
I remember a TV documentary that gave a lot of interesting background to the whole mythology of the Blair Witch – I think I may have it somewhere on an old VHS tape. Appropriately enough, I can trace my love of “found footage” movies back to this one – it is not the first, but it definitely started the trend.
Honestly, having come to this one only after having seen a number of other found footage horror flicks, I found it kind of lacking. Didn’t help that the two dudes mostly just seemed whiny to me. Definitely worthy for historical context, and the fact that it launched a new sub-genre, but like a lot of other pioneering works, it’s been surpassed by those who followed in its footsteps and refined the formula.
The movie combined with its innovative online marketing campaign was a unique experience, in the early days of the internet. My then girlfriend and I saw the movie poster for it and looked up the website, with its intricate history of the supposed backstory. She thought it was all real and was terrified, and I reassured her that it was all fake, which I was about 75% sure of.
Then we saw the movie at a midnight showing with some of our friends, which was actually less terrifying (though the shaky cam did make me a bit nauseous).
“Proto-creepypasta”: If nothing else, HED is enlarging my vocabulary.
I remember a TV documentary that gave a lot of interesting background to the whole mythology of the Blair Witch – I think I may have it somewhere on an old VHS tape. Appropriately enough, I can trace my love of “found footage” movies back to this one – it is not the first, but it definitely started the trend.
Honestly, having come to this one only after having seen a number of other found footage horror flicks, I found it kind of lacking. Didn’t help that the two dudes mostly just seemed whiny to me. Definitely worthy for historical context, and the fact that it launched a new sub-genre, but like a lot of other pioneering works, it’s been surpassed by those who followed in its footsteps and refined the formula.