{"id":921,"date":"2014-05-01T02:23:12","date_gmt":"2014-05-01T02:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/?p=921"},"modified":"2014-05-02T08:30:19","modified_gmt":"2014-05-02T08:30:19","slug":"the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/2014\/05\/the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really\/","title":{"rendered":"THE WICKER MAN meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/164\/2014\/05\/Apocalyptic_3.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-922\" title=\"Apocalyptic_3\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/164\/2014\/05\/Apocalyptic_3-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\"><\/a>I am not a fan of movie teaser articles that use the word \u201cmeets\u201d in this way but the trailer for this new film APOCALYPTIC does seem to justify the<a href=\"http:\/\/moviepilot.com\/posts\/2014\/04\/30\/wicker-man-meets-blair-witch-in-new-apocalyptic-trailer-1389983?lt_source=external%2Cmanual#!GUhFl\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"> headline from movie pilot.com<\/a> that has just come over the transom today\u2026<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s from Australia, and very low budget (less than $10,000, which is CRAZY!), and in one of my favorite (if beleaguered, these days) categories of horror, the found footage genre. Though it wasn\u2019t the first film to use the found footage conceit, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (shot for under $50K) was of course the first film to be referred to widely with this term. It uses the premise of documentary-style footage to lend verisimilitude and authenticity to a fictional story, and can often be a very effective device for low budget filmmakers who use it in creative and innovative ways. In some cases, the story is about a group of filmmakers looking for something unusual (like in BLAIR WITCH or one of my favorite movies of the last few years, the Norwegian film TROLLHUNTER) who get more than they bargained for.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the story here, too: a film crew goes looking for an unusual doomsday cult that lives in the forest (this must be prompting the WICKER MAN comparisons). The initial stills that have been released look intriguing: I\u2019ll sure have my eye out for this one! <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MOupQjIIvDs\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Check out the trailer<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Check out APOCALYPTIC, a low-budget Australian film in the found-footage genre where a film crew goes looking for a doomsday cult in the forest. Comparisons to THE WICKER MAN abound!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":995,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>THE WICKER MAN meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? Really?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Check out APOCALYPTIC, a low-budget Australian film in the found-footage genre where a film crew goes looking for a doomsday cult in the forest. Comparisons to THE WICKER MAN abound!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/2014\/05\/the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"THE WICKER MAN meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? Really?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Check out APOCALYPTIC, a low-budget Australian film in the found-footage genre where a film crew goes looking for a doomsday cult in the forest. Comparisons to THE WICKER MAN abound!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/2014\/05\/the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Witching Hour\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-01T02:23:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-05-02T08:30:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/files\/2014\/05\/Apocalyptic_3-300x199.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peg Aloi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Peg Aloi\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/2014\/05\/the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/themediawitches\/2014\/05\/the-wicker-man-meets-the-blair-witch-project-really\/\",\"name\":\"THE WICKER MAN meets THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? 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