31 Days of Halloween: Cloverfield and The Blair Witch parallels
Cloverfield’s initial media blitz caused a backlash that has divided movie fans. I think this movie has a very loyal fanbase and monster movie fans like it a lot, but there’s some people who dislike its style. It is probably the most dizzying, nontraditional movie since The Blair Witch Project, which is saying something. The film is directed by Matt Reeves, whose specialty is character-driven movies, so Cloverfield doesn’t have an effects master or a sci-fi expect at the helm. I think this is why there’s so much character crap clogging up the beginning but the film needed that sort of thing because that’s the perspective of the whole film. The Blair Witch Project also has that same style, except with no effects and none of the glitz as used in Cloverfield.
What do you think is the most interesting part of the Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield? I still think Cloverfield’s underground scene in the subway tunnels holds up—I used to think this scene was really scary and could have been even longer. I hate bugs for the most part, and that scene really got me good when I first saw it. It helped that the bugs were mostly hidden in the dark. The aftermath was also gross. As for Blair Witch Project, my favorite scene is the ending or when they’re first running through the woods as something unseen is after them.
Both Blair Witch and Cloverfield spawned franchises. It’s interesting how Cloverfield’s later entries really did not begin as direct sequels, but as scripts edited and fine-tuned to be related in theme and premise. Both 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox received large amounts of hype. Paradox in particular had a lot of hype thanks to a SuperBowl spot which caused people to take a lot of interest in this movie, even though it turned out to be a horrible movie. Most people were upset that the movie really didn’t answer anything about the monster featured in the original Cloverfield, and many people reviewed it very poorly. I think this same thing happened with 2016’s Blair Witch sequel, with people again not getting what they want, and most being confused by the writing, which isn’t that good, admittedly. In all, I think all the sequels to Cloverfield and Blair Witch Projected suffered from audience backlash due to their expectations not being met. Maybe that’s why they hid the Cloverfield monster for so long.
Overall, I think there are more similarities between these two movies than people admit. These two movies couldn’t be more different, but the approach is so similiar that it amazes me that no one talks about the success of these movies more. From a low budget perspective, Blair Witch Project succeeded in driving up hype due to a mockumentary and the great website project, which was quite primative compared to today’s internet. Cloverfield had the direct opposite viral marketing approach, which is sorta funny. Instead of building a damn website and using TV and word of mouth, they attached their first teaser to a big movie, the first Transformers movie, but they gave audiences very little information outside of the famous Statue of Liberty head scene and a date. That’s it. That’s all it took to spurn discussion from summer 2007 until Cloverfield was released in 2008. By the way, both of these movies had warnings at the theater for dizziness caused by the damn camera shaking all the time. It’s interesting how audiences comes around again and again thanks to viral marketing campaigns used in movies, and I think it will keep happening, although I wonder how big things can still get with today’s audiences. I think audiences could still support something big but it’s definitely getting harder with the number of options people now have as opposed to simply going to the movies.
