The River

[Krumbie]

Anyone else catch ABC's The River? wow this show looks really good. I like it better than Walking Dead . It's only just finished the first two episodes though so hopefully it won't go south from here. But so far its really great.

[Krumbie]

Haven't seen the show, but the previews looked interesting...!

It's pretty good. It's produced by Steven Speilburg so it has an eerie feel to it that Speilburg is great at capturing. I did notice in the second episode they borrowed the plot from a real life event, from Mexico's Island of Dolls which was investigated by Josh Gates in Destination Truth two years ago. They didn't just borrow they copied it right down to the letter. But it worked for the show anyway!

[gah!ghost]

I dug it. A good set up and I like how they handled the explanation and justification for the cameras. Cameramen really are dicks and crazy about trying to get good shots. The island of the dolls thing reminded me a whole lot of the very similar scene in Blair Witch. Any similarity in source material there? Might just be that dolls hanging from trees for no apparent reason are creepy.

[Krumbie]

I dug it. A good set up and I like how they handled the explanation and justification for the cameras. Cameramen really are dicks and crazy about trying to get good shots. The island of the dolls thing reminded me a whole lot of the very similar scene in Blair Witch. Any similarity in source material there? Might just be that dolls hanging from trees for no apparent reason are creepy.

Yeah the show has a lot of Blair Witch correlation as well. Just the way the scenes are shot is very Blair Wtich. I think Blair Witch gets a bad rap because of its horrible plot and weak storyline, but it was ground breaking in the way they shot the scenes and it changed horror movies in that; it placed you in the first person rather than the spectator.

Doll Island is a real place where locals leave dolls for a girl who drowned in the river as a gift to her. When the show Destination Truth investigated the island they really did capture a lot of paranormal activity on their FLAIR lenses the most prominent being when one of the dolls opened its eyes on its own. It's unexplainable along with the splashing in the water, and very clear audio of other events. I don't blame Speilburg for taking that and using it on the show, it's just plain creepy and too good to pass up.

[gah!ghost]

Well the whole found footage thing has been done in a lot of interesting ways before and after Blair Witch, Blair Witch is just the most famous modern example. The concept even appears in written fiction in the form of narratives that are written in the form of letters, dairy entries, etc. Dracula is probably the most famous example of that.

I do agree though that BWP gets a lot of undeserved negativity. I don't agree that it has a bad plot, it's a simple really effective plot I feel and it does a good job of injecting some natural comedy into a pretty scary film. I'm a fan of the genre in general and there's a bunch of really great recent examples.

[Krumbie]

Well the whole found footage thing has been done in a lot of interesting ways before and after Blair Witch, Blair Witch is just the most famous modern example. The concept even appears in written fiction in the form of narratives that are written in the form of letters, dairy entries, etc. Dracula is probably the most famous example of that.

I do agree though that BWP gets a lot of undeserved negativity. I don't agree that it has a bad plot, it's a simple really effective plot I feel and it does a good job of injecting some natural comedy into a pretty scary film. I'm a fan of the genre in general and there's a bunch of really great recent examples.

Yes absolutely BWP was not the first to shoot in first person, I should have said it made it popular to do so rather than calling it ground breaking... There were a slew of projects both written and filmed to do that long before. BWP just made it a popular choice because it was a successful film in terms of box office draw.

[gah!ghost]

Yeah and I think the marketing of it was pretty clever too. A lot of films have been sold as being based on true stories before and there may have been some faux documentaries before that managed to sell themselves as real but BWP was very successful at maintaining that illusion. The movie is at it's most effective when you don't know much about it and think it's real. You go into with no expectations and then when people start dying you start wondering if you accidentally signed up to watch a snuff film or something.

I managed to see one of the first showings back when they only had 20 copies of the film and thus had no clue what it was about other than being a documentary.

[sarah_ab]

i tried really hard.. but 15 minutes and i was so bored i had to change it... but really i did try..... oh well.. just not my thing...glad lots of people are enjoying it though.

[gah!ghost]

It's certainly not for everyone, which given that it's broadcast and not cable, I can see it not lasting too long.