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The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Still fairly strong after 20 years
I recently re-watched this with my teenage kids. They enjoyed it, a bit, but it's difficult to explain to them just what an impact this "home video" blockbuster made on the pre-YouTube film-making world when it first came out. And I can't say for sure how much of my attraction to it has to do with nostalgia (I saw it while on a date, in an indie theater so long time ago). The instability of the camera work still makes my wife sick, after all of these years. Aside from the novelty of its lo-fi, homemade film style (in 1999, anyways), the acting was fairly strong. Had it not been, I suspect that this film would never have made it out the gate. The storyline is decent, the assemblage of different characters is fun, and there's a reasonable balance of action and introspection. What's missing? According to my son, the witch herself. In our current age of "top 5 carcrash" styled YouTube lists and 720p jumpscares, the lack of a visible boogeyman proved too anticlimactic for his taste. Maybe I'll re-watch in another 20 years, and let you know what I think.
Spectrauma (2011)
Fans of Cronenberg and Kubrick take note.
A chilling experiment in quantum physics goes horribly wrong, introducing a band of too-curious college students to another reality that preys on their nightmares and questions their sanity...is it all in their heads? Phantom lighting and crisp, uncomfortable silences (ala Kubrick) lend tension and edge to the storyline, while protagonist Brett struggles to balance his time between an engrossing potential scientific breakthrough and a dehumanizing fling with a high society femme fatale. Ghosts of past experiments, mothballed for their blasphemous audacity, strong-arm his scientific reasoning and any tenets of self-preservation, ultimately threatening not only Brett's life, but that of his friends and lab partners. A solid performance by the actors in this ultra-low budget indie film makes it that much more impressive. Recommended.