The Blair Witch Project

CHICAGO – Director Eduardo Sánchez has found one bizarre way to commemorate the rogue nature of his horror film “The Blair Witch Project” for its 15-year-anniversary - by crafting an analogously lesser movie with the very rulebook he defied in 1999. In turn, his new Bigfoot found footage film “Exists” becomes a minimal horror project for the GoPro camera era that doesn’t have much of a life of its own outside of its “Blair Witch Project” context.

CHICAGO – There’s something that horror movie producers never seem capable of understanding. A great horror movie is like watching a magic trick. It doesn’t work nearly as well the second time. The sequels to “Saw,” “The Blair Witch Project,” and now “Paranormal Activity,” are not that dissimilar from watching the same rabbit come out of the same hat with nothing much different than a new colored bandana around its neck. “Paranormal Activity 2” has moments but doesn’t amount to nearly the same overall experience as the first.

CHICAGO – A truly scary movie doesn’t release you from its grip when the end credits begin to roll. It doesn’t evaporate from your mind like a pleasurable yet disposable piece of escapist entertainment. It burrows itself within your subconscious and follows you like a malevolent shadow until night falls.

CHICAGO – From its first “The Blair Witch Project”-like film in Sept. 2009, “Paranormal Activity” now reigns as one of the most profitable films ever made based on return on investment. But just a short 13 months later, “Paranormal Activity 2” returns to theaters with content and panic tactics that are much of the same.

CHICAGO – While adult comedies continue to rake in the big bucks at the box office, adult dramas continue to plunge in popularity, particularly dramas centering on the war in Iraq. When a brilliant edge-of-your-seat thriller like Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” or a galvanizing documentary like “Taxi to the Dark Side” can’t even manage to find an audience, a tiny horror picture like “The Objective” doesn’t stand a chance.

CHICAGO – In our latest horror edition of HollywoodChicago.com Hookup: Film, we have 20 admit-two passes up for grabs to the Chicago screening of the film festival-favorite horror film “Paranormal Activity,” which Bloody-Disgusting.com calls “one of the scariest movies of all time”!