That’s how I felt about Paranormal Activity. It was like I spent the entire movie waiting for something scary to happen. A thing just… stood there. Every “night” on screen felt the same: a being… just standing there. Not standing there sharpening a knife. Not standing there ominously stroking people’s cheeks. Nothing attacked or even made threats to do so. It just. fucking. stood. there.
Then when something finally started to happen, the movie ended.
I don’t know if my standards for “scary” are too high, but I found the entire film (save for those last few seconds) to be extremely boring. How it’s so popular (and even spawned a sequel?!) is beyond me.
That was how I felt about Blair Witch. Full disclosure, I don’t like horror to begin with, but to me the movie was about a group of people in the woods with a scary thing somewhere, and when they finally find the thing it ends.
It’s like if Texas Chainsaw was about a bunch of teenagers who stood around while you hear a chainsaw running somewhere in the distance, the cuts to black right when the killer shows up.
It’s been a while and I can’t remember which one it was that I saw, but I remember that ending coming out of nowhere. It’s like oh, there’s a ghost or something haunting the place, ok. Signs of evil or something, a person floating while sleeping, too iirc.
Then suddenly there’s hundreds of witches or cultists surrounding them outside and it just ends!?
Maybe it would have been scary if I was the type to buy into moral panics?
It was just kinda creepy and then weird. Felt like “rocks fall, everyone dies” kinda energy.