死亡習作 (M+ Cinema Programmes)

'In October 1994, three film students stepped into the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland to make a documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch and never returned. Found a year after their disappearance, the recovered footage from their cameras reveals that the force behind their demise was not only far from natural but also staggeringly evil. Behold the blueprint of found footage horror that took moviegoers by storm upon its initial release in 1999, a testament to how authenticity and ingenuity prevail over material constraints. Made on a shoestring budget, 'The Blair Witch Project' is one of the most successful independent films of all time; the film’s cutting-edge marketing campaign framed the missing of the students as real and drew in curious masses, making it the first ‘viral’ film at the dawn of the Internet age. More than twenty years later, the film is still nightmare fuel, with a sinister inscrutability resonating with J-horror and spine-chilling performances from actors distressed by questionable ‘method filmmaking’. 1994年10月，三名電影系學生深入馬里蘭州柏基茲維爾的叢林拍攝布萊爾女巫傳說的紀錄片，自此一去不返。一年後，他們遺下的攝影機被人發現，尋回片段揭示了三人的最終命運，恐懼是來自疑心作祟，還是眼不能見的邪惡力量？ 《死亡習作》為尋獲片段類型恐怖片開創先河，1999年首映後旋即轟動影壇，以極低預算足證創意絕對可克服資源限制，並成為史上最成功的獨立電影之一。電影公司當年以疑幻疑真的尋人啓事吸引了大批好奇的觀眾去尋根究底，在互聯網剛剛興起的時開創了病毒式電影行銷。不負眾望，電影陰森隱晦的氛圍令人聯想起日式恐怖，演員們在其「方法派」攝製手法的壓力下表現出的恐慌亦令人毛骨悚然，成為一代人過目難忘的夢魘根源。