This has to be one of the scariest movies I've seen. The idea is simple, the acting is genuine (I'm not kidding) and the horror all comes from the power of suggestion. "The Blair Witch Project" is the perfect example of filmmakers wanting to make "quality over quantity." There are times in which the acting becomes a little "too much", with actors going over the top, but rarely does it happen. Three nobodies are the stars of the film: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard playing themselves while shooting a documentary in the woods of rural Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994. It is an unsettling film that brought the found footage genre to the attention of the world and did so with excellent technique and downright scary storytelling.
The film follows Heather, Mike, and Josh as they set off to Burkittsville, Maryland, formerly Blair, to make a documentary about the local legend of the Blair Witch, who is said to haunt the woods surrounding the town. Beers are opened, snacks are tossed around, and the mood is cheery - the trio sit in their motel having happily completed the first day of shooting, interviewing local townspeople about their experiences surrounding the legend of the Witch. They also hear about a murderer named Russ Parr, who was supposedly haunted by the spirit of Elly Kedward (a woman accused of witchcraft form the 18th century who was executed by hanging). But as they head into the woods, Mike and Josh begin to have their doubts about a location Heather is taking them to (the site of a murder called Coffin Rock), the location seems to be farther and farther the closer they get to it. They soon begin to hear strange noises in the woods, surrounding them entirely as opposed to coming from a single location. They become lost and have limited amounts of water, food, and they are soon convinced that someone of following them.
Mysterious objects resembling the human shape are found hanging from trees in "The Blair Witch Project"
There is a scene in the film in which the characters run from their tent, terrified because something has begun rattling it. The actors were not told that their tent would be shook from what I understand and the reactions we see on the screen are genuine. They run through the woods with a 16mm black and white camera and a color-picture camcorder. The movie gives a brilliant answer to the old cliche viewers ask: why don't they just get out of the house? Or in this case, woods. The directors, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, create an awesome sense of claustrophobia using the wide open space of the Maryland woods. The actors run, walk, and stumble only to end up nowhere. They are miles from their car, their map is serving them no purpose and their pursuer grows closer with each night.
Another issue that comes up in the found footage genre is the questioning of a person's ability to really film everything that is unfolding in front of them. There is a brilliant scene in the film in which the camcorder is taken from Heather's hands and Josh is filming her standing next to a tree, panicked, scared and not knowing how they are going to get out of the woods. Josh tells her that the reason she can't put the camera down is because through the lens, of the camera, nothing seems quite real. It's is a chilling sequence that ends with her in tears. I don't want to give away what her response is becasue the scene is just so terrifying and good. That's also a fantastic way to sum up the found footage genre: films that are meant to look, feel, and seem real, but there's always an element that doesn't quite make it so. "Paranormal Activity" and "Cloverfield" are other films that come to mind in that sense.
The three antagonists of "Blair Witch" from the left: Mike, Josh, and Heather
Again, the power of suggesting here is an incredible thing. The audience is tortured with many sounds and creepy things laid out for us and the characters to see. But the audience is never treated to even so much as a glimpse of the supposed witch and it's a terrible thing! We're dying to see something, then the filmmakers slap us in the face with something happening to our characters.
There was no real script written for the film, just an outline. The actors were given a guide for more-or-less what they had to say and then allowed to interpret as they had to and it feels real. Very real. So much so that to this day, some people think "The Blair Witch Project" is an actual account of three youths who went missing in the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland. Without "Blair Witch", the found footage genre couldn't have become what it is now. Films like "Rec", "Cloverfield", and "Paranormal Activity" all benefitted from what Sanchez and Myrick did: a guerilla style of filmmaking that ushered in the 21st century breed of horror pictures. Movies that went for an ultra-real and gritty realism that is disturbing and fitting for the times we live in.
8/10
- Directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick
- Written by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick
- Runtime - 81 minutes
- Suggested Edition: Lionsgate 1 disc Blu Ray
- 6.3 Stars on IMDb
- 87% on Rotten Tomatoes
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