The Blair Witch Project Review
by Scott Renshaw (renshaw AT inconnect DOT com)July 11th, 1999
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
(Artisan)
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard. Screenplay: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
Producers: Gregg hale and Robin Cowie.
Directors: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
MPAA Rating: R (profanity, adult themes, intense situations) Running Time: 86 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
The last of the 34 films I screened at Sundance this year was not merely the best film the festival had to offer. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is a work of genre-redefining brilliance, a strong early candidate for the best film of 1999, and one of the most unnerving psychological thrillers ever made. It works on the kind of primal level that will leave you shaking for hours afterwards. It's the kind of film for which festivals like this truly exist.
The concept alone is ingenious enough to grab interest (though not utterly unique): an on-screen caption at the beginning of the film announces that three college students disappeared in the Black Hills of Maryland in 1994 while making a documentary film, and that only the footage they shot was ever found. Thus begins a 90-minute, verite-style tale of the three students -- director Heather (Heather Donahue), cameraman Josh (Joshua Leonard) and sound man Mike (Michael Williams) -- and their project to make a film about a local legend. The story goes that mass child murders and other disappearances in the area formerly known as Blair are the work of the "Blair Witch," who lives in the hills above the town. The project leads to a two-day hike for location footage, two days that we watch turn into a seemingly endless nightmare when the trio gets lost and the sounds at night grow ever more disturbing.
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT begins with a seductive lightness of tone, as the filmmakers record both their own preparations for the project (on digital video) and the background interviews that will become part of their film (on 16 mm film). The interviews are frequently quite funny -- including a mother whose toddler grows disturbed by the scary story she's telling -- while they also provide insight that the filmmakers really don't take the legend very seriously. The video pieces, meanwhile, establish character traits that become crucial later in the film. Heather, the project's leader, shows an unshakable-bordering-on-foolish confidence in herself, leading to trouble; Mike, who expresses concerns earlier than anyone, becomes the voice of common sense. Writer/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez don't just set up a scary story -- they set up the people to whom this scary story will happen.
And folks, scary ain't even the half of it. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the kind of film that wreaks its havoc almost entirely in your head, just as the events in the film wreak havoc in the heads of the characters. The directors use darkness and sound with shudder-inducing effectiveness, never once resorting to cheap, trite tricks like people jumping into frame or blasts of dissonant music (there is, in fact, no musical underscore of any kind). What we experience in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the collapse of sanity -- as days go by, the three filmmakers run out of food, suffer from sleep deprivation and cold, and gradually come to believe that they may never find their way home again. Heather reassures herself and the others early in their experience that "it's very hard to get lost in America, and even harder to stay lost," but the film plays on exactly that fear of the wildnerness with a technique that will leave you adrenaline-charged and breathless.
Some viewers may be put off by the fact that the set-up guarantees a bad end for the protagonists, or incredulous regarding why they would continue to record their experiences. Those elements might have troubled me had THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT not established its characters so well that they mattered more than the situation in which they find themselves. All three of the largely-improvised performances are dead on -- I dare a viewer to find a moment when you can tell anyone is acting -- but Heather Donahue's work is emotionally shattering. Late in the film, she videotapes an apology to her own parents and the parents of the two men for placing them in such danger, the camera capturing only her eyes as she speaks. They are the eyes of a hunted animal, and the words she speaks will chill you to your soul. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT works as a study of disintegrating humanity only because we feel the humanity of these three brash kids to begin with. You expect a good horror film to be terrifying. What makes this one great -- perhaps one of the best ever -- is that it's also heartbreaking.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 witch crafts: 10.
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