The Blair Witch Project Review
by "Jonathan Hauer" (spybug AT mindspring DOT com)July 17th, 1999
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999)
The movie: 3 and a half dried twigs (out of 4)
The movie, plus the website, plus the featurette: 4 dried twigs (out of 4)
Directed by: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (II)
Written by: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (II)
Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard
reviewed by Jonathan Hauer
"No red-neck is this creative."
But, you've got to hand it to them, the folks behind "The Blair Witch Project" were. With no money or name actors, writer-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (II) got clever, and created an event bigger than the actuality of their film.
The story of the film is best encapsulated by the words that appear before the footage begins: "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers dissapeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found." Now that is a good premise for a horror story. The ensuing tension and revelations are worth the price of admission.
Debuting their film at midnight during the Sundance film festival, Myrick and Sanchez scared the bejeezus out of an indy-film crowd with an unexpectedly well made, scary film project. The Sundance buzz was ignited, but the duo did not stop there. They went on to create a wonderful web-site that tells much of the history of the film's story and paired up with the Sci-Fi channel to create a "Blair Witch Project" documentary, "The Mythology of Blair Witch." By the time the actualy film was released (to only one theater in the D.C. area!) my desire to know the story and learn the secrets that film contained were greater than ever. I was as anxious to see the footage as I was to see *GASP* "Episode One."
This is a very well made, very clever film. The real question is, "Is it scary?" Yes, it is scary. "Is it the scariest movie you've ever seen?" It was pretty intense. I think, though, that "Schindler's List" ranks up there on the actual fear meter. On the other hand, this movie is not meant to preach, it is meant to scare. It may be a post-haunted house "I'm no coward" mentality that leads me to say that it wasn't too terribly scary. However, I can say that my mind was haunted on the drive home; to the extent of turning off the radio and picturing the film's final images again and again to try to discern exactly what it was that occurred.
In reality, the movie is really little more than a documentary style ghost story told with a lot of screaming, a teensy bit of fake blood and a couple of shaky cameras. The media hoopla has described the style of the film as a necessity because of the project's low budget, but I don't believe that this film would have been as effective any other way. The casting of unknown actors -- Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard (playing themselves) -- closed the gap between reality and fantasy. The camera's blurred images and distant sound (sometimes the sound you hear was captured by the video camera, and sometimes by DAT) make you believe that this is actually happening as documented by the machinery. And, perhaps most effective of all, is the lack of a clear picture of whatever it is that's happening. In an age when filmmakers are being encouraged to dream their most fantastic digital dreams for their audience, these two filmmakers were forced to look into the negative space of our psyches and remember that what we don't know is the source of true magic and terror.
Thank you to Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, along with your cast and crew, for creating excitement about an innovative vision and a film that mostly achieves its own hype.
More on 'The Blair Witch Project'...
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