The Blair Witch Project Review
by MR JONATHAN RICHARDS (Movie_Critic AT prodigy DOT com)August 4th, 1999
MOVIES Jonathan Richards
CHEESEBURGER
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
Written and Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez With Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard
R 87 min
You've been dining for weeks on haute cuisine with designer ingredients and frou-frou presentations; suddenly you find yourself munching a roadhouse cheeseburger, and nothing ever tasted so good. This, in essence, is the appeal of the indie thriller phenomenon "The Blair Witch Project". To a public sated with the billion-dollar effects of modern cinema tech, there's something irresistible about this bare-bones little horror story, shot on 16mm and high-8 video, without any special effects, on a budget you could carry in your pocket in coins.
"Blair" is a faux documentary (the hip word is "mockumentary"; I offer "crockumentary"). It purports to be footage shot by a trio of student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard) that was discovered a year after they disappeared in the Maryland woods while shooting a documentary about a legendary child-killing witch.
Heather, Josh, and Mike start off in high spirits, recording each other in the car and the motel room. They interview locals and explore sites connected to the folklore. Then they head into the woods with backpacks, a map, and a compass in search of an old graveyard. The seem to have plenty of film and an endless appetite for shooting it.
But soon they're hopelessly lost, and this is where the creepiness creeps in. Fear comes at them from two angles -- the growing terror of being lost in the woods, and the encroaching horror of the witch lore. They begin to hear things -- real, or hysterical suggestion? They begin to find things -- ominous ritualistic-looking bundles of sticks and piles of stones. Something's out there...is it supernatural, or psychotic? Tempers flare, nerves crack. Things get very, very bad. Then they get worse.
Point-of-view is the inspiration that makes this movie click. Everything we see is recorded by the young documentarians on their 16mm b&w production camera and the color camcorder brought by Heather to document her documentary. We're there with them -- there's no omniscient crew, no other reality behind the camera. It's all subjective, hand-held, grainy and jerky. On the upside this provides immediacy; on the downside, it can make you a little nauseous, and you welcome moments when the screen goes black and there's only audio from the DAT recorder.
"Blair" is a welcome antidote to gore, gadgets, explosions, and computerized excess. But despite the internet-orchestrated hype, it's not the scariest thing you've ever seen. It lives and dies on credibility, and having committed themselves to the first-person camera, the filmmakers find themselves in the awkward position of having to keep the camera rolling when circumstances make it almost impossible to believe.
More on 'The Blair Witch Project'...
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