The Blair Witch Project Review
by "David N. Butterworth" (dnb AT dca DOT net)August 7th, 1999
THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth
** (out of ****)
"The Blair Witch Project" sees an innovative idea marred by poor execution.
This low-budget film, now in wide release, uses a familiar documentary approach to bring a heightened realism to its subject matter. Since the movie is a good old-fashioned horror film (although splatter-free, the film retains an uncertain "I Spit on Your Grave"-type quality), the producers felt that this technique would result in some genuine scares.
Is it scary? Yes. But scary in that constantly looking outside the corners of the screen to avoid jumping out of your skin way, not the identifying with--and caring about the fates of--our leading players way.
Here's the good idea that went a wastin'. In October of 1994, a trio of student filmmakers descended into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland in order to shoot a documentary about the legendary Blair Witch. They were never seen or heard from again. Their "discovered footage" serves as the basis for the film that is about to unfold, "The Blair Witch Project."
Here's how its execution let it down. Heather, the documentary director (played by newcomer Heather Donahue), is a bit of a bossy boots with a dictatorial approach to the project that begins to irritate early on. She quickly starts annoying her fellow filmmakers, Josh (newcomer Joshua Leonard) and Mike (newcomer Michael C. Williams), and alienating her audience. Heather insists she knows where they are at all times but soon enough it becomes clear they are lost. In addition, Heather is obsessively true to her medium, and refuses to turn off their color video camera, their b/w 16mm camera, or their digital tape recorder. So that when things start to get scary--read on--Heather's right there with one of the cameras stuck in a crew member's face, often while she's screaming "What the heck is that!?" or more colorful words to that effect.
If the circumstances in which our protagonists find themselves are as horrifying as suggested then it defies all rational and logical behavior for Heather to keep her camera rolling, no matter how dedicated an auteur she may be.
Donahue, Leonard, and Williams are clearly all amateurs and when the going gets tough, their collective acting talents disintegrate. The supporting characters who play the Burkittsville (formerly Blair) yokels, and provide interview-styled accounts of what they know about the Blair Witch, are also unconvincing. For a film like this to work, they need to be absolutely believable as real people.
After a while, the film becomes frustrating in its repetitiveness. During the day, the threesome constantly bitch and moan about how lost they are, whose fault it is, and what happened to the damned map. They head due south for a day and wind up in the same spot as when they started, all the time following their compass. At night, they hear strange noises all around them and go rushing out of their tent screaming "Oh my God!" lit only by a dim camera bulb, the black-and-white trees positively encroaching on their frightened persons. In the morning, there are little piles of stones or twigs surrounding their camp. If you're afraid of little piles of stones or twigs then I guess this is one heck of a scary movie!
This cycle then repeats itself over and over again. Whine whine, scream scream, stones twigs.
"The Blair Witch Project" relies heavily on the power of implied horror, meaning it's something of an anomaly in today's day and age, yet as a result it's the kind of movie you can really only see once to appreciate (or not). Whereas I can truly understand what filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez were trying to achieve with this film, they made too many mistakes along the way.
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David N. Butterworth
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