The Blair Witch Project Review
by "Mark O'Hara" (mwohara AT hotmail DOT com)August 15th, 1999
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
This is more of a response than a review, but I think "The Blair Witch Project" is a great film - just not necessarily a great horror film.
I admire it most for its creativity. Filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick ran with the idea of shoving three young actors out in the Maryland woods. They must operate their own cameras and improvise all of the dialogue. Of course there is always the fall-back of editing. But the sheer originality is refreshing to watch. I guess we have to overlook that the camera seems to be running much of the time, and not only when the supposed cameramen are filming actual parts of the documentary. We see Heather (Heather Donohue) introducing the legend, the camera showing the faded stones of a graveyard. But we also watch the trio leave Josh's (Josh Leonard) car on the side of the road, Heather working the camera as the men behind her trudge into the woods in search of the locales involved in the legend. Although we never witness mundane things like meals, we do see several breaks the characters take as they hike under the trees. And the choppiness of sudden cuts to the darkness of night is excusable.
I'm sure the best thing about the set, to the filmmakers, is that it was free. The remote forest is pristine, primeval, and most of all, ominous. I thought of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short stories, so-called civilized man venturing into the darkness, possibly to meet his doom. At times we watch shots of the forest's extreme beauty; then darkness descends and the story tightens down to small enclosures of nylon pup tents. These are familiar scenes to viewers who have camped. What makes the characters take notice is the unfamiliar noises during the blackest part of night. Rocks knock together, branches rustle, and human voices cry hoarsely and once even laugh.
Why do I say "The Blair Witch Project" is a great film? Mostly for the chances it takes to be different. The premise is a cool idea, and you can't help liking these indedpendent filmmakers and their gutsy young actors. My bottom line is that the piece succeeds as a psychological study as much as any other genre. I've read snippets of hype like the movie "does for the woods what 'Jaws' did for the water," and yes, there is a lot of suspense worked into the package. But 'Jaws' is a suspense film, not properly horror. At its heart, "Blair Witch" follows the fascinating degeneration of psyches: as they become lost, assault each other in anger, and run in terror through the lightless woods, these jaded young adults let us glimpse the core of their humanity, and we are moved.
But maybe people don't want to be moved by the plights of characters; maybe they view these figures only as victims - fodder for a monster that they eventually hope to see, and that they hope is gruesome and more terrible than any special effects they have previously gawked at.
There's the rub. Hey, typical American viewer! Don't you realize yet that the most terrifying agent in this type of movie is your own imagination? If you want to see slashing and blood-black gore, get thee hence! Rent an 80's flick from one of the franchises. Because what we have here is the chance of a revival of suspense films that actually make you think and make connections. Wow! There is not insulting of the intelligence at the beginning - only a quick set-up (perhaps too quick) for characterization. But so many elements come across freshly because of their improvised nature. Why did Spielberg put most of the "Saving Private Ryan" cast through boot camp-like training? What comes across on camera is more genuine, of course. Place three actors out in the woods for several days - and the length of their ordeal does become a wee bit tiresome - and you are bound to come up with an edge that can't be faked by the best actors. When Heather glances at her mud-caked hands and fingernails, we see the conditions that are crossing the lines of human endurance. How else could Heather seem so genuine in her self-filmed apology to the mothers of her crew? This scene is very unflattering to Heather physically. We see up inside her quivering nostrils, her dirty hair is hidden inside her ski cap, her red-rimmed eyes leak tears that collect on the tip of her nose. Just a magnificent and naturalistic performance.
I've mentioned a few flaws along the way. Another is that I wanted to call out, "What are you standing around fighting for? Why don't you double-time it down any trail? You can cover forty miles in a day if you're desperate!" Yet I suppose a certain hopelessness grips them, and when they happen across the same log they crossed much earlier the same day, we get a sense that perhaps they are not just wandering foolishly in widening circles, but they are victims of some especially tortuous haunting. Anyhoo, wouldn't at least one of the characters start praying or invoking God in this situation? Josh wears a talisman around his neck - the horn that wards off evil. It's funny, but just as their humanity makes us wish for their safety, other aspects of their behavior make us not care so much for them.
Next, the hype. I've been fascinated by the advertising of films since I begged my mother endlessly for a buck so I could buy a "The Sound of Music" coloring book! What strikes me here is that I knew more about the mythology of the Blair witch than was actually contained in the picture! Because I read the official web site's version, I knew the origin of the folklore - the pre-Colonial woman being exiled into the woods, the disappearance of children and the bundles of twigs clogging the lake. But these items constitute a dishonest type of reverse engineering. It's virtually impossible to look at the film by itself, as a result of the additional fictions woven about it. At the center of this grisly bundle is a decent - though very consciously rough - little story. It's a stroke of both genius and exploitation to surround the movie with all the other stuff, when it could have been included in a few more minutes of footage. On the site you see photos of state cops and searches and read the stories of the agonized parents and the eventual release of the footage found abandoned. Very slick indeed. But it's not part of the 86-minute movie. It's just as cheesy as the hype surrounding any type of artist with a bloated personality cult. Fortunately this film, divorced from the hype, is still decent. I don't see the end of this multi-faceted advertising, but only much more of it, especially on the Internet.
Oh, I realize the dialogue is improvised, and we never see a good deal of the film the actors shot. But c'mon, do they really need to use the f-word so many times? It becomes like any syllable repeated until meaningless. The characters' languages - body language and paralanguage - put across more terror than their cursing. (At the very least, copiers of "Blair Witch" should attempt more colorful variations on the standard four-letter expletives!)
Because it's become an important part of our lore and current culture, you should see "The Blair Witch Project." You've heard the thing was made for around $30,000, sold to Artisan Entertainment for a cool million, and has grossed many more millions in its first weeks of release. If that doesn't impress, then the bare-bones creativity will. (And if you think hard enough, you begin to wonder what is really stalking the trio - something beyond nature or something cultish.) The viewing experience is more creepy than scary. But there are also a few nicely-wrought comic bits, as when Mike (Mike Williams) corrects the others when they call 'The Skipper' from "Gilligan's Island" by the name of 'Captain.' In all, the film is gritty and realistic - cinema verite to the nth degree -- and finally, enjoyably unsettling.
Mark O'Hara
August 14, 1999
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