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The Blair
Witch Project
* * * * (out of * * * * )
Directed
by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick.
Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard.
1999 - 87 minutes (opens July 16, 1999 in limited
release; July 30 wider)
Rated R (for profanity and intensity).
Reviewed April 5, 1999.
"On October 21, 1994, Heather Donahue, Joshua
Leonard, and Michael Williams hiked into the Black Hills
Forest to shoot a documentary film on a local legend
called 'The Blair Witch,' and were never seen again. One
year later, their footage was found."
This is the title card that appears at the start of
"The Blair Witch
Project," a film made on a microscopic budget by
first-time writer-directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel
Myrick that probably caused more of a stir with audiences
than any other motion picture that was showcased at this
year's Sundance Film Festival.
What follows is that footage that was ultimately found in
the forest, meticulously edited together from the 16mm
and video formats they used to shoot it on. Set up as a
sort of pseudo-documentary, "The Blair Witch
Project" begins with the three aforementioned
Montgomery College students preparing for their trip to
Burkittsville, Maryland, home of the legendary Blair
Witch who, as the people they interview in the town tell
it, lives within the Black Hills Forest and murdered a
string of children in the 1940's. Playfully shrugging off
such horrific stories, the headstrong Heather, constantly
with a Hi-8 video camera in her hand and using a map and
compass, leads Joshua (who is filming with a grainy
black-and-white 16mm camera) and Michael (who is there to
pick up the sound) deep into the woods for what is
supposed to be a simple 2-day excursion. It doesn't turn
out that way, however, as they ultimately never make it
back to their car on the second day and are forced to set
up camp another night. Faint footsteps are heard, and the
next day, they discover voodoo dolls and eerie symbols
hanging over the trees. As the days pass by, their food
begins to dwindle, the pitch black, freezing nights grow
more and more intense and threatening as increasingly
loud cackling noises and screams are heard, and they
become hopelessly lost within the mouth of the forest,
the three students are forced to come to terms with
themselves and reconstruct their vision of what raw,
unadulterated horror really is.
When was the last time you've been scared by a movie? No,
strike that. When was the last time you have been so
completely and utterly horrified by a motion picture
that, when the end credits began to roll, you were left
curled up in your chair, literally shaking, and filled
with so many strong emotions that you weren't quite sure
how to decipher it all? If your answer was never (which
it most likely was), look no further than "The Blair
Witch Project," which is a horror film like no
other. It is not another manufactured and slick
"Scream"-style flick, but a true horror movie,
one drenched in such a thick, smothering veil of
hopelessness and dread, not to mention utter realism,
that it finally stops becoming merely a "movie"
and is transformed into something that means more, as if
you are watching a true-to-life documentation of the
terror three students fell face-to-face upon on that
fateful, chilly October week before they disappeared
without a trace.
Also, unlike any other film I have ever seen, "The
Blair Witch Project" is constantly shown from the
point-of-view of one of the characters, since the movie
is made up of the footage they filmed. This cinema verite
style of filmmaking adds to the constant feeling that
what you are watching is not fiction, but genuinely
authentic, as it puts the viewer smack dab in the middle
of the absolute nightmare. Jittery, shaky, and hand-held,
the camera ultimately takes on a life all its own, used
as a sort of metaphor for the off-kilter frame-of-mind
the characters are forced to obtain as their spirits
diminish and they start to question whether they will
survive their dire, to say the least, ordeal.
To put it bluntly, there is no acting in "The Blair
Witch Project." There is, since Heather Donahue,
Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard are playing
characters (despite have the same names), but what I mean
is that there isn't a minute, a second, or even a frame
where you can ever catch the actors "acting."
Their entirely believable performances which, for the
most part, were improvised for the eight days they spent
in the woods, are mindblowing, to say the least. As the
character of Heather starts off as a confidant young
woman, and the leader of the group, she gradually finds
that this feeling of always being right is only a facade
to hide her own weaknesses and fears for the future. As
Heather, as well as Michael and Joshua, slowly break
down, becoming vulnerable and beyond frightened, they
have nothing to do but pray that they will make their way
out of the seemingly endless wilderness before whatever
really is out there gets them. In a late scene, filled
more power and truthfulness than I can remember in any
other film I've ever seen, Heather, centering the camera
directly on her right eye and nose, pours all of her
emotions out, confessing to the faults of her own life,
apologizing to her family, her comrades' families, her
friends, and finally, making peace with herself.
To see "The Blair Witch Project" is not to
simply watch it, but to experience it. No film in recent
memory has shocked me, petrified me, unsettled my
spirits, and left me so enthusiastic afterwards, making
me want to discuss and share the picture with others.
After rustling through so many recent turkeys, "The
Blair Witch Project" has reminded me why I love the
sacred medium of film, and why I want to dedicate my life
to it. Writer-directors Sanchez and Myrick have thrust
upon the world a motion picture with more promise,
originality, and excitement than I can remember, and as a
horror film, without any actually physical gore or even
violence, it is more unsettling, atmospheric,
devastating, and unforgettable than I ever, in my wildest
imagination, expected a film could possibly be.
- Written by Dustin Putman
Note: This review will appear soon on Dustin
Putman's Film Haven.
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