The Blair Witch Project (1999) Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffith, Jim King, Sandra Sanchez, Ed Swanson, Patricia Decou. Screenplay by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick. Directed by Sanchez and Myrick. 87 minutes. Rated R, 4 stars (out of five stars)
Review by Ed Johnson-Ott, NUVO Newsweekly www.nuvo-online.com Archive reviews at http://us.imdb.com/M/reviews_by?Edward+Johnson-ott To receive reviews by e-mail at no charge, send subscription requests to pbbp24a@prodigy.com
"The Blair Witch Project" opens with a title card that reads "In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found." That's all you really need to know before viewing this ingenious, extremely creepy horror movie. Shot with two shaky hand- held cameras on a shoestring budget, "The Blair Witch Project" works because the creators remembered that the most effective of all special effects is the human imagination.
With very little money (roughly $25,000) to work from, filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick decided to turn lemons into lemonade, constructing a storyline that would transform their financial and technical limitations into assets. The result is a "mockumentary" about the shooting of a documentary.
Heather Donahue, a film student and aspiring director, sets off to explore the legend of the Blair Witch, an 18th century woman who supposedly haunts the Black Hills Forest of Maryland, periodically reaching out from the netherworld to strike at those who trespass on her domain. Heather is accompanied by two fellow students: cameraman and friend Joshua Leonard and sound operator Michael Williams. While Joshua shoots documentary footage on 16mm black and white film, Heather records virtually everything on video, for use in a "The Making Of" feature about their movie.
After playfully filming each other and interviewing some locals, the trio heads off to search for the sight where the legend began, only to get lost in the woods. Hours grow into days, supplies grow scarce, tensions increase, and then the kids start hearing these strange noises...
Setting the story in 1994 was smart. While firmly in our high-tech age, the year predates, just barely, the current climate where having a pocket cell phone is de rigueur for those under 30, so the idea of the three truly being cut-off from the outside world is plausible. Yet 1994 is recent enough to encompass the mentality of shows like "The Real World," so Heather's insistence on keeping the cameras running even when the situation becomes extremely dire is not that much of a stretch. After all, the more dangerous things get, the more important it is to continue filming because, as the "Real World" mindset goes, we are all potential stars if, and only if, our lives provide enough high drama.
The casting of Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard was equally inspired. All three actors (their actual names are used in the film, adding to the "is this real?" mystique) have a genuine quality crucial in making the production seem believable. Heather is determined, over-confident and a bit pushy; required traits for a director-in-the- making. When she tapes an introduction to the documentary, her delivery is self-conscious and a tad stilted, exactly what one would expect from a student filmmaker.
Even though he is working with a friend, Joshua remains reticent, clearly more comfortable filming the action than being a part of it. As the outsider, Michael is the wild card of the group. The extremely likable young man does his best to cooperate with the others, despite his discomfort at being stuck in the middle of nowhere with two people he barely knows.
I cared about the fates of these individuals and found myself hoping against hope that they would somehow avoid the fate predicted by the title card. "The Blair Witch Project" deftly creates a sense of dread that grows steadily as events progress, with the shaky camerawork, obscured views and limited night-lighting effectively amplifying the disorientating ambiance.
To a degree, the actors actually experienced those feelings. They were left alone in a Maryland state park for extended periods of time, filming themselves and improvising their dialogue based on directoral notes left at prearranged drop points. The unnerving sounds they heard were provided by the directors, who would periodically sneak around the actors' campsites in the middle of the night.
On Internet film newsgroups, where arguing and sniping is the norm, a debate rages between devotees of the movie and those who consider the production nothing more than an over-hyped gimmick. To be sure, there has been a great amount of hype for the film, but so what? Convincing a mass audience to try out a low-budget independent flick is a tough chore and the folks behind "Blair Witch" have used clever promotion to create a whale of an advance buzz. And the finished product delivers the goods. "The Blair Witch Project" is much more than a gimmick. Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick have crafted a horror film that is genuinely disquieting, because they understand that no matter how much money studios throw into lurid nightmare imagery, the scariest monsters are those who lurk just out of sight, in the dark recesses of our own minds.
© 1999 Ed Johnson-Ott
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