To that short list of things money can't buy, let's add "fright." After all, as too many of us found out last week, the multiple millions of dollars spent on "The Haunting" produced only a great-looking, utterly ridiculous mess instead of a world-class shocker.
On the other hand, "The Blair Witch Project," which cost a mere $60,000, is a nerve-wracking study of the psychology of fear that's doesn't need computer-generated special effects or digital stereo screams to give viewers the shudders. Instead, "Witch" writer-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez have pulled off the trick of turning their lack of resources into an asset. The movie's unfinished, catch-as-catch-can look, complete with jiggly camerawork and sometimes blurred imagery, is one of the primary reasons it's so disturbing and creepy.
"Witch" purports to be an assemblage of the film and video shot by three student filmmakers who ventured deep into the Maryland woods in 1994 in search of material for a project they were planning about "the Blair Witch," a legendary figure locals have blamed over the years for mysterious disappearances and murders. The Witch is described by one source as being uncommonly hairy, by another as "an old woman whose feet never touch the ground."
At first, the trio of young documentarians mock these theories and spend a good deal of their time fooling around and teasing each other. Even when they lose their way in the forest, Heather, the unofficial leader of the group, assures her cohorts they'll "all look back on this and laugh heartily."
Instead, their circumstances become increasingly more serious, even perilous. Mysterious piles of rocks appear around their campsite, indecipherable noises surround them in the night, cryptic symbols are found and the leafless tree branches begin to look like skeletal fingers reaching out for the three intruders. What started off as a weekend of fun begins to look like "Road Rules: The Death Trip."
Myrick and Sanchez understand that what frightens audiences is not what they see, but what they don't see. In its use of shadow, sound and suggestion, "Witch" recalls the classic Val Lewton films of the 1940s, such as "Cat People," "Isle of the Dead" and "The Seventh Victim." Myrick and Sanchez create a wholly believable atmosphere of tension and bewilderment that proves to be much scarier than any amount of blood or gore could be.
In another offbeat move, Myrick and Sanchez have given their characters the same names as the actors playing them -- Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams -- and the stars' naturalistic performances and seemingly improvised dialogue lend the tale an eerie authenticity. Particularly chilling is Donahue's taped confession when she realizes she doesn't know nearly as much as she thought she did. It's a scene that's almost too wrenching to watch.
Shot entirely on video and 16mm film, "Witch" is presented in a constrained format that takes up only about half the total space on a movie screen. That's a brilliant move on the part of the directors since it makes us feel trapped right alongside the would-be filmmakers. We see only what they see, -- and it becomes clear why they're terrified. James Sanford
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