Blair Witch Project [Blu-ray]

The Blair Witch Project is the most brilliantly creepy movie I have ever seen. I can no longer say just how many times I've watched this film, but I become more and more impressed with its production with each viewing. I can't really imagine how so many people can claim that this film didn't scare them in the least. I am a long-time horror fan, inured long ago to almost everything the movie studios throw out there on the big screens with a "frightening" label. The Blair Witch Project, I am delighted to say, creeped me out quite impressively. It may well be that this is a different movie experience depending on the venue of its audience. Those watching the film for the first time at home can turn off all their lights and watch the movie in the dark, but there is really no way to recreate or equal the powerful mood and atmosphere that came rushing in icy waves on to a theatre audience. When I go to see horror movies, there is almost always some laughter to be heard from time to time, and usually I am the one doing the laughing. Once Heather, Michael, and Josh got into the Maryland woods and the spooky meter began to rise, an eerie, almost unprecedented silence took over those of us sitting in the theatre. There was no laughter; I heard no one sucking on a straw or chomping on popcorn; no adolescents whispered back and forth. There was no longer an audience around me; I and the film were locked together in a mortal embrace, and as the suspense built up at the end I felt as if some force were pushing me farther and farther back into my seat. When the movie ended, I don't remember anyone really talking about what they had just seen; I think we all just wanted to get the heck out of that darkened theatre. That kind of experience, I must say, is what my horror dreams are made of. Viewing the film at home just cannot recreate the movie experience.To me, The Blair Witch Project is simply brilliant in many, many ways. First, of course, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick used the Internet to build up a hype of unprecedented proportions for this film many months before its general release, creating a thriving fan base drawn deeply into the legend of the Blair Witch and the mysteriously doomed student film project, mucking up the waters of truth and fiction into a bloody froth that attracted horror sharks such as myself from far and wide. Then there was the SciFi Channel documentary Curse of the Blair Witch that was released just prior to the film's release. In this remarkably professional and believable documentary, the fictional story of the movie was given sturdy legs with which to scurry around the truth. The actors used in the documentary were amazingly good, and the use of family photos, old historical documents and letters, newspaper articles, television news features, interviews with law enforcement, family and friends, etc., did a great job of masquerading fiction as reality. Even those of us who knew going into the theatre that this was a work of pure fiction could allow ourselves to wonder if the story could still actually be true, and that suspension of disbelief did much to increase the power of what I saw on the big screen.Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams were simply brilliant. Their displays of fright, rage, and hopelessness were stunningly believable; of course, some credit for the actors' performances must also go to the geniuses behind the film. I would imagine that the dark woods would become quite unnerving after a few nights, even when you know that whoever or whatever is out there is just someone associated with the film production, and the fact that the characters were forced to endure sleep-deprived nights and grueling daytime hikes over the course of a full week had to do wear down the defenses of the actors and bring to the surface emotions and expressions that lie too deeply to be accessed simply on command. I am still fascinated to read about the way in which things were managed in the filming. The actors ad libbed almost everything they said and did, which is actually quite amazing. At times, though, they had to redo things in order to please the filmmakers; the best example of this comes in the movie's final scene. As I understand it, the scene in the movie is actually a second night's shoot of those events, as things did not go quite the way the filmmakers wanted on the first night. To see that kind of emotion and fear portrayed by an exhausted Michael and Heather on a second night's take is just outstanding.This horror fan welcomed such a refreshingly new type of movie to the fold. I like blood and gore as much as anyone, but true fright is best achieved by unspectacular yet highly personal events taking place in what looks very much like the real world as we know it. Millions of dollars have never made an expensive, special effects-laden horror movie as creepy as this extremely low-budget masterpiece of mood, atmosphere, and unseen things that go bump in the night.

This horror gem from 1999 still works decades later in large part because of the effective dynamics among a trio lost in the woods as something seems to be pursuing them, largely accomplished through unscripted dialog and action. Not much is actually seen, mostly heard, from what lurks in the deep woods. This pioneering "found footage" movie is still one of the best of the genre. Highly recommended for horror fans interested in what can be done with a low budget geared to what is not seen, only implied and heard. The rough filmmaking and "shaky" camera work makes it all the more effective.A note on the Prime Video streaming version: Sadly, many streaming services, including Prime Video, have a cropped, 1:85 aspect ratio, which is disastrous for this film. The proper aspect ratio is 1:33, a window-boxed square that properly composes the image per the intentions of the filmmakers. The streaming version is essentially a zoomed-in image, cutting out essential visual information at the top and bottom in order to fill modern television screens, resulting in an uncomfortably cramped and jittery picture. The intentionally rough quality of the original source is almost unwatchable in this format. Kudos to Amazon Prime customer service, who were responsive to my concern and refunded me after I purchased and watched a few seconds of this title in the improper format.For the best presentation of this film, get the Blu Ray, which also includes an entertaining commentary track by the filmmakers.

This is a film comes with some baggage: the whole "true story" marketing campaign and the insinuation that the events unfolding were not just a film recreation, but actual found footage. The same thing that helped make it a smash hit was probably to blame for the backlash against it. People probably felt duped and there is little else that makes people angrier than feeling like a fool. Other films have used this technique; The Coen Bros Fargo or Tobe Hooper's Texas Chainsaw Massacre, neither of which were later hated for the use of it, though neither of those films tried to present their movie as actual footage either.I didn't get to have the experience of thinking it was real; I had heard about it months before the release from other horror fans on the internet who were already blasting as a rip off of The Last Broadcast and Cannibal Holocaust before they had even seen it. I didn't have high hopes for it.I did see it several times in the theater though, with several different groups of people. Initially I was reluctant but by the time I saw it near the end of its run, at a matinee where only myself and one friend were the total audience, I was a very willing viewer.Some people complained about the shaky camera. It never bothered me. Most people I went with were True Believers. They just knew it was a true story and the footage was real, no matter how much I tried to convince them otherwise. I'm not sure if they were truly fooled or fooled themselves because they wanted it to be true. I'm not sure which is more disturbing: the film, or the people that wanted to believe these three people in the film were actually dead. Personally I would have been much less interested in seeing a snuff film. I wouldn't have gone to see that.I can't understand anyone who was angry at the fact that what they had thought was three dead people cringing in terror during the final days of their lives, turned out to be fiction. Seriously, you don't think these kids families would have had something to say about their children deaths being turned in a money-making entertainment? Come on.But enough of all that, what about the film? For me it's a great nod to films like The Haunting (1963) and the school of horror where the implied is king and your imagination does the job on you. I'm not going to argue with those who hate implied horror or think its cheap. I'm also not going to accuse them of having no imagination. Everyone has their own taste. Whatever.But I would even include such films as the Exorcist and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre within the sphere of implied horror. For every shock the Exorcist throws at you, it offers another subtle implied threat. One you have to think about to fully experience. With Chainsaw it's the fact that very little blood or gore is shown, the film lets your imagination do most of the heavy lifting.Unlike those two films though, Blair Witch does not even share time with more direct horror. It wants to be a mind fueled shadow play through and through, and I applaud it for having the courage to do so...and for me, it works.Its three main characters are distinct, fleshed out, and most importantly sympathetic. The best horror asks you to empathize with its characters. The characters here are not cardboard cut-outs that the filmmakers can brutalize for the pleasure of the crowd. Some people didn't like Heather, but I saw her more "objectionable" behavior as a coping mechanism, hiding behind her camera and insulting the other characters at times as an understandable attempt to keep the fear underneath at bay.A lot of their acting is subtle and not shoved into your face. In a normal movie this would not be the case. Character moments would be underscored with music and typical film language which would lead the viewer into what to think. Blair Witch is not interested in leading you by the nose in such a way. They respect their audience enough to allow them to think for themselves.These characters do bicker a lot, especially as the stress of their situation begins to take its toll. Their situation strips away the façade of civilization. It's not heroic or romantic. It's what happens to real people. Not that it's all pessimism. Once acceptance has come, it allows for truth to come out in a way it rarely does (Heather's confession), and towards the end Mike shows courage as he single-mindedly seeks to find their missing comrade. The best horror lifts the façade of the false goodness of the "civilized" person (with its conditional nature of doing for others only as a means to gain for oneself) and shows humanity's base selfish, frightened animal side. But perhaps buried under that can be found true goodness, or at least some authenticity.The filmmakers present a rich back story in a short period of time. They pull this trick off by sprinkling bits of information throughout the film from various sources of uncertain dependability. They leave you to fill in the blanks, simulating how such legends grow and spread in the real world. They offer many possible sources for the events in the film, never truly settling on any definitive answer. Observant viewers will notice the tales relevance to the story as it unfolds. (the seven missing children from the Justin Parr story coinciding with the characters finding seven piles of rock cairns in the cemetery later on, for instance)Despite the supernatural overtones in the film, there are no definitive supernatural events. Nothing that could not be explained away rationally. Even their returning back the their point of origin after walking for an entire day could be explained away by a faulty compass and the very real phenomenon of human beings tendency to walk in circles when lost.Unlike most films, we can't explain anything away through hallucinations. The nature of the film being that everything is being picked up on camera, we are not allowed the luxury of that. So, something is definitely out there. Something that sounds like small children playing at times. A bit hard to explain that one away, unless there really is a cult living out there in the woods. Could be. Could be ghosts. Could be human agents. Could be the Blair Witch. It largely lets you fill in your own answer, which serves those of the more supernatural bent and those that favor a more rationale answer. Some people don't like question marks in their films, so I guess it loses out with that crowd but otherwise it's great the way the filmmakers have managed to allow the film to have its cake and eat it too.

I personally love this movie. It's got some creepy parts that I love.