The Blair Witch Project

There was a period in 1999 where posters were almost everywhere for a low budget American horror film, the most famous of which had the three actors' faces with their names underneath and the word ' Missing' in big letters. The film in question was The Blair Witch Project, a film by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez which grabbed the 'found footage' genre by the throat and milked it for all it was worth. Until recently, when the similarly themed Paranormal Activity took the box office by storm, it was the most profitable film based on outlay against return.

The premise is very simple and involves non actors who use their real names and really shoot the footage which you see. The film involves a fictitious project investigating the Blair Witch, a myth in the small town of Burkittsville, Maryland involving a local woman who, many years earlier, was responsible for the deaths of many children in the town. The idea behind this fictitious project was to go to the town and interview locals before heading into the woods to find where she lived and where her crimes were committed.

We are gradually introduced to the three protagonists: Heather, the brains behind the operation; Michael, the sound man and Josh who is, like Michael, more involved in the technical side of the project. The film begins innocuously enough with Heather and Josh picking Mike up from his house, going shopping for snacks and supplies, checking into a hotel for the night and getting a little drunk. The next day, they go into Burkittsville to interview the town's inhabitants who are either unfamiliar with the legend, unwilling to talk about the murders, or all too happy to sell these three young filmmakers everything they know about the legend of the Blair witch.

Having recorded everything they wanted from the town, the next step is to go into the woods to the famous sights where some inexplicable crimes took place and, from there, deeper into the woodland to try and find the famous house where the children were killed. Whilst this is being filmed, tensions grow within the group with the two lads, especially Michael, growing increasingly tired of Heather and her slightly authoritarian approach to making the film. It doesn't help that the two men don't really believe in the project and so grow increasingly tired of hiking through the woods in the same direction only to find themselves back where they started.

With tensions running high, the last thing the group needed were strange noises in the middle of the night and piles of rocks that outside their tents indicating that someone, or something, had paid them a visit. When they come across wood figurines dangling from trees or built into the branches, nerves are stretched to breaking point.


There is a certain art to making a successful 'found footage' film in which the audience has to be utterly convinced that what they are watching is real whilst in the cinema or home with the DVD or Blu-ray. Nothing helps a film like controversy or notoriety and The Blair Witch Project had both of these, with two other filmmakers claiming that Myrick and Sanchez has ripped off their film, The Last Broadcast, and audiences who didn't really care about this artistic tussle reported motion sickness and news of the film spread, either by word of mouth or via the Internet, like wildfire. With the film only costing about $10,000, it's raked in millions at the box office and was a massive hit both there, and on the home video market. Due to the 'found footage', or faux documentary aesthetic, it is a film that relies on the big screen and powerful sound system to survive so works very well on DVD.

The Blair Witch Project is a film that tends to split audiences right down the middle as there are those who just don't buy into the whole concept and find themselves being bored as nothing really happens -- there is no monstrous killer or blood and guts, just people walking around in the woods, getting on each other's nerves as the tension mounts. The other group, like me, like to get involved in the film while it is playing and pitched find themselves utterly freaked out and unnerved by the end. I've seen it numerous times and it still leaves me unnerved and slightly on edge when it finishes in the same way that Night of the Living Dead does.

The Disc

Extra Features
In the commentary with Myrick and Sanchez, they talk about how the project originated and exactly how the movie was filmed so if you don't want to know the secrets behind The Blair Witch Project and would rather watch the film believing it to be real, this is a commentary to avoid.

Curse of the Blair Witch is an interesting 44 minute piece on the film which works on the conceit that the film is a real documentary as it talks about the three film students as if they were real people with interviews with their friends, relatives and lecturers.

Newly Discovered Footage is, as the name suggests, extra material that didn't make it into the final edit as the film is, after all, the footage that was found shortly after the filmmakers went missing. These are basically 'deleted scenes' and are worth a watch.

The Blair Witch Legacy is entirely text based and comprises information about the history of the Blair Witch and the background to the film. You have to navigate through the fairly short snippets of information by pressing 'right' or 'left' on your remote control.

Under the Biographies heading are brief career outlines for Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael Williams, director's Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, plus producers Bob Eick, Kevin J Foxe, Michael Monello, Gregg Hale and Robin Cowie.

There are also several TV spots, a teaser trailer and web links. Fear Section is split into various different categories (darkness; guilt; effects of fear; sleep deprivation etc.) and each one introduces an 'expert' who talks through briefly about that category before there is a clip from the film. Typical EPK stuff really.

The directors interviews section really cries out for a 'play all' function as it is split into nine different sections, none of which are particularly lengthy and so you have to sit there, remote control in hand, so you are ready to select the next section once the one you're watching has finished. Still, what they do have to say is quite interesting and add to your overall understanding of how the film was made.


The Picture
Keeping the documentary style aesthetic, the whole film was shot by the cast using digital video so it has a rough and ready style as everything you see was filmed by one of the protagonists. This means that there is almost no artifice and is very easy to believe that what you see is real. I understand why some people who have problems with motion sickness found this such a difficult film to watch as there are lengthy sequences where the camera wobbles, pans around quickly or jerks when the character holding the camera is running or walking quickly.

The Sound
Befitting the type of film, The Blair Witch Project DVD comes with a Dolby digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack. A 5.1 mix would be unrealistic and, although it would certainly add much more atmosphere, would ruin the illusion of a film being shot on camcorder in the Maryland woods. Even without a surround soundtrack, the stereo soundtrack is incredibly effective and it's remarkable how scary a film can be just with some rustling and twigs cracking in the darkness.


Final Thoughts
The Blair Witch Project is remarkable film, deeply unsettling and the kind of horror film stays with you for a long time after it's finished. Although I missed it on its theatrical run, I can understand why people were so affected and why they recommend it to friends, helping the word-of-mouth aspect to increase the film's profits.

This is a movie that certainly has its detractors, but I'm not one of them and it is a testament to how good it is that it manages to unsettle me each time I see it.