Scary Movies: The Blair Witch Project

I hadn’t seen this movie since I saw it in the movie theater when it came out. But the theme this year for our annual horror film festival is witches, and it’s the movie within that theme I think my daughter was most looking forward to. Apparently it still has something of a reputation among teens of her generation, even twenty-five years after its release.

I have to say, I think it suffers from being seen in my house rather than with an audience in a theater. There’s something about this movie that’s visceral and powerful when watched with a crowd, but kind of boring when it’s just your own house. Or maybe it was just the times that made it exciting on my first viewing, as it wasn’t exactly clear when this movie came out how much of it was fake. I mean, with the found footage approach, it feels real, and this was before “going viral” was a thing. In fact, this may have been the first thing to truly go viral, with its internet marketing campaign that blurred the line between fact and fiction.

So, of course, the central conceit of this movie is that it’s “found footage.” Allegedly, a couple video cameras were discovered in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1997, and everything that appears on the screen was filmed with those cameras. The people in the film had supposedly been missing for four years. What we, the viewers of the actual movie, see, is the footage contained on those cameras.

I guess the plot is familiar to most people, and it’s certainly easy enough to describe. Heather is an indie film maker who wants to create a documentary about the Blair Witch, a local urban legend (or is it?) in Burkittsville, Maryland. Her camera man is Josh, and Mike brings along some extra equipment. The three first interview some people around Burkittsville, asking what they know about the Blair witch legend, and receiving responses ranging from humorous to spooky. There seem to be two main groups of legends–the first about a witch who allegedly lived in the area in the 1890s and killed local children; the second about a serial killer in the 1940s who kidnapped local children and killed them in pairs, forcing one to stand in the corner while he killed the other. What connection these two parts of the mythology have is not really clear.

After the interviews, Heather, Josh, and Mike set off into the woods to try to find and film the landmarks mentioned in the various versions of the legend. They camp the first night and the next morning locate a sort of graveyard with seven stacks of stones. But by the end of the day, they’re lost, not sure how close they are to their car, and tired. That night, they hear branches snapping outside their tent, and in the morning they discover piles of rocks like at the cemetery they filmed.

Most of the rest of the movie consists of them wandering lost in the woods, unable to find their car again or even any landmarks they recognize, and from time to time coming up on spooky things made with wood and bone. Nights are the worst, as the noises outside the tent become louder, more persistent, and more troubling. When they go out one night to investigate, Josh disappears, and later on they can hear his screams in the woods. The movie ends in a really spooky sequence when they finally find… well, I don’t want to give that away.

Blair Witch Project (1999)
Story/Plot/Characters— Basically unscripted, which gives it a cinema verite kind of feel. The three actors are totally believable. There’s not much plot, but then, there’s not meant to be as it’s not a “movie,” but the raw footage of these three who were making a movie. Goes really too long, though. The three spend a lot of time just wandering in the woods cursing at each other because they lost the map. (2.5 points)
Special Effects— As my daughter could put it, she could literally film a movie like this in the backyard with her phone camera. No special effects except for some weird little “witchy” crafts. Otherwise, just weird noises in the night. Yet it’s very effective. (1.5 points)
Scariness— Like I said, in the theater it was scary, especially before it was clear to every one that it wasn’t actually a true story. A little less so watching it at home, but still pretty eerie. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— Full credit. Those deep Maryland woods are spooky. (2 points)
Total=7.5 points (Excellent)

Verdict: What some once called the scariest movie every made hasn’t aged completely gracefully since 1999, but still a highly effective and original horror film.