# Blair Witch Project, The (1999)

### reviewed by
Brian Takeshita

    THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

    A Film Review by Brian Takeshita

    Rating: *** out of ****

The premise is pretty simple. Three young film students go out into the woods of Maryland to get footage for a project on what locals call the Blair Witch, an entity who supposedly comes to claim lives from the local population every so many years. Although their foray is supposed to last only a couple of days, they get lost and have a difficult time getting their bearings despite their possession of a map and a compass. Worse yet, each night they are tormented by strange, haunting noises, and each morning find evidence that someone or something knows they are there. Is it the Blair Witch? Whatever it is, the students never come out of the forest again. Sounds like a fairly run-of-the-mill horror movie, but what's different about this film is it's a documentary.

Well, okay, it's a mockumentary, but the style in which THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is filmed is so natural, it takes on a very eerie reality. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez hired three actors, gave them sketchy details about the roles they were to play and the rough outline of the plot, and turned them loose in the woods with cameras, food, and a global positioning system receiver so they would at least know where they were at any given time. Myrick, Sanchez, and a small crew followed the actors at a distance and left them food and new camera batteries at predetermined checkpoints. The actors were free to improvise dialog, and shot all the footage themselves with a small videocamera and a 16mm black and white, giving the whole thing a documentary-like look and feel. The improvised script is also very effective, for even though much of the dialog is repetitive and simplistic, it's probably more akin to what real people would say in this situation than anything pre-written could have achieved. It's as if what these three actors are experiencing is very, very real, making the film even scarier than you'd think.

Aiding in the illusion of reality has been a campaign of rumors and publicity implying that the story of the disappearing film students were true. Even though the directors and actors have been subsequently interviewed for printed articles, many unknowing viewers have been uncertain as to the origin of the footage, purported to have been found mysteriously in the basement of an abandoned house a year after the "students" disappearance. Believe me, creepy as this film was, the fright factor would have gone up exponentially if I had been under the impression it were real. If you've got friends who don't know the secret, don't spoil it for them yet.

Except for a few rare instances, the film doesn't explicitly show us anything that would actually scare us. Instead, most of the scares come from the reactions of the actors, leaving the sources of their terror to your imagination. Moreover, a few of the occurrences are even left up to your own interpretation, causing mild chills for the next several days as you run the possibilities through your mind. Those looking for definitive answers, or those who are more fond of today's "show everything" style of horror film may find this film lacking, but others will find this approach a breath of fresh air.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is not one of those barn burners that throws scares at you the moment the film starts to roll. Instead, it's a slow pot boiler that gives you circumstances and information that ultimately lead up to an incredibly scary last 20 minutes. So frightening is this portion, that "It's not real" was a mantra I said to myself every so often. However, that's not to say that the film is badly paced with nothing to offer until the end. On the contrary, while the first hour of the film may not be exactly frightening, it is a very interesting character study as the film students realize their hopelessly lost situation, then become aware that they may not be alone in the forest, and ultimately lose their presences of mind. As they slip down that slope toward their ultimate fate, we're right there along with them.

However, as effective as this film is, there are at least two things which stand in the way of making it more enjoyable. First is the fact that the cameras keep rolling through virtually everything. The students have an argument and it's caught on tape. The students are scared out of their wits at something they can't see, and yet manage to keep the 16mm going the whole time. It occurs to you more than once that any regular person would drop the camera once things started getting desperate, and therefore the illusion of reality is shattered in a few places. But to their credit, the actors provide a semi-decent explanation (looking through the camera filters reality, and they sure don't want to be there), and besides, without the constant filming there would be no movie.

The second problem is the constant jarring motion of both cameras, especially the video camcorder. I realize it would be pretty difficult to keep a hand-held camera steady while on the move, but the shakiness was to the extreme and left many at my screening with a headache or nausea. Be warned that if you're susceptible to motion sickness, this film may not be for you.

If you see THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, just keep in mind that the payoff doesn't occur until the end. I've heard reports of people walking out prematurely because "nothing happened," but to do so would be a definite mistake. If you wish to be scared, be patient and you will be rewarded. But as they say, be careful what you wish for.

    Review posted August 2, 1999

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