Released: July 1999
Directors: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez
Rated R
Run Time: 82 Minutes
Distributor: Artisan Entertainment/Lionsgate Studios
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Heather Donahue: Herself
Joshua Leonard: Himself
Michael C. Williams: Himself
1999 was one of the strongest years for movies in a long time. There were a lot of tentpole movies that came out that year that have regarded as some of the most spectacular movies ever made. We saw outstanding efforts like The Matrix, which pushed the boundaries of visual effects to a whole new level. 1999 also gave us the first Star Wars movie in 16 years, The Phantom Menace. As far as horror movies are concerned, we got End of Days, which was the first Arnold Schwarzenegger film that he did after his heart surgery at the time. It wasn’t the greatest film, but I had a lot of fun with it. The goofy Deep Blue Sea also hit theaters, giving us a wild time with Samuel L. Jackson, Thomas Jane, and LL Cool J. However, there was one horror movie that came out in 1999 that I skipped. I thought it looked too silly to work and I didn’t really buy into the marketing and hype at the time. This movie ended up revolutionizing an entire genre and became a massive hit that has yet to be repeated. That movie is the found-footage thriller known as The Blair Witch Project.
The Blair Witch Project follows three student film-makers as they attempt to uncover the secrets of the legendary “Blair Witch.” Heading out into the woods outside of Burkittsville, Maryland to film their documentary, Heather, Josh, and Mike end up getting lost in the woods, seemingly hunted by an evil presence. The Blair Witch Project is a movie that breaks all the rules of conventional film-making. Some, on purpose. Others, not as much, but still add to the film’s mystique. For instance, the narrative takes a completely different approach here. At the beginning of the film, the audience is informed about the trio’s documentary and subsequent disappearance. With that knowledge in mind, you go into the movie knowing the outcome. You would expect it to be predictable, right? Wrong. Even though the film’s outcome is certain, the how and the why of their disappearance is at the heart of the film. This is not the typical narrative that you would see from a conventional movie. The Blair Witch Project starts out as a documentary would with the trio filming and interviewing people about the Blair Witch. But once they head into the woods, that’s when things really start getting interesting. Are the goings-on supernatural or just the group losing their collective shit?
The narrative isn’t the only thing that The Blair Witch Project turns on its head. Let’s take the film’s namesake, the Blair Witch. Is she the film’s actual villain? We don’t rightly know, because we never see her, yet there’s clearly a presence in the woods that is not very polite. So, again, I ask the question: Who is the villain here? Maybe it’s the woods themselves, as Heather, Josh, and Mike end up finding themselves lost and going in circles. Or is it the trio themselves? The answer is deliberately never clear, despite some clues pointing to the existence of the Blair Witch. Let’s talk about the cinematography itself. Since The Blair Witch Project is a found-footage film, everything that you see is taking place from a first-person perspective. It depends on who is holding the camera. Some shots are in black-and-white, indicating shooting on film, while other shots are color. The framing in the film is also very interesting. There are moments when one of the characters is supposed to be fully in frame, but they accidentally didn’t at some point. Normally, something like that would be a death sentence for a film-maker, but for a movie like this, it lends credibility to the fact that these characters are amateur film-makers, so they’re going to be making some mistakes, as anyone would. That gives the film a realistic feel.
The acting in this film is outstanding. Heather, Josh, and Mike, play themselves in this film, and the chemistry between the three is amazing. There are moments of levity in the film, but as they realize that they are lost, they begin to get stressed out to the point where they start turning on each other. This is aided by the fact that the actors themselves were getting stressed out to the point where they were snapping at each other. In a conventional film, you generally don’t push your actors to the point where they want to hit somebody. Yet, for this movie, it worked. It wasn’t just the actors pushing each other, it was the directors themselves that were putting these folks into really stressful situations. A lot of the reactions that you see throughout the movie are real. There are moments where they are simply reacting to what the film-makers are putting them through, so you feel every stressful moment. While it does work on film, it’s a method that can cause real tension between actors and the directors, and not always in a good way. Thankfully, it paid off. In fact, all that stress and freaking out that you see in the film is what drives the film’s intensity. The Blair Witch Project doesn’t rely on cheap jump-scares or gore to scare people. It’s all about the human interaction to the world around them. It gets really creepy.
Let’s talk about the film’s marketing for a bit. The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999. There was no social media; no YouTube, no Facebook, no Instagram. The film had none of that, and yet ended up being credited as the first movie to have “viral” marketing. Spoiler alert: The Blair Witch does not exist. She never has. The mythology of the film and the disappearance of the three film-makers was all fiction. Yet, the marketing for the film implied that it was all real. There were Missing posters featuring the main characters, and the trailers for the film indicated that real film-makers had legitimately disappeared in the area. There was even a special feature called Curse of the Blair Witch that added to the whole thing. The effort that the film-makers took to convince people that The Blair Witch Project was real, was even more impressive than the film itself. The release of The Blair Witch Project was timely back in 1999, because a movie like that really couldn’t be made today, at least not with that kind of marketing. While I didn’t necessarily buy into the marketing of the film, a lot of people did, and it wasn’t always a good thing. Burkittsville, Maryland was a sleepy little town on the East Coast. Unfortunately, fans of the film flooded Burkittsville in an effort to find the “real” Blair Witch. It was attention that the town really didn’t want. In fact, the movie was not filmed in Burkittsville, but in Seneca Creek State Park, which was about 25 miles away. In the Blu-Ray’s commentary, the film-makers themselves had implored people to leave Burkittsville alone. This is the kind of unintended side-effect that a marketing campaign and film can have.
The Blair Witch Project was not the first found-footage movie. That honor goes to Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. The Blair Witch Project, however, is the first film to bring that style of film-making into the 21st century. It changed the way that horror movies could be approached and ended up being one of the best horror movies of the last 25 years. I skipped it initially, because I didn’t think that style of film-making would take off. Boy, was I wrong. There were a lot of imitators including one horrendously mismanaged sequel released the following year, and one direct follow-up in 2016. I have to admit that I loved the hell out of this movie. For a movie made for around $60,000, it went on to bank nearly 250 million dollars, ensuring its place as one of the highest-grossing horror movies ever made. The Blair Witch Project is one of the most unique and influential horror movies ever made. There’s no doubt about it. I’m glad I finally got around to watching it. They took risks with this movie and it paid off big time. I may be late to the party, but I’m absolutely recommending this film to anyone interested in horror movies.
My Final Recommendations: Don’t go looking for evil witches in the woods. 10/10