Review: The Blair Witch Project
It ends with a scream. Perhaps it will be one of many. Perhaps the last scream is from your own lips. Make no mistake, The Blair Witch Project is one of the more terrifying cinematic excursions any viewer can make.
Written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, The Blair Witch Project is a crafty piece of filmmaking -- fiction passing as reality. In 1994, three student filmmakers set out to Maryland's Black Hills Forest to shoot a documentary on the local legend of the Blair Witch, who is thought to be responsible for the disappearances and deaths of several children in the Forties. The three filmmakers disappear into the woods and are never heard from again. What we see onscreen is meant to be their recovered footage.
Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard play Heather, Michael and Joshua. Heather is the director whose interest in the mythology of the Blair Witch has led to this project; Michael and Joshua are the sound man and cinematographer along for the ride. Footage from the first day shows them as affable teens with Heather a bit more determined than the others. They chat with the town's residents about the local legend. Some believe it, some don't. One woman claims she encountered the Blair Witch, whom she describes as covered in fur. One amusing -- and perhaps prophetic -- scene has a mother talking about the Blair Witch and her baby daughter covering her mouth, as if the very mention could cause her to disappear.
Day two begins the nightmare from which they can never wake up. It passes innocently enough -- they hike into the woods and set up camp for the night. It will be the last time they sleep so undisturbed. The next day, the guys sense that Heather, who has taken them off the map trail, has no idea how to get them back. She insists she knows where they are and they keep on walking. They come upon a patch of land with a small pile of rocks. That night, they hear a strange noise -- is it a low howling? a child's cry? But the darkness reveals nothing.
They're absolutely lost now, the map has disappeared and their nerves are becoming ever more frayed. The guys just want to get out and so does Heather but new discoveries keep her and her camera intrigued -- three piles of rocks that weren't there before, a section in the forest where sticks in the shape of figures hang from trees, a bundle of sticks which reveal a bloody tattered piece of clothing. They're lost, they're hungry, the night are becoming more and more horrific. One of them will disappear and all will end in an abandoned house somewhere deep in the forest, a house with handprints on its walls.
So is the legend true? Perhaps the dark is nothing but dark. Perhaps it's only their own imaginations playing tricks on them. But what of those piles of rocks? Or the sticks bundled together? Just creepy coincidences? The canniness, of course, of The Blair Witch Project is how it taps into our fears of the dark, the woods and what can happen when you're lost in uncharted territory. An allegory of Vietnam, anyone? Or an extension of a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm?
In any case, The Blair Witch Project succeeds in injecting terror at its most primitive level. The formula sometimes gets repetitious and Heather's incessant I'm-right attitude may drive you up the wall, but you will be afraid of the dark. Despite yourself, you will be afraid.
The Blair Witch Project
Directed by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Written by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael Williams
