The Blair Witch Project [DVD] [1999]

To me, The Blair Witch Project is simply brilliant in many, many ways. First, of course, Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick used the Internet to build up a hype of unprecedented proportions for this film many months before its general release, creating a thriving fan base drawn deeply into the legend of the Blair Witch and the mysteriously doomed student film project, mucking up the waters of truth and fiction into a bloody froth that attracted horror sharks such as myself from far and wide. Then there was the SciFi Channel documentary Curse of the Blair Witch that was released just prior to the film's release. In this remarkably professional and believable documentary, the fictional story of the movie was given sturdy legs with which to scurry around the truth. The actors used in the documentary were amazingly good, and the use of family photos, old historical documents and letters, newspaper articles, television news features, interviews with law enforcement, family and friends, etc., did a great job of masquerading fiction as reality. Even those of us who knew going into the theatre that this was a work of pure fiction could allow ourselves to wonder if the story could still actually be true, and that suspension of disbelief did much to increase the power of what I saw on the big screen.

Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams were simply brilliant. Their displays of fright, rage, and hopelessness were stunningly believable; of course, some credit for the actors' performances must also go to the geniuses behind the film. I would imagine that the dark woods would become quite unnerving after a few nights, even when you know that whoever or whatever is out there is just someone associated with the film production, and the fact that the characters were forced to endure sleep-deprived nights and grueling daytime hikes over the course of a full week had to do wear down the defenses of the actors and bring to the surface emotions and expressions that lie too deeply to be accessed simply on command. I am still fascinated to read about the way in which things were managed in the filming. The actors ad libbed almost everything they said and did, which is actually quite amazing. At times, though, they had to redo things in order to please the filmmakers; the best example of this comes in the movie's final scene. As I understand it, the scene in the movie is actually a second night's shoot of those events, as things did not go quite the way the filmmakers wanted on the first night. To see that kind of emotion and fear portrayed by an exhausted Michael and Heather on a second night's take is just outstanding.

This horror fan welcomed such a refreshingly new type of movie to the fold. I like blood and gore as much as anyone, but true fright is best achieved by unspectacular yet highly personal events taking place in what looks very much like the real world as we know it. Millions of dollars have never made an expensive, special effects-laden horror movie as creepy as this extremely low-budget masterpiece of mood, atmosphere, and unseen things that go bump in the night.

It's a cheap film made extremely well for its budget. Its approach is novel, and extremely effective. It is by no means perfect - but when I can produce the perfect film then I'll start levelling the more trivial criticisms. Contrary to the comments made by some reviewers, the story is very well thought out and there are no noticeable "contradictions" which cannot be resolved by simply paying attention. For "newbie" actors and directors, it's a very fine first effort, and certainly worth a look provided you're flexible enough to believe that there's more to the horror genre than simple flying entrails.

(As an aside, and slightly off-topic - "Blair Witch 2" isn't nearly as bad as people say it is, provided that you're prepared to be open-minded and think about the actual plot.)