Movie Review: The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project

Bizarre, but true: I never saw this movie during its theatrical release and, in fact, saw it for the very first time this weekend. I'd heard about The Blair Witch Project, of course. At the time (1999), it represented a departure from classic filmmaking and its uniqueness paid off for its creators. The film, made for just a few thousand dollars, grossed over $100 million in wide release.

The Blair Witch Project is filmed as raw documentary footage. Three film students, led by Heather Donahue (all of the actors use their real names in the movie), head off to film a documentary for a class assignment. The topic: the legend of the Blair Witch, a local Maryland horror story. We see interviews with local residents filmed for the documentary, but we also see Heather's "documentary of the documentary" as she runs her own video camera almost constantly and keeps up a running commentary. Everything goes along smoothly until the three head out into the woods to film an old cemetery, find the so-called "coffin rock", and look for the dilapidated cabin where the witch has reportedly been seen in the past. On their second day in the woods, the three happy-go-lucky students slowly and with little warning begin their dark journey into fear and despair as things go wrong, and then begin to get very, very strange and more than a little frightening.

Another unusual aspect of The Blair Witch Project is the fact that the movie was entirely unscripted. The creators of the project gave the actors an outline of where the plot should head in general terms, and then left them to it. The lines are virtually all improvised on the spot. Many of the actors' reactions are also unfeigned; the creators deliberately frightened the group in the middle of the night as well as caused them other streses and discomforts during the making of the movie. More authenticity is added by the fact that the film intended for the documentary is reasonably steady and well shot, but the video camera footage is unsteady and amateurish. The interspersing of the two tells the story of the three students who "disappeared in the woods" but whose "footage was found" a year later, and it does so very effectively.

I loved the filming and editing techniques employed. It lent a terrific reality to the story. The fact that the actors improvised most of their lines was also effective despite an occasional tendency to lapse into profanity and nothing but profanity. As a whole, it doesn't matter how much the producers spent - or didn't spend - to make The Blair Witch Project. They made a hit, and deservedly so. Imitators (and a second Blair Witch movie with a larger budget) have given the concept a bad name, but the original is still good, and pretty damned scary to boot.

FAMILY SUITABILITY: The Blair Witch Project is rated R. There is no sex or nudity, but there is a good deal of profanity and some very, very intense scenes. There's no overt violence, but some very nasty stuff is discussed or implied. I don't suggest that anyone under 15 see The Blair Witch Project. Older teenagers and adults who like a good horror movie, however, won't be disappointed with this one.