The Blair Witch Project (Film Review)
1999 Artisan Entertainment
Written and Directed by: Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 81 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 8/10
Heather, Michael, and Josh decide to make a documentary about the legend of The Blair Witch. First they hit the town of Burkittsville, Maryland for interviews, hearing some spooky tales from a few of the local characters. Then they venture into the nearby woods, from where many of the stories about the which were born. They are never seen again.
The Blair Witch Project kickstarted an entire found footage horror subgenre. I loved the "Did this really happen? Is this footage real?!" hype around the film in the summer of 1999, but when I finally saw the film a few months later, knowing at that point that it wasn't real, I was disappointed.
Flash forward to a viewing 25 years later.
The film starts and I love how authentic the footage and performances are. The three actors really feel like student filmmakers who are in over their heads. I love the autumnal atmosphere when they visit Burkittsville, the breadcrumbs laid out for the viewer's imagination in the interviews with the townsfolk. I love the sense of a modern world that still isn't hyper-connected and globalized, where three people without cellphones and social media can believably walk into the woods, lose contact with the world, and vanish...possibly due to supernatural causes. I love the rainy, autumnal textures of the rural Maryland forest in the film's lo-fi grain. I love the way The Blair Witch Project doesn't constantly repeat information from the earlier townsfolk scenes, so that the viewer can feel rewarded for connecting what's happening to the filmmakers as they get lost to things the viewer heard previously. I love the film's ambiguity, and the way that it does just enough worldbuilding, allowing the viewer's imagination to speculate and attempt clarifying that ambiguity themselves--maybe I've already said that in different words, but it is The Blair Witch Project's greatest asset. I love that the film doesn't use cheap tricks to heighten tension, that it shows and hints at just enough. I love that the film feels like a timeless document of the 90s.
I would never have believed this back in 1999, but 25 years later, I love The Blair Witch Project.
The film starts and I love how authentic the footage and performances are. The three actors really feel like student filmmakers who are in over their heads. I love the autumnal atmosphere when they visit Burkittsville, the breadcrumbs laid out for the viewer's imagination in the interviews with the townsfolk. I love the sense of a modern world that still isn't hyper-connected and globalized, where three people without cellphones and social media can believably walk into the woods, lose contact with the world, and vanish...possibly due to supernatural causes. I love the rainy, autumnal textures of the rural Maryland forest in the film's lo-fi grain. I love the way The Blair Witch Project doesn't constantly repeat information from the earlier townsfolk scenes, so that the viewer can feel rewarded for connecting what's happening to the filmmakers as they get lost to things the viewer heard previously. I love the film's ambiguity, and the way that it does just enough worldbuilding, allowing the viewer's imagination to speculate and attempt clarifying that ambiguity themselves--maybe I've already said that in different words, but it is The Blair Witch Project's greatest asset. I love that the film doesn't use cheap tricks to heighten tension, that it shows and hints at just enough. I love that the film feels like a timeless document of the 90s.
I would never have believed this back in 1999, but 25 years later, I love The Blair Witch Project.
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