September 10, 2001
I watched this movie on video last night. The premise is interesting and promising: three young persons go out into the woods to make a documentary on the Blair Witch. They do not return, but a year later the video and film they shot during their excursion is discovered, and that is what we see as the movie.
We see the trio preparing for their trip, buying groceries and so on. They go to a small town near where the witch was seen some years earlier, and film their interviews of the local inhabitants, who tell about various "spooky" happenings and murders in the area. Then the three film makers head for the woods to investigate various sites associated with the witch legend. They backpack their way into the woods and visit a couple of the sites they were seeking, and find evidence that someone has been there.
Then things begin going wrong. There are doubts about where they are and how to get back, then certainty that they are lost. Tensions mount, tempers flare, whining becomes strident, things are heard and glimpsed at night, and artifacts are found suggesting primitive religions and tribal rituals. More than this I cannot say without giving away too much.
There is a lot to like about this movie. There is a persistent sense of reality; it could almost be what it claims to be. It develops logically and there is a progressive heightening of tension that is seldom relieved very much. It is undeniably spooky, and I can imagine some people finding it even more frightening than Alien (which gets my vote as the scariest movie ever made). At some point as I watched, I came to a decision, to the effect that "this movie isn't worth getting scared by, and I might get really scared." In other words, I refused to suspend disbelief because I didn't like the feelings I could sense developing. But then, I'm not a big fan of horror movies or roller coasters.
In addition, this is a very thought-provoking movie. Because it uses a different story-telling technique, it focuses attention on the very assumptions and habits of the medium, making the viewer question the usual practices and see things differently. It is rather surprising that so little is needed on the screen to elicit strong emotions in the viewer. Being around frightened people is frightening, even when those people are fictions.
But while there is much to like, there is also much to criticize. The movie is generally tedious, very like the home movies a diligent amateur might make. Camera work is rarely steady. Much of what we see consists of total blackness, or blurry shapes, or a forest partly illuminated by flashlight, or something that might be something or might not. Much of what we most want to hear is distant, muffled, and puzzling. Of course, this is where the terror comes in. Things that go bump in the night are most frightening when they are unknown. But the technique gets old. This movie makes demands on the patience of the audience, demands that I met grudgingly. This is an unpleasant viewing experience, and the expected payoff at the end is minimal and stylistically predictable. And there are few real scares along the way. This is a movie about imagined terrors.
I can think of several ways this might have been a more interesting film. If one of the players took an aggressive stance, saying "I'm not going to sit around in a tent waiting for them to get me. I'm going to fight," the plot would have taken a turn for the better. Also, the unseen malevolence never seemed to me more menacing than would a farmer with a pitchfork or meat cleaver. This movie lacks any sense of wonder or the fantastic. Glowing shapes in the woods at night or broken tree trunks might have helped, but that's hard to do without a budget.
It would be well not to carp too much, because it's nice to see what can be done with little money and more than usual imagination. This film provides a unique experience, and it's probably worth seeing for that. If you liked the claustrophobic atmosphere of Night of the Living Dead, you'll probably like the much scarier Blair Witch Project as well.