The Blair Witch Project
Believe the hype, kids: this is the best movie I've seen all year by a country mile, and better than anything I saw last year to boot. While it's best to know as little as possible going in, I couldn't help reading a few reviews which gave away some of the film's secrets. Such petty scribbling did nothing to subvert the incredibly visceral experience that The Blair Witch Project offers. I walked out of the theatre emotionally shellshocked, could not fall asleep that night for the replays in my head, and some 30 hours later have been entirely unable (unwilling?) to stop thinking about it.
In a word, the film is brilliant. Not so much a horror movie as the trailers and hype would have you believe, but a soul-rocking, incredibly unnerving chronicle of psychological meltdown. Comparisons? Not The Exorcist, not Halloween, not even Hitchcock exactly - Blair Witch is closer to the existential dread of Camus or Sartre, or the creepiness of Kafka. There is no gore to speak of, no leaping monsters to startle you - just impending feelings of dread and impeccably constructed paranoia that at times is virtually unbearable. Yet I desperately want to see it again.
You likely already know that this is a documentary about three student filmmakers who take two cameras and a DAT machine into the Maryland woods during a chilly October weekend to uncover the mystery of the legendary Blair Witch, rumored to have slaughtered grown men and small children alike. Well, a mockumentary, really - the events depicted didn't actually happen (the parents of the filmmakers would never allow it to be shown if it were), but you would never, ever suppose that from the viewing.
From the shaky first-person lo-fi camera work to the jump-start editing to the acting - o! the acting! the primal Method-style performances! - every frame aches with reality. The Blair Witch Project draws you in with an ordinary opening: hey, just three kids asking locals about a legend. The opening scenes are relaxed, even comic at times, drawing you into the characters and lulling you into submission before bringing the hammer down. Led by Heather, whose brash confidence belies an increasing insecurity, cameraman Josh and soundman Mike begin to question her devotion to the project as the three trek further into the woods and begin to discover more than they anticipated. A few odd piles of rocks, crude stick figures that echo voodoo. More.
Circumstances mount. The trio becomes lost in the wilderness. The infighting and paranoia increases. Each night they are forced to camp out is increasingly tense. (Note #1: laughable understatement.) Just as they would be in reality, the night scenes are haggard and haphazard, the cameras clicking on after events have already begun to unfold in complete darkness. Never have I seen darkness used to such chilling effect in film - never have I heard an audience so silent, so leaning-forward-intent as when Heather switches on the camera to catch the sounds of Something slouching through the woods.
Watching the psyche of each character begin to crumble may be the most compelling thing I've ever seen in the theatre, and Heather's self-filmed, tearfully choked apology the most heartbreaking. I never had any idea of what was going to happen next, was terrified to find out, was unable to turn my eyes away. It's true as ever that the human imagination is infinitely more inventive than any special effect, and Blair Witch's genius is that it harnesses your imagination. More accurately, I suppose, is that it unleashes it - in the pitch blackness, when Heather screams out, "WHAT the FUCK is THAT?" from a larynx shredded with terror, if you don't feel the claws of panic digging in your skull, you're already dead.
The last three minutes of the film will leave your spine frozen. (Note #2: Pay close attention to the opening interviews.) I've never seen an entire audience sit stunned for so long during the credits before stumbling, dazed, to the exits. I know this may not sound like a fun time. It's not. But it's riveting, ambitious and Powerful - an exquisitely executed, utterly convincing psychodrama. See it. But don't see it alone. Make sure you've scheduled to go someplace far, far away from the woods soon after, where there's plenty of concrete, plastic, electricity and floodlights. I'm going on vacation next week, and have already cancelled my original plans to camp in Acadia National Park. I am absolutely not kidding.
- Jared O'Connor
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All Content © 1997, 1998, 1999 Jared O'Connor and Michael Baker