Alright. Back in February of this year, I promised that when THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was released... I would write a more complete review. Since basically my first piece at the most could be considered a ‘preview of coming attractions’.
But you know... This movie, and my experience with it has been so unique that instead of a review per se, I’m going to talk about this whole BLAIR WITCH thing... that is no longer centered around this movie...
It is now a mythology... an urban legend, every bit as pervasive as a Loch Ness monster blurry photo... or an out of focus distant shot of a Bigfoot traipsing through the forest.
When I wrote my first piece on this film, it was freshly after the film debuted at SUNDANCE. To fans of the movie... this was the second coming of the Horror Genre.
A lot of people did not know what to expect. All they knew is that people that have seen the film seem to react in this delightfully happy manner of being... mysterious when talking about the movie.
When I saw the film, I knew instantly how this movie should be treated. It’s a supernatural story that you tell at a campfire. It’s the couple out in the woods that were killed by the hook man... but still, for me, this was more persuasive.
Here is a tale, a horrifying experience that when you tell it... You can scare the living bejeesus out of people. I know... I’ve done it.
Back in February, someone associated with the film and Artisan sent me a screener. I don’t know who sent it, but it came to the house while I was in Holland at the Rotterdam International Film Festival.
I received an email from Father Geek that said:
“Harry,
Your sister and I saw Blair Witch. It scared the living shit out of her. You’ve never seen anything like this.
Dad”
I stared at my screen in the press room in Rotterdam and began getting scared. First off, my sister is an easily spooked little girl. I made sure of that when I was raising her. I always felt that ‘fear of the unknown’ was far more powerful than beating a child. So I raised Dannie on all of that which goes bump in the night. Zombies, werewolves, Krueger, vampires, ghosts, goblins, child murderers, serial killers... They were the bogeyman that waited in the barn.... That existed on the other side of the cattleguard on the Ranch awaiting to GET her.
I read her ghost stories and created fresh ones. She never ever got out of line.
At Christmas I wrote letters via my left hand from Santa to her. I had these rubber boots that I tracked ash out of the fireplace and over to the table of cookies and milk. The letter would say:
“Dear Little Dannie,
You haven’t been reading as often as you should. I’ve left you a box filled with books. I’ll know next Christmas if you haven’t read them all. So be a good girl or this is the last Merry Christmas of your life. Remember, I know when you are sleeping, I know when you’re awake, I know when you’ve been BAD or good.
BE GOOD,
Santa”
She read all 100 books by the next year and learned to read... really really well. That's the power of mythology.
When I saw the film, I was by myself. The lights in the living room were off. The house was empty and it was the dead of night.
I plopped the tape in, I had a soda sitting on the arm of the chair... And I watched as the ominous title card, with the opening lines of... The Legend.... appeared on screen.
Then, the video camera springs to life.
And there is Heather Donahue. I didn’t know much about the film. I hadn’t read the website. There were NO articles about how they made this.
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found.”
That’s what I knew. And then there’s Heather, cheerful... hopeful. A bit self involved, but excited as could be to be SHOOTING her project. I also felt she looked a bit like Annette Kellerman, the apple of my eye. Annette is also into film in a VERY hard-core way. She’s all about picking up the camera, getting a couple of friends that know the equipment and shooting something out in the woods... the middle of nowhere.
The film is incredibly amateur. Every mistake that you would make the first time out with the camera. Shoddy camera work, erratic and terrible sound. Locked down shots and hand held. No nice and smooth pans. Not a lot of B-roll. But you know what.
That’s what this is. It felt like a home video. As if I was watching somebody else’s moments. In fact. knowing Robert Rodriguez the way I do... He runs around filming everything even more obsessive than Heather. On top of that, he then feeds it all into his AVID system, mixes THX SDDS surround sound HOME MOVIES with movie sound effects and a professional score laid down.
But this is several levels below Robert’s home movies. He’s a filmmaker with an eye for what to shoot and how it leads to the next shot.
These amateurs are like so many others out there. Their films drive you insane at Film Festivals. They always interview family members about how come they became alcoholics. Why they decided to become gay...
But here, instead of some tedious history of an inbred family or a coming out of the closet ‘revelation’.... This was one of them... Ghost stories I used to tell my sister to keep her ass honest.
I had no idea where this was headed. I began to get disturbed when I realized how complete Heather’s coverage of the behind the scenes were. “Here we are waking up” “Here I am drinking this nasty liquor” etc...
When she gags on that drink... that was not her drinking ice tea out of a liquor bottle... That was the real shit... The look on her face said it all.
Then they’re in the woods, they leave their car behind... And dread inched it’s way in. And I knew... I’m not going to see that car again.
They’re out hiking around, trying to get to two locations then back to the car. It’s that simple. Nothing too difficult. It’s not rocket science. You have a map. You have a compass. Unless you are a complete friggin moron, there is no excuse to get lost.
They hit their locations. It’s a long hike. Grumbling about distances begin. There’s a mild panic about being lost, and doubts in Heather’s leadership abilities.
Well... I’m entranced at this point. When I was 10 and 3/4 years old, I went on a Boy Scout hike in BIG BEND National Park. Our leaders had everything mapped out.
The first night out... in the middle of nowhere... Our water freezes and separated the plastic on it’s mold pieces and... our clothes get soaked. The packs weighed 75 pounds. We’re kids. The second day, we hike and hike and hike... We never come to the trail that’s supposed to be there. Our leaders become confused. We’d come the distance. We’re overheating. We were exhausted. My senior Patrol Leader grabs the map from the Scout Master.... Sits down.. begins writing down some figures and discovers that the ‘planned’ hike for the day isn’t the 8 miles our Scoutmaster thought it was.... But 16, and he hadn’t taken into account CONTOUR LINES, which... since it was mountainous.... Was SIGNIFICANT. Fighting and grumbling begin. One kid began hyperventilating... turning red in the face and nearly passed out.
I’m tired, exhausted... but I internalize. Every break, I broke out my little diary and wrote about the in fighting. The anger. The accusations.
I’ve been lost in the middle of a grand expanse. A deadline, a badly scouted out series of hikes, incompetent leaders, limited supplies... And no way to communicate for help.
It felt exactly like this did. The fighting between Heather, Josh and Mikey was dead on. The sides... the ganging up... the exasperation, the sense of dread...
BUT...
We didn’t have any additional strangeness. Nothing attacked our tents at night. The wind was bad enough. We heard no wolves or coyotes... and certainly no screaming in the darkness. No strange totems appeared outside of our tents... Noone disappeared while on watch. And... the laws of nature didn’t fuck us in the ass like they did Josh, Heather and Michael.
We weren’t visiting graveyards and slaying sites. We were merely in the wilderness. Noone told stories about a witch in this park.... Or zombies or any of that shit.
But here... In this document of these three’s last days... This was honest.
By the time this movie ends... I’m scared. I click it off before the end credits. That’s enough... I don’t want to hear that atonal sound (like that of THE SHINING’s masterful teaser trailer).
Instead, I go wake up Dad and I just start babbling to him about how fucking creeped out I was. I mean... was that a snuff film. Is that what I just saw?
Well, we know what this movie is. And shortly thereafter so did I, and I knew....
When you find out the truth.... print the legend.
That’s a journalistic law I learned from THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALENCE.
I decided I’d play this movie straight.
This little screener copy became my most favorite possession for MONTHS. People would come over and I’d set the film up for them. Prime them, and then unleash it on them. Watch them become enthralled. We’d talk about the film minus the end credits which is the greatest spoiler of all in this movie.
I took the tape over to Quint’s 18th Birthday party. It was him and about 4 of his best High School friends. I showed it to them beginning at midnight. Shut it off before the end credits... Began tying some of it together for them.... Giving my ‘theories’.
Asking them what they saw in the rag. Was that teeth? Was it brains? Was there an eye? Was there a thumb? Was it a liver or an intestine? What was in the rag? Each of them had a different answer. And that scared them.
Then there is the end. 27 seconds. And what was that last image. Was that figure floating or merely motionless? Why was the figure the way the figure was? Was it hanging on a hook? What’s going on there?
What did you hear in the screams? Was that a baby? Was it the missing friend? What was he/she screaming?
What happened to them? Was it supernatural? Did they just get lost?
Well... I don’t know... But for me, if you hike North according to a compass for an entire day... it is impossible in the natural world to end up where you started. That can’t happen. If that can’t happen. Then anything could have happened.
And then I left them shivering scared high school kids to their own fears.
I love this film. I love scaring people with it. And... for those that love ghost stories and flash powder... This is the one to get your girlfriend closer in the tent.
This is the one to terrify your little brother with. This is proof that bad things go bump in the night. Why? Because... where are Heather, Josh and Michael? And why does nobody know?
That’s the magic of this film. Find out everything, then take someone that knows nothing. That’s never heard anything other than....
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found.”
I know people that are so scared, they don’t even want to see the movie.
Now the movie itself is not the scariest movie ever made.... But you can make it the scariest movie ever made. For me... this movie allows me to play William Castle. I’m the fat guy in a suit, smoking a cigar and getting my kicks from the shivers and gasps.
Yeah baby... I like that.
Now... Well, if you listened to my first review and didn’t try to find anything else out... but saw the SCI FI channel piece you’ll get additional scares.
Additional documentaries.... Diary evidence.... The rusty film cans... The excavation for bodies. The history of the serial killer that lived in those woods. More accounts of the Blair Witch... the legends.. the fears of the townfolks.
Then you have fandom. The people that read this site, blairwitch.com, Dark Horizons and Corona Coming Attractions. We buy Fangoria, we read Ebert’s reviews and laugh at the rank amateurism that I exhibit in these so-called reviews.
Well... Some people have become obsessed with the mythology... some with the technical aspects of how this film was put together. Some people are expecting a movie like THE EXORCIST or ROSEMARY’S BABY... but that’s not this.
At THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT’s heart it is an experimental film. A movie that is not a traditional narrative. A movie created out of the most amateur filmic techniques known to every hack film student that never went on to make a film.
But... There’s that friggin legend....
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found.”
When Heather pulls back the sleeping bag on Mikey’s motionless body... and you see the lack of blood in his face from sleeping out in the cold. When the lens cap on the camera is removed and the lens is fogged up. When in the darkness they are screaming back at the noises, and the camera’s light illuminates just a patch of woods and the cold fog of their own breath as it drifts in the darkness.
These things feel honest to me. And I’ve never seen them in any film before.
The camera is not an omnipotent being... The camera is operated by our main, frightened and scared storytellers that.... ARE MISSING.
The Blair Witch Project is not a film for those that instantly dismiss ghosts and witches. It’s not for people that think horror is about butcher knives and blood drenched household and carpentry tools.
This film, for me, is scary for all the things it doesn’t resolve. For everything is merely alludes to. It’s a creepy film. Almost like a document of something that happened. Like that shot of the woman running into that speeding train... But, instead... what if we had a feature length document of her last day. Say she was making a little home movie to send her husband overseas about her... just living a day in Germany. She always leaves the camera on. She has extra batteries and video tape. They’re packed in her backpack.
The video is on as she’s trying to beat the train... and she gets killed. Somehow the camera survives as well as the footage in the backpack.
Suddenly we know who died when trying to beat the train. Turns out she was like people we know and love. Suddenly... a train isn’t just a train anymore.
And for me... Camping isn’t merely camping anymore either!
I feel a bit sad for those that don’t love the movie. I understand the disappointment of getting too hyped for a movie... And for me... I wish I could attend every screening and set the film up. Personally, I would have gone on tour with this movie. I would not have granted interviews with the press about HOW the movie was made... But rather, be P.T. Barnum.
Well... here’s a film that you can be P.T. Barnum with. Because there’s a sucker born every minute. I’ve received letters from kids in countries around the world that are scared of THE BLAIR WITCH.
The Blair Witch kills children you know. She does. They say it happened in that forest. That those three kids... The Blair Witch got em.
And don’t you let anyone forget that. Be a showman... Sell the concept to that friend who’s always a sucker. And scare the shit out of em.
It clears up the sinuses. It adds blush to the cheeks. And besides... It’s fun to be in on the scare. Scare someone. The Blair Witch can help you.
Have a little sister? Have a little brother? Is your Mom easily scared? What about your boyfriend or girlfriend? Remember...
“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found.”
