The Blair Witch Project is presented as a "found footage" documentary. In 1994, three people, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams, all armed with video cameras, go to the town of Burkittsville, Maryland and into the woods nearby, to investigate a local legend - the Blair Witch- and subsequent disappearances and murders committed in her name. The three are never seen or heard from again. In 1995 their audio and video equipment is discovered, along with the footage they shot. The movie the audience is seeing is a chronological record of their last known whereabouts.
**Spoiler Alert** The first segment of the film is the three leads doing interviews, an amateurish investigation with the locals, and to historic locations that involved murders "possibly" tied to the Blair Witch legend. The second segment is Heather, Michael, and Josh wandering around the woods, acknowledging they are lost, and realizing that "something" may be after them. The third segment of the film the three have deteriorated to paranoia, anger, utter fear, which leads into pleading and apologies. Josh goes missing so Heather and Mike search for him, but to no avail. The final sequence is a masterful piece of suspense, and the end is the proverbial "exclamation point" for me.
- This was not the first "found footage"/documentary style horror film. My brother quickly id'd the "patriarch" as Cannibal Holocaust (1980), an Italian movie I had never heard of, but which will be reviewed in the future, upon viewing. If you look at the number of found footage films (and successful films, to boot) after The Blair Witch Project, you will notice a very sharp increase versus the number of this style between 1980 and 1999.
- The concept of bringing in three people to not only "act", but to shoot and improvise dialogue through the movie was brilliant. Heather, Mike, and Josh were not told about what would be happening throughout the 8 day shoot, so most of their reactions were genuine. The crew were making the sounds at night, throwing things, and shook the tent at various times. Taking things steps even further, the producers gave the three less and less food as the days progressed, and they were sleep deprived from the noises and action being created around them limiting the amount sleep they could get.
- The marketing of this movie could be one of the all time best jobs of promotion of a film. The producers presented it as "real" and set up a website purporting everything to be non-fiction, going so far as to include police reports, evidence, interviews, etc.. This is the first time the internet was widely used in conjunction with a film to perpetrate an ongoing myth. IMDb had the actors listed as missing, presumed dead. At Cannes when the movie was finally released, they had missing posters of Josh, Mike, and Heather put up. Throw in the fact that upon wide release, there were reports of people getting sick during the screenings, due to the movements of the handheld cameras- the hype literally exploded to go see this.
- One of great aspects of The Blair Witch Project lies in the fact that we never actually see any violence, nor do we see a witch, or murderer, or even a "suspect". The collective audience's mind is left to wander throughout, and conjure up whatever horrors it wants to (likely based on the prior crimes that were reported).
- The entire Blair Witch mythology was completely made up by the film writers and producers, yet there are people who still actually believe the legend is real.
I think after the hype, and after it was discovered that the film was a work of fiction, there was a bit of a backlash against Blair Witch, which I think just goes to show how believable the film really was. When all is said and done, this is must see for horror/suspense fans, indie fans, and anyone who likes the "found footage" / POV style of film-making. 'R' rating is for language, I believe the "f" word is used well over 100 times.
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