Buffs vs. Afficionados: A Blair Witch Defense

Rating: 8/10 (4 March 2004)

A horror movie with less than an ounce of visible blood, where we never see or even learn beyond doubt what the "killer" is, and no teenage sex-kitten gets naked. That this movie has suffered vociferous opposition hardly surprises me. The simple fact is, it's extremely good, and the horror-movie industry will hardly suffer quality without a fight. Friends, the whole problem is that there are two species of us who watch horror movies. There are horror "buffs", who seek all the wrong things in movies. Gore, nudity, and triteness are the hallmark of the horror buff's tastes. They feel that "horror" comes from making an audience jump, as if the movie-maker's art were as simple as a well-timed M-80 in a quiet classroom, and prize "fun" over shivers. Then there are those other, rarer fans, the true horror "afficionados". We are the audience who, for whatever reason, enjoy being scared. Of a higher stripe than your rank-and-file "buff", we look for a movie to be creepy, disturbing, unsettling. We seek a smarter approach. Not that it must always be subtle; I have little doubt that The Exorcist approaches the top of most "afficionado's" lists. But, friends, there is true horror here, as opposed to your common slasher, which is targeted to audiences possessing the human sensitivity of a tombstone. The Blair Witch is the afficionado's dream. It achieves a level of absolute verisimilitude that makes suspension of disbelief almost *too* easy. By presenting itself as an "artifact", it takes itself out of the Land of Make Believe and intrudes itself (delightfully) into the viewer's world. The much-bemoaned dialogue is unsettling because it's *not* movie-dialogue at all; it's actually the way people in the really-for-real world speak. The piles of stone and strange twists in the trees are never really explained, nor should they be; we don't know what they are, but they appear tantalizingly realistic, mysterious and yet perfectly plausible; you could easily imagine that the whatever-is-out-there might leave signs exactly like that. And those wierd things in the branches do very much seem like they have a kind of wierd internal logic, like they *should* mean something. If it's never revealed, well, that's the magic of tease and misdirection, two of the most powerful weapons in the *real* horror-movie's arsenal. I'll concede, the movie was a fluke, and its gimmick can probably never be reproduced well without lapsing into imitation. But, to my mind, this what seperates "us" from "them". If the Blair Witch scared the livin' bejesus out of you, you have the imaginative engagement necessary for appreciation of the world's finest horror-movies. If not... go rent Freddy vs. Jason, little horror "buff".