Hungry, Cold, and Hunted

Rating: Null/10 (7 August 1999)

Three filmmakers go to the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland to shoot a documentary on a mysterious local legend but what they discover in the reenacted film, "The Blair Witch Project", is much more tragic than they could imagine. This is a unique and terrifying film in which all that we see comes through the lens of two cameras that the three bring along - one, 16 mm black and white, for the documentary and the other, full video color, as a tag-along. This depiction is already spooky enough because the audience becomes voyeurs through the eyes and senses of these filmmakers; indeed, they accurately reflect upon this technique as a sort of filtered reality'. Therefore, we see a blending of the images of the two cameras which, while sequential in time, comes across as choppy rather than continuous because they decide when the camera should be turned on and when it should be off. This adds to the heightened suspense as the three people get totally lost in the forest and we never get a full picture of what is confronting them because our vantage point has been micro-sized to their level. "The Blair Witch Project" is challenging, tricky filmmaking but it works because it is one of the few times in cinema that you can feel and experience what the participants are experiencing that very moment. Toward the end of the film, one of the characters, Heather, looks into the camera and poignantly apologizes to each of the three mothers about how sorry she is in getting them all involved in a tragedy that she well senses. That is a particularly powerful message about taking responsibility for one's actions. For me, the appeal of "The Blair Witch Project" goes beyond the chills and frights of a brilliantly conceived form of cinematography. It boils down to accepting failure as a necessary part of life, however tragic and final that might be.