Kid's Stuff

Rating: Null/10 (19 December 1999)

As scary as The Exorcist? No way!
The Blair Witch Project is however unsettling, memorable; one of those films that can leave you with thoughts and flashbacks for days.
It has an unnerving, believable feel encouraged by apparently very real reactions from the actors. But such flamboyance is never accidental.
The film for all of its apparent naturalness is carefully set up.
I'd like to emphasise that the actors are still alive! I've been amazed by the number of people who believe that the whole thing is real!
This film has taken on a life of its own. There was and still is a very successful internet presence for the movie. Film site surfers have become the nucleus of a solid and enthusiastic retinue of fans itching for a certain kind of scare.
Younger film goers find it very fashionable to have seen the film, resulting in a cult phenomenon that is in full swing. Seeing this movie is a bit like owning the best designer wear.
Perversely, the fact that The Blair Witch Project was made for only a pittance by a couple of film students, has given the film street credibility. It has low budget (big profit) grunge glamour.
But mainly people are flocking to see this because they're looking for a good scare.
But they don't want to be terrified. Most people never want that in movie houses. The fact that The Blair Witch Project is about as frightening, and has the same air, as a ride on an amusement park Ghost Train isn't a huge disincentive for the teen audience to whom this film will really appeal.
So what of the film. We are told during the opening credits that in 1994 three film makers went into a wooded area in search of a legendary witch: "A year later, their footage was found."
The film makers were never seen again, but from their film we find out what happened to them. A documentary is made and that's The Blair Witch Project.
This film was written and directed by two young American auteurs, Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Myrick. They conceived the idea, scripted the film (without dialogue), trained their three main actors Heather Donahue, Michel Williams, and Joshua Leonard for two days on how to work the cameras and sent them into the woods to make this "documentary". Of course we don't see the rest of the production crew.
This worked remarkably well. The actors, able to ad lib at will while they were doing the filming threw themselves into this horror story. They probably at times frightened themselves.
Sanchez and Myrick then spent eight months editing the footage, getting it to look as much as possible like a rough story of the deaths of three terrified people.
The film is grainy, the cameras hand held and the editing rough. The original mood is jocular when the trio begin their project with some lead up interviews with local fishermen and the like, boning up on the folk lore that surrounds the myth of the Blair Witch.
They go to the woods. As the days progress and the witch closes in, the tension mounts like in all good horror movies. The three start to bicker with one another. Formerly subservient characters become more dominant. A leader makes a tearful confession to the camera.
And what of the camera. The desire to document is only one reason for keeping filming. Why do they keep filming as they even die?
The answer has never been more obvious. Watching the world through a lens is like wearing a mask or taking on another personality, or acting. It divorces the camera operator from what he or she is seeing through the lens.
And that's damn handy if something horrible is trying to murder you.
And if you're filming as you are running, especially in terror, the camera will swing. Those prone to motion sickness might be disorientated.