Ultimate - almost like Val Lewton on steroids does Gen-X

Rating: 10/10 (18 June 2013)

Horror film has long faced a fork in its story-telling road, a choice of which way to go. Universal Studios went with fantasy as basis of horror, nightmarish monsters - visually striking makeup design and execution. Settings featured vaguely fictional European landscapes of a past century mostly, as imagined. At RKO, Val Lewton took the 'horror movie' idea into an opposite direction, with stories set in modern era, and often familiar non- fictional places (New York, etc). And as the source of fear and horror, the unseen - what might be lurking in shadows, things suggested without certainty, leaving doubt, room for the worst imaginings - namely, the stuff that scares us in real life.
BLAIR WITCH would make Val Lewton smile. It offers no 'monster' or visual spectacle involving effects. Instead, fear emerges in a progression from the psychological to the supernatural, and with marvelous dramatic credibility. The film slowly builds intensity, and pulls it off with superb subtlety, from merest undercurrents of tension between characters who (in the scenario) are only just meeting, and with no prior acquaintance, team up to take on more than any of them are prepared for. Its pure story-telling, and brilliant as such. The 'script' (improv-based, I understand), actors and director deserve awards.
If you've ever camped in woods, and heard the type sounds coming from various distances in the dark, you're well prepared for one level of scares in this film. But BLAIR WITCH hits its stride in a deepening progression of scare levels. It proceeds from frightening realities - (lost in the woods, a survival situation emerging) - to possibilities of harm to life and limb by human intent ('Deliverance'-style deep woods yokels suspected)) - to horror of supernatural scope and scale, undeniably evil and violent.
Throughout the story arc, an air of doom gathers with increasing loss of control over circumstances the protagonists encounter, some just bad luck, others self-fostered. Indeed, the dysfunctional nature of peer relations and communication, is a foundation of everything that happens to our unfortunate principles. I've wondered if this ties in with the intensely negative reaction this film evokes for some - rightly puzzled at by various reviewers here more, shall we say - appreciative (or perceptive)? BLAIR WITCH panders to no pretensions, such as seem to preoccupy some tastes, and perhaps prejudice or constrain some reviews. BLAIR WITCH is a film with richness and many story aspects. But its not about whether its characters are suitably 'likeable' (as TV show film critics sometimes seem to expect), or proper 'role models' for any children in the audience, or ... etc.
What this film does instead, is offer credible characters, whose tendencies we recognize from real life and don't necessarily admire. The movies is less about 'liking' its principals, than believing what we're seeing as shown and told. And instead of giving us cardboard 'good guys' or 'bad' it gives us people who seem very real, and for whom we're inclined to feel different things in turn. The film portrays its protagonists as neither reprehensible, nor charismatic, inviting us neither to love nor hate them - only to feel the terror they undergo, and without any distraction of 'not believable.' Indeed, there's a contagiously realistic emotional quality to Heather's loss of control when she screams, with neither her nor us knowing what it is she's facing. We don't have to know what's going on, to be scared by it - in fact, the greater the unknown factor, the more unleashed the imagination, the more bewildering the fear. This is an awesome movie for discriminating, mature, no-nonsense tastes in unique horror film approaches, to be savored and viewed over and again.
Never before has the "Lewton" method - using shadows, the unseen, imagination taken past bounds of what's known, believed, imaginable, in context of things hinted at, power of suggestion etc. - been taken to such heights, and with such overwhelming effect. One of the greatest and most common weaknesses or failures of horror film, in general, is the lack of mental breakdown and stress that would probably occur in real life, if one were faced with some supernatural evil. Horror films most often dramatize only minimal psychological impact on their characters, after encounters with insurmountable horrors. Among BLAIR WITCH PROJECT's most admirable triumphs is its realistic depiction, and harnessing as an energy source driving story - of the toll taken upon the characters by the traumatic nature of the experience, as it unfolds, of their encounter with implacable horror. No spoiler to say they don't come back the same, I hope ... heh heh.