A Perfectly Plausible Urban Legend

Rating: 7/10 (27 March 2014)

Upon release in 1999, "The Blair Witch Project" was immediately declared a horror classic. The film was a huge sleeper hit and remains one of the highest grossing independent films to this day. Much of the film's box office success can be contributed to its brilliant marketing campaign. Through a then innovative website (which, charmingly, remains up and mostly unchanged to this day), the studio convinced countless people that the film was genuine. That the footage of three college students entering the woods, attempting to make a documentary about a local legend, and mysteriously disappearing, was the real deal. I wasn't fooled at the time, recognizing it as the clever marketing ploy it was, but many of my middle school classmates were. After the hype wore off, a backlash quickly kicked in, many derisively describing "The Blair Witch Project" as "eighty minutes of jerks wandering around the woods." Nearly fifteen years later, after hundreds of found footage films have followed in its wake, how does the film hold up? That the film managed to fool so many is a testament to the believable mythology it builds up over its brief run time. The legend of the Blair Witch is surprisingly detailed. The metafictional device is furthered by setting the story in a real town, Burkittsville, Maryland. Though completely invented, the Blair Witch seems like a perfectly plausible urban legend. Numerous missing children over the years are connected to the story. In the forties, a serial killer blamed his murders on the witch. The three filmmakers visit a local nut, Mary Brown, who claims to have encountered the witch. In the early scenes, local people from the town are interviewed, each giving their own opinion and stories on the legend. We are shown Coffin Rock and its gory story is related to us. In practice, the Blair Witch isn't any different then the Bell Witch, Mothman, the Bunnyman or any other real life urban legends.
The success of "The Blair Witch Project" is built mostly on the unsettling atmosphere it generates. The film begins with white-on-black title card, letting us know that the three kids don't make it out of the woods. This information lends many of the early scenes a quiet unease. Even when Heather, Josh, and Mike are goofing off, we know dark times lay ahead for them. The movie takes the woods setting a long way. Though frequently parodied in the years since, the scenes of the three kids running blind through the dark woods, listening for strange noises, still have the power to chill. These scenes are low-tech, relying on nothing but the real fears of the viewers and the actor's terrified performances.
What engineered horror elements "The Blair Witch Project" does have are equally subtle. Throughout the film, the campers make strange discoveries. First, they find strange piles of rocks outside their tents. Infamously, they come upon bizarre stick figures hanging in the trees. One of the highlights of the movie is, after Josh's disappearance, Heather discovers a bundle of sticks filled with bloody bits of flesh. Donahue's panicked performance really sells that moment.
The common complaint of "jerks lost in the woods" certainly does hold some water. Long scenes in the middle section are composed of the characters wandering around, yelling at each other. While it certainly adds to the film's tone of desperation and a few moments, such as a revelation concerning some downed logs, prove effective. However, this part of the movie goes on for far too long. As short as it is, "The Blair Witch Project" is truthfully a little long and probably would have been best served as an hour long short.
The ending makes up for a lot though. The survivors stumble into a strange house in the middle of the forest. The ending is notorious and well known. It's also incredibly stark. The viewer is left with no answers, the mystery maintained. First time viewers might not even catch why Josh is facing the wall in the basement, a reference to the earlier legend. The effect is intensely creepy, the found footage illusion maintained until the end credits roll.
"Blair Witch" was a true pop culture phenomenon and that's honestly sort of surprising. I'd never expect a film as low-key or divisive to resonate with so many people. Maybe the internet campaign really caught everyone's attention, even those who knew the movie was fiction. The movie spawned a television special, several books, comics, collectible figures, a much-contested sequel, even a series of computer games. Yet its biggest influence was on the horror genre. It took about another decade for found footage to really catch on, hundreds of copy cats following in the wake of the wildly successful "Paranormal Activity" series. Every notable title in the sub-genre to come, from "Cloverfield" to the "Marble Hornets" web series, owes something to "The Blair Witch Project."