scary as hell

Rating: 9/10 (2 January 2007)

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest. Who would have thought three college kids being chased by an unseen ghost would have become one of the highest-grossing films of all time? The idea was so simple, almost quaint, I wish I'd thought of it. I'd be sitting in a hot tub in Aruba with Paris Hilton now . . . but that's a different story. This film struck a chord with the American public that's hard to identify. What did the Blair Witch represent? Was she nature, raped and despoiled by male-dominated American bourgeois society? Was she the Goddess of the Witches, Hecate, striking back for having been persecuted by Christianity? Or was the film itself an affirmation of Christian values, as so many horror films ironically are? Certainly the three student filmmakers come to grief after scoffing at the Bible-toting old woman's chilling tale of her own encounter with the Blair Witch. The film has obvious parallels with Stephen King's "It" and much of H.P. Lovecraft. Whatever. Anyone can make a movie, but not everyone can make a GOOD movie. "The Blair Witch Project" succeeded in part due to clever Internet hype, but largely due to the raw, cinema-verite film-making that imparted grisly authenticity to what otherwise might have been a cheesy exploitation film, and to the superb improvisational skills of three talented young character actors--Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, and Mike Williams. We could identify with them thanks to their very ordinariness. They were everyone's son, daughter, boyfriend, brother, sister. Their plight reminded one of soldiers caught behind enemy lines in wartime . . . Ironically, the real Burkitville MD (yes, Virginia, there is a Burkitville) is close to the sight of some major Civil War battles. The bottom line is, it's a darn good film.