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Reviews of The Blair Witch Project
A Project Gone Awry...But In A Good Way
Posted : 3 months, 4 weeks ago on 11 September 2009 01:43
(A review of The Blair Witch Project)First of all, I couldn't care less how over-hyped this movie was. Anyone's whose opinion of this movie was as an adverse effect from this, it's their fault for giving it any attention in the first place. No hype, no matter how well-founded, should ever be believed.
Secondly, as kid, sure, but as an adult, I really can't get scared from movies anymore. Especially, if there's a monster or a Jason/Freddy/Michael Myers involved. The minute I see any of these guys on the screen wearing some kind of fright-enhancing mask or wielding a sharp object with a screaming Abercrombie & Fitch-looking teenager's name all over it, I am instantly reminded that I'm watching a movie, & thereby negating any chance of suspending my belief enough to being frightened anymore. However, Blair Witch tried to bring the horror of cinema as close to the real world as any fright flick could since Night Of The Living Dead (IMO, that is), thus making it seem like this situation could actually happen in this frame of reality. Plus, a major part of the fear-factor for this story's premise is that the lead characters, or even the viewers themselves, never actually get to see the witch in question. And as it has been stated many times over centuries, "The unknown is one the greatest fears to the human mindset".
So while it still didn't scare me, TBWP probably came as close as it possibly can come to at this point in my life. As far as I can remember, I've never had any real inclination to go out on a camping trip of any sort.
But now, because of this film, sleeping under a tent overnight in the middle of the woods, is a situation that I can definitely say that I will never expect to try & initiate.
Ever.
And for me, The Blair Witch Project earns a couple of extra points just for that.
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Quando o medo se instala
Posted : 11 months ago on 7 February 2009 11:05
(A review of The Blair Witch Project)"A Bruxa de Blair" é um filme que poucos gostam, mas que conseguiu ser convincente e superar, de uma forma estranha, minhas expectativas. Antes de ver este, vi o segundo filme da franquia, "A Bruxa de Blair 2: O Livro das Sombas", quando estava nos meus 9 anos. Resultado: o filme que mais me aterrorizou por muito tempo. Hoje, 8 anos depois, decidi ver o primeiro. E como me lembro muito bem da minha experiência com o segundo filme, estava com medo.
"A Bruxa de Blair" é um falso documentário produzidos por três estudantes de cinema. Estes estudantes decidem ir à floresta 'mal assombrada' de Blair para tentar documentar algo de sobrenatural. No estilo 'câmera na mão' ("[REC]", "Diário dos Mortos"), o longa consegue passar realidade a cada momento.
O filme passa tanta realidade que mesmo de dia dentro da floresta o medo se instala no espectador que espera uma bruxa enorme engolir os estudantes. Mas isso não acontece. A bruxa nem aparece. E isso é o que surpreende. Como a câmera não capta nada sobrenatural, o que assusta é o desespero contínuo dos estudantes e a câmera (mais uma vez, ela!) cambaleando nas mãos deles. O que me fez lembrar de "Psicose", clássico do gênero. O longa de Hitchcock é tão competente que mesmo quando é revelada a identidade do assassino, o medo persiste.
Mesmo com poucas cenas fortes, "A Bruxa de Blair" cumpre seu papel pelo estilo documentário amador que, sem dúvida, é o seu diferencial. Prova de que não é preciso efeitos mirabolantes, cenas estupendas e montros supermacabros para assustar o espectador. Medo é mais que isso, bem mais.
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Innovative cinema verité...
Posted : 1 year, 1 month ago on 20 November 2008 03:25
(A review of The Blair Witch Project)"I am so scared! I don't know what's out there. We are going to die out here! I am so scared!"
Major movie studios frequently pour tens of millions of dollars into high-tech horror extravaganzas, and they die at the box office within a matter of days. A few independent filmmakers venture out into the woods with hand-held cameras and an extraordinarily low-budget to back them up, and they score a much-hyped, highly-acclaimed box office bonanza!
The Blair Witch Project originated as a deceptively simple, ultra low-budget independent feature. Slowly, this small-time film developed into one of the most chilling, creepy films of its time. It took unsuspecting audiences entirely by surprise, and scared other movie studios whose gigantically budgeted films were running in fear from the tiny movie.
The Blair Witch Project is distinguished for various reasons. First of all, it is incredibly eerie, atmospheric, and unpredictably exasperating. Secondly, compared to most other horror films of the time, it is innovative and clever. Blair Witch did spawn its own sub-genre as a result. These guys wrote the rulebook for the "found footage" genre, and filmmakers have adhered to it ever since (Cloverfield, anyone?). Thirdly, it was made on a shoestring budget and returned a mint in box office profits. Fourth, it used the internet to fabulous promotional effect. Fifth, after all these years it has become more of a phenomenon than a conventional viewing experience. And lastly, it instils a sense of "less is more", leaving a lot more to the imagination than most other fright flicks.
By now all and sundry should be aware of the movie's gimmick. "In October of 1994," reads the prologue, "three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary... A year later their footage was found." The "documentary" being filmed by the students was a college project about a local legendary figure known as the Blair Witch. Allegedly, the three youthful filmmakers died under mysterious circumstances in the woods while trying to complete the documentary, and their bodies never turned up.
Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard (retaining their real names for heightened realism) take a video camera and a 16mm film camera as they hike through the Black Hills Forest in search of evidence in relation to the existence of the Blair Witch who has supposedly haunted the forest since the 18th century and is credited for scores of heinous murders. They interview local townspeople before embarking on a hike into the forest. They are soon inexplicably lost and morale rapidly deteriorates. The filmmakers are tired, hungry, angry, and hopelessly lost. As tension mounts they realise they're also being haunted and probably stalked by some unknown presence...and there is no way out.
Heather captures virtually everything with her video camera with the intention of assembling a behind-the-scenes look at how her documentary was made. Heather's camera is on practically all the time - to the point that her companions continually tell her to turn off the camera. As the unseen evil hunts them, they realise they're not filming a legend but a descent into unimaginable terror.
Naturally, every word of Blair Witch is fiction... The movie is a complete forgery, but it was made and promoted so cunningly that countless people worldwide thought it was real. Prior to the film's theatrical release, a site for The Blair Witch Project was launched. As of the film's tenth anniversary, this website is still online. It offers insight into the (completely false) myth of the Blair Witch. Although the film is 100% fiction, naïve movie-goers witnessed screenings at their local cinema believing everything to be true.
Blair Witch is a film where ignorance is bliss - or, to be more accurate in this case, utter terror. Ostensibly the final testament of a film crew who disappeared off the face of the planet, the movie bears a resemblance to an authentic documentary which makes This Is Spinal Tap seem like a David Lean epic.
Ahead of its theatrical release, the film fooled many American college students who were shown the film - the ruse in this case was abetted by a surplus of apparently legitimate "Missing" posters seeking information concerning the whereabouts of the apparently lost youngsters. Such screenings helped spawn the positive word-of-mouth that directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez knew would be unquestionably vital if their little film was to be a success. Its air of mystery was definitely the film's strongest selling point - featuring little in the way of stars, special effects or even competent cinematography. The directors could hardly claim much of a notable cinematic track record either. But the pair shared an adoration of 70s horror flicks and decided to pool their meagre income for a feature that would endeavour to evoke the visceral terror they felt upon initially viewing William Friedkin's The Exorcist.
Co-director Sanchez recalls the experience: "We were after complete realism. We knew that if we did it with a crew it wouldn't work. From the beginning we wanted to do Blair Witch as an improvised film. We were basically going to leave the actors for certain amounts of time on their own, tell them what was happening and let them shoot it for a couple of hours at a time. Then we'd come back, review the footage and go on to the next scene." But it was the input of Gregg Hale - a onetime Special Forces sergeant - that ensured the film a place on the horror hall of fame. He reportedly said: "When I was in Special Forces training they put us through this POW camp scenario. And after about two or three days of being in that camp surrounded by these guys hitting you, and yelling at you in Russian, and not letting you sleep, and hosing you down with water, you start to believe that it's really happening. You know, we could do this to the actors!" Myrick and Sanchez were delighted at the idea.
So it was that a trio of unknown actors found themselves pretending to compose a film concerning the fictitious ancient woods-dwelling witch while being truly petrified as the film crew deposited ominous-looking stick men in their path or played tapes of children crying in the middle of the night. "We were the Blair Witch," Myrick reminiscences. "We had to get up at three in the morning and run around their tent. We had to hike through the woods to drop off directing notes. Then we'd review Heather's video tapes at the end of the day to see how it was reading on camera."
The element that makes The Blair Witch Project unusually gripping is the atypical presentation. Every scene is a point-of-view shot, shown exactly as one might expect from someone carrying around a video camera. The transitions are unexpected and often jarring - what we'd expect if the camera was turned off at one point, then turned back on later. The most chilling sequences transpire at night when the darkness foils the video. There are instances when the screen is entirely black and all we hear is the audio - the panicked voices of the protagonists in the foreground with strange, macabre noises in the background. At other times the action depicted is chaotic, often because the person doing the filming would be running or unsure what to capture. These segments rely on the imagination of a viewer to fill in the gaps. What our minds conjure up is always more horrifying than anything the filmmakers can put on screen. Also, this seemingly haphazard and unprofessional technique gives the audience a "you are there" feeling that draws them into the experience. Everything that transpires is hence more shocking and immediate than it would seem in a conventional format.
The trio of actors are uniformly excellent. For amplified realism, the filmmakers had to genuinely scare the actors...and they did. There are a few traces of artifice, though, usually when characters are having a conversation on-camera. But due to the improvisational style of acting, it's easy to get engaged in the problems of these characters. When Heather offers a tearful apology towards the end, it's utterly heartbreaking.
There are things to nitpick, though. For starters it's preposterous that the camera is on for so long. Once one is in danger, why bother filming anymore? I doubt anyone would keep filming under these circumstances. However the key fault is the occasional lack of realism. For example, the trio all have mentioned loved ones who would be aware of their expedition. Any parent whose offspring doesn't show up merely hours after they are due home would call the police and launch a search. The filmmakers endue for days...without a search party in sight. Surely the police would have also been informed of the proposed camping trip as well, and would've launched a search when they didn't return home. There's also the flaw of character stupidity. One character reportedly gets rid the map because it's "useless" - not good enough! And they're surrounded by tall trees, why not climb up to the top and see where you are? Why not find higher ground in order to spot a way out? The film also seems undercut at a bit under 80 minutes. In the faux interviews on the official site they mention about 20 hours of recovered footage, so it's obvious we're missing out on a lot of stuff. But the most lethal setback is simple: once you realise it isn't real the film is not scary at all. It isn't competent enough to truly convince a viewer it is real. Overuse of profanity and the aforementioned character stupidity occasionally kill the illusion. However it is pretty chilling with the grating screams of Heather or the eerie sounds coming from pitch black.
It's fairly riveting, though it depends on how you view it. If one watches it in a dark room at night with no interruptions and you're paying 100% attention it may work better. If it's light and you're not paying much attention, you'll hate it.
The Blair Witch Project is notoriously inventive - both in its creation and marketing - but it's a victim of its own hype. Once you discover it isn't real you'll no longer find it scary. Yet it's an innovative, non-traditional horror movie that ushered in a new genre (titles like Diary of the Dead, Cloverfield and [Rec] drew inspiration from this film). The ending is very creepy and irritatingly ambiguous, especially if you want to believe the film's universe and faux mythology available on the official website. The Blair Witch Project has lost much of its original impact. Be that as it may, the combination of cinema verité and fake documentary filming occasionally generates some hair-raising horror scenes.
6.2/10
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Unappreciated.
Posted : 1 year, 11 months ago on 29 January 2008 12:33
(A review of The Blair Witch Project)What makes a horror movie scary? As of today, scary movies are about two things: jump out scares, and gore. Neither of which are truly scary, just uncomfortable. In fact, more often than not, you’ll always know what’s coming, be it ridiculous amounts of gore, or something popping out momentarily, you’ll just be wondering when and how. That’s the current trend of horror movies, and it seems to work with mainstream audiences. I think what makes those movies good, if those are your types of movies, is the shock itself, and the idea of suspending disbelief and knowing that you can see horrible things, and unthinkable things, and never have a doubt that it’s not only fake but totally impossible. This is where The Blair Witch Project really shines. Just to make my point, I’m going to look at Cloverfield as a comparison due to the similar camera work. Cloverfield came out during a time when almost everybody had access to the internet, and was well aware of who was making it and what it was about. Viral marketing aside, people know it was fake. But The Blair Witch Project really did something new, and virtually impossible to duplicate. It’s advertising wasn’t for a movie, but for the tape and the legends, right down to fake documentaries on the Blair Witch herself on respectable television channels like The History Channel and A&E.
More interesting is how it’s done. Popular, and perhaps overused today, the “shaky cam” really made sense then, as it was “filmed” by amateur film makers, and only two cameras, one of which was a home video camera. Because of this, you’re only exposed to what they are, so you really are experiencing exactly what they went through, only in small doses. That includes their pre-trip shopping, interviews townspeople, and a few short moments of the actual documentary they were attempting to make. The rest is what “actually” happened, and it’s execution, while hated by many people, is really something to see to believe.
Before going on, I have to state for record that I’ve seen a lot of horror movies, and have never been afraid. I’ve been jumpy, or grossed out, or freaked out, or anything else that’s getting close, but no cigar in terms of being afraid. But The Blair Witch Project scared me. This really says a lot, because while some movies in the same genre are some that I love and are really impressed by, my feelings are because of the film itself, and not what it does. In The Shining, the acting is spot on, and it has amazing cinematography and sound, and it’s just a top notch film. But it’s not scary. The Blair Witch takes away all the big names, all the gore, all the jump moments, all the creepy music, all the little kid singing some eerie song, all the typical elements, and it replaces it with mystery. You never know what it is, you never see it, you always feel just slightly left behind and in the dark about everything. Maybe I’m afraid of this film because I grew up next to the woods, and I’m already pretty terrified of being in the woods. Maybe it’s my fear of getting lost. Maybe it’s my fear of not knowing. It doesn’t matter, because this movie has all those things, and then a little more.
Unfortunately, there is no way to understand how the elements of the film work without seeing it, and I’d hate to spoil anything in a review. Granted, I’m nearly ten years late in reviewing it, I still feel the same. But the entire movie has an atmosphere, and a feeling that’s so evident, and so looming, that even in the day shots you’re nervous. Because you’re seeing it through a video camera perspective, you can only feel like you’re really there. The actors don’t give a typical performance, they give a real one. There really isn’t anything “Hollywood” about the film, which may be why it wasn’t well received. But, for the sake of making a point, and trying to convince anybody that hasn’t seen this film to see it, I’m going to give a small spoiler of what I consider the most terrifying part of the movie. So, spoilers ahead. During one scene, the camera turn on and the three hikers are in their tent at night, and they’ve been woken up by some sort of noise out in the woods. It comes in layers, and seems to be all around them. More than that, there is a strange cackling, or moaning, or something that’s really very hard to describe. Then, out of nowhere, the tent begins to act as if there are people all around it pushing their hands on it, rubbing the sides up and down, very quickly. The three open the tent and run, and all the while all you can is somebody in front of the camera operator running, screaming, asking “what is that?”. End spoiler. Scenes like this that come and go between their days are so freaky, and so out of my worst nightmares, and the very reason why I don’t like camping, that it makes me glad this movie is fake. I know plenty of people that were let down that it was real, and perhaps that’s their own fault for buying into the marketing (even though that was the point), but I’m glad it’s fake. Because if it were real, I’d never go into the woods…or Maryland.
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