It's amazing that when movies like this come along that
have no special effects, sex or violence and no budget, and differ from the
Hollywood norm, they're proclaimed as masterpieces and if you don't think so
you must be the sort of person who has to have special effects, loud bangs etc.
to enjoy a movie. People have said that it's an innovative genre-redefining
masterpiece, and that the documentary style of shooting (the actors filmed it
themselves it seems) made it seem incredibly real. To me it seemed like a bunch
of college amateurs messing about in a forest.
The Blair Witch Project was made on an incredibly small budget ($30,000 to
make, then $70,000 on publicity) and it really shows. This movie has no special
effects and no soundtrack. In fact you really have to wonder what the money
was spent on.
Of course the most remarkable thing about TBWP is the marketing, and the
incredible hype that has built up around it, especially here in the UK where
there were several documentaries about it on TV before the movie was even
released. The directors (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez) deliberately
tried to convince people that the story is real, and the
official website is full of crap about
the history of the Blair Witch etc. Apparently some people who went to see it
early on before all the hype took off actually believed it was real and were
angry when they found it wasn't. To me the fact that such stupid people exist
in the world is far more scary than anything I saw in the movie.
The plot: Heather, an aspiring film director, wants to make a documentary about
the 'Blair Witch', a creature which is rumoured to exist in the woods near a
small town in Maryland. So she enlists two fellow clueless American types to
accompany her into the woods, where needless to say they get very lost, commit
heinous acts of stupidity, swear gratuitously and fight and bicker so
annoyingly that frankly their deaths come as a blessing. Oh and they find some
strange things on the way like piles of rocks and twig figures. I won't go into
the ridiculous bits like why didn't they have a phone or how did the camera
batteries keep going long after they ran out of all other supplies, because no
movie makes sense if you analyse it a lot.
Exponents of TBWP say that what makes the movie so great is that you
don't see the witch, and that you have to use your imagination, and
"fill in the blanks". But when all you have on screen is three
foul-mouthed idiots lost in a forest that's a bit of a tall order, and is
really a case of not so much filling in the blanks as creating the whole film.
And besides, if I have to use my imagination to conjure up the entire plot, why
go to the cinema at all? Surely a walk through the woods alone at night would
be just as good, and certainly cheaper. In this respect TBWP is very much like
Cube, it takes an interesting if not totally original idea and then nothing
much happens, and it's left to the audience to make their own interpretations.
The main thing wrong with TBWP (apart from the bizarre camera work that gave
some people motion sickness) is that the characters are so stupid and boring
that you just don't care what happens to them. Also the script is pretty poor.
Much of it was ad-libbed by the actors, who I have to admit did do a fairly
good job of appearing to be genuinely scared.
TBWP is not scary in the way that Scream is, but more like The Shining
(although of course The Shining is vastly superior).
The ending was very good but frankly it had to be after suffering what seemed
like hours of pointless bickering, swearing, crappy camera shots of grass, but
understanding of the ending depends on your having paid close attention to the
interviews at the beginning of the movie.
In my opinion, if you want to see a low budget documentary movie made by film
students try Man Bites Dog instead, which is just brilliant.
It seems to me that you have to think it's real, or suspend disbelief, or use
your imagination, or visit the website first, or have camped in the woods, or
be in a certain mood to like TBWP. But a truly great movie should stand as such
on its own, and TBWP is not a great movie, despite what some damn-fool
critics are saying. It's merely a well marketed mildly interesting idea.
(no stars)
The Players:
Heather Donahue
Michael Williams
Joshua Leonard
written by Ed in November 1999