25.11.1999

Fear of darkness

James Robertson reviews 'The Blair Witch Project' (USA 1999), directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez

Despite a massive amount of hype, this is a good, authentically frightening film, operating at the level of psychology rather than ‘splatter’.

Heather (Heather Donahue), Michael (Michael Williams) and Josh (Joshua Leonard) go off into some woods in western Maryland to investigate the ‘Blair Witch’, said to have been behind eerie and bloody happenings in the area of Burkittsville over the past few centuries. Note that the characters make use of the actors’ real first names. This was an important part of the film hype, because an attempt was made to convince people that the three actors really did disappear, their footage being found later. The fact that all three are ‘unknowns’ helped in boosting the pretence.

Stumbling around with their camcorder, the three become lost in the woods, and start hearing eerie noises at night outside their tent. The film’s turning point is when they discover strange bundles of sticks tied to trees, suggestive of witchcraft. The nerves of the three begin to fray, and the primitive and jerky images resulting from the hand-held camera emphasises the disintegration of the characters. At one and the same time they huddle together for protection against the unknown threat outside and turn on each other as well.

Fear of the dark is well exploited in the film. Everybody remembers it from childhood, and in wartime it has been employed as part of a psychological tactic, most recently in World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. US forces were particularly targeted by NLF in this way - the lavish use of firepower could be negated by guerrilla or semi-guerrilla opponents who attacked at night.

The next thing is that Josh disappears, but the other two hear strange screams in the darkness which may be Josh being tortured. The next morning something bloody is found outside their tent, and Heather and Michael go almost insane with fear. At the film’s end, they go to an abandoned house, thinking they hear Josh. Something attacks them inside, and the camcorder is abruptly shut off.

The film is crude, as the roughly $40,000 spent on it would suggest, but it has been gigantically profitable. In an era when blockbusters often cost hundreds of times as much to make, a success like The Blair Witch project is an authentic horror for Hollywood economics. Why pay Demi Moore or Bruce Willis two million dollars when three unknowns can bring it off better with a camcorder?

James Robertson