Film Review
It is a curious thing that the most unsettling independently produced
horror film of the last two decades cost next to nothing to make and
initially appears so amateurish that you can easily imagine it being
rejected by YouTube. Yet, despite looking like a home video from
Hell,
The Blair With Project
is a film that took the world by storm in 1999 (grossing 250 million
dollars on the way, thanks to a massive marketing campaign) and has
acquired a reputation as one of the scariest horror films of all
time. It is not a comfortable film to watch (particularly if you
suffer from motion sickness) but it is one which leaves a lasting
impression and practically redefines what a horror movie should
be.
The film was the brainchild of novice filmmakers Daniel Myrick
and Eduardo Sánchez, whose innovative concept was to construct a
film narrative from amateur footage in the manner of a faux
documentary. With a budget that is thought to be in the region of
twenty-five thousand dollars and the support of three enthusiastic
young actors (who ended up being put through Hell, deprived of sleep
and food in an attempt to portray genuine fatigue and stress), Myrick
and Sánchez constructed one of the most startlingly original and
realistic horror films you are ever likely to see, and also one of the
most chilling. In contrast to most contemporary horror films,
which have become mindless spectacles of gore and sadistic violence,
this one shows us virtually nothing that could scare us. Instead,
it allows our imagination to do all the work, and there is no better
engine of terror than the imagination.
What is perhaps most strange about
The
Blair Witch Project is that the full horror of what it conveys
does not register whilst you are watching it. There is a delayed
reaction, as if something in your mind is actively shielding you from
the trauma of what it has just taken in. But when, some time
later, you consciously cast your mind back over what you have seen and
replay the scenario of three well-adjusted youngsters slowly falling
apart in an atmosphere of mounting terror you begin to sense that there
is something genuinely eerie about this film. The fact that every
shot is taken from the perspective of one of the characters
means that the film has its own reality, unlike that of any other piece
of cinema. You actually feel you were there, in those cursed
woods with the ill-fated students. What ends up in our head is
not the imprint of a piece of fiction but something that feels like a
real lived experience.
The Blair Witch Project is a
film that disturbs our notion of reality in a subtle and profound way.
It makes us aware of the nameless unseen terrors that lurk in the shadows
around us, those horrors of the night that may elude our five physical
senses but which cannot defy our intuition. True horror is not
some knife-wielding psychopath in a mask, but a barely glimpsed spectre
that dwells in the shadow-world of our mind, fear that has neither face
nor name. This is in essence what makes
The Blair Witch Project so
effective - it dispenses with the cheap horror thrills and shows us the
real thing, horror at its most primal and most terrifying - fear of the
unknown, fear of the world we cannot see and can barely imagine.
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Film Synopsis
In 1994, three young film students - Heather, Mike and Josh - head off
for the small American town of Burkittsville, Maryland, formerly known
as Blair, to make a documentary about the much talked about Blair
Witch. The locals offer chilling accounts of hauntings,
abductions and murders that have blighted the area for the past few
hundred years, all of which are attributed to a notorious witch who
lived there in the 1700s. The next day, the students decide
to explore the woods around Burkittsville, an area which, according to
a fisherman they meet, is haunted by the spirits of the dead. Not
long after they find an old cemetery, the three friends become aware of
a ghostly presence around them. That night, they hear strange and
sinister noises in the forest and resolve to head back home as soon as
they can. The following morning, the students fail to find their
way back to their car and again have to set up camp in the woods.
Once again, their night is disturbed by haunting sounds. The next
day marks the end of their adventure and the beginning of their
nightmare. Their map has gone missing and now they are hopelessly
lost. Having agreed to head south, they soon have their next
shock. Suspended from the trees are dozens of humanoid shapes
woven from twigs - a practical joke or an omen of doom? Still
recording everything with their handheld cameras, the three students
continue their increasingly desperate hike through the woods.
None of them will make it back to civilisation. Their last
terrifying few days will be preserved on film, providing a warning to
others not to disturb the peace of the Blair Witch...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.