The Legacy of the Blair Witch Project

It’s hard to believe in this social media and internet savvy age, that 24 years ago two young film makers were able to convince movie goers that The Blair Witch Project was a genuine documentary. But that was the premise of the online marketing campaign that had punters clamouring to see this independent horror film, made for around $60,000 dollars and going on to generate some $250m worldwide.

Writers and directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduado Sanchez met while studying film at the University of Central Florida in the early 1990s.They discovered a shared passion for horror movies and for pseudo documentaries, including US TV’s In Search of, a show hosted by Leonard Nimoy, which claimed to investigate mysteries of the paranormal and extra-terrestrial variety.

The Blair Witch Project combines these two loves, with deliberately shaky handheld camerawork, filmed by the actors themselves – a concept that went on the inspire a dearth of found footage films, some good, such as the subtle first instalment of Paranormal Activity (2007), the sublime Troll Hunter (2010) and the harrowing Rec (2007); and some best forgotten - actually most people have forgotten Area 407 (2012) and The Devil Inside (2012).

Perhaps this is why, in retrospect, Blair Witch splits film critics and viewers down the middle, with some seeing it as revolutionary, freeing up young film makers to create movie magic without a massive budget; while others rue the day Blair Witch helped create a sub- genre that they see as an excuse for lazy film making, detrimental to the status of horror as a whole.

But while Blair Witch can take the credit/blame for making found footage a mainstream phenomenon, it wasn’t the first film to use the concept. That ‘accolade’ goes to the far more controversial Cannibal Holocaust, made nearly two decades earlier. This Italian ‘video nasty’, directed by Ruggero Deodato, proved so convincing as a documentary, Deodato found himself in court charged with making a snuff movie. Further controversy was spawned by the film’s real depiction of animal torture.

Blair Witch does not use any of these shock tactics to scare us. While in many ways it breaks with tradition, it also borrows from much earlier horror movies of the ‘implied horror ilk, such as Jacques Tourneur’s Cat People (1942) and Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963), playing on our basic fears of the dark and unknown sounds. Like these earlier films, Blair Witch shows us virtually nothing horrific.

For many cinema goers at the time, the home movie feel and lack of any on-screen gore or monster proved a losing combination. While there were reports of viewers throwing up in cinemas while watching the movie, the reaction was more to do with motion sickness brought on by the erratic camera movements than fear or revulsion.

For those who entered the cinema with different expectations, and, indeed, those that watch the film for the first time today with an open mind, Blair Witch does have many positive attributes. For one, the three actors portraying the film students who never returned from the Maryland forest, put in some pretty convincing performances.

Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard all manage to convey a sense of awkwardness in front of the camera. Williams and Leonard have a naturalistic style, while Donahue overacts in a, I’m guessing, deliberately, irritating way, like so many people do when a video camera is pointed at them. They also all performed under their own names, further blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality that the movie relies on to create any kind of chills.

Also contributing the documentary feel are the interviewees who the trio encounter on their way to the woods. A mother holding a young child tries to give her account of the Blair Witch legend, while the baby keeps pressing a hand to her lips in a bid to silence her – how many times have we witnesses this scenario; one young waitress looks blankly into the camera and says “It sounds familiar…my sister went to Blair High School,” contributing nothing to the plot, but helping promote the found footage fallacy.

Perhaps less convincing is the decent into madness, or at least unhinged desperation, of each of the ‘film makers’. First, the previously fairly taciturn Michael loses the plot, screaming and ranting and eventually tossing their only map into a river. Next Leonard goes loopy while Michael reverts to his previously calm self and becomes all sensitive and reasonable. Surely one a decent into insanity begins, it shouldn’t go into reverse. Imagine The Shining if Jack had suddenly put down the axe and suggested everyone just calm down and talk things through, before returning to insane form a few scenes later.

Heather never has a total meltdown, although her nose dribbling apology to camera when she realises all hope is lost, certainly adds some realism (perhaps a little too much). It also adds some unintentional humour just as the film reaches its horrifying climax.

Whatever the movie’s legacy, it was fresh and innovative for its time – even if that time was a fairly short window. Love or hate the found footage genre, The Blair Witch Project holds its own against more recent efforts, relying on a tiny budget and delivering some genuinely creepy moments which have become part of the horror movie canon.