The Blair Witch Project (1999)
OK, some eyebrows might raise at this idea, but I finally got to see The Blair Witch Project. I was in college when this movie came out and all my friends told me I would hate it, so I gave it a pass. It’s over twenty years later, though, so were they right?
Well…
We already know what the movie’s about. A bunch of twenty-somethings make a documentary about a mysterious witch up on a mysterious mountain where no one will go because it’s too scary. The group gets lost, they turn on each other, they yell a lot, and one by one they lose it in one way or another.
Oh yeah, and they find an altar with pentagrams and an abandoned house, although I won’t say exactly how things end for those who haven’t seen it.
One year later their footage turns up.
Which raises a slight problem. If these people are on a mountain to which none of the local townspeople will venture because of the witch, how and where does the footage turn up? UPS dropped it off, maybe? Carrier pigeon? Or, more appropriately, a carrier raven? Or a really strong bat? Hmmmmm.
Anywhoo, it’s just a movie. Moving on…
The performances of the actors are pretty convincing in that they seem genuinely scared, but they don’t play it like trained actors would, and that’s the movie’s real strong point. That’s what threw people. Well, that and the fact that the movie was made with a camcorder and a ten-thousand dollar budget. That right there is pretty creative.
Actually, I take it back. The movie’s other strong point, at least for Gen-Xers, will likely be the massive dose of nostalgia. The actors looked as if they were wearing their own clothes for this movie and no one got too glammed up. I don’t think Heather Donahue was even wearing makeup. Maybe just powder, Great Lash mascara and kohl pencil, if that. Otherwise it’s flannel, baggy jeans, and Doc Martens all the way. It felt like being back in high school.
In all honesty, Blair Witch wasn’t all that scary, and the reason, as many others have pointed out over the years, is that we know too much when we watch it today. The big gimmick of the movie was whether or not the footage was real, which of course we now know it wasn’t, so it takes the wind out of the proverbial sails.
It’s also pretty boring. When the characters find that altar in the woods they scream as if they’re being tortured. Or they see something scary and run around hysterically while pointing the camera down at the ground and everything is bouncing. There’s a lot of bouncing all over this movie, which is kinda dumb because Steadycam did exist in the nineties.
After a while the constant boinging is disengaging because we don’t know what’s scaring these people so much and there’s nothing we can relate to as an audience. Not to mention the movie blows its wad on screaming and F-bombs even though it hasn’t earned it.
So yeah, The Blair Witch Project was a mixed experience. I think if I had seen this movie when it was new I probably would have been more unnerved by it. Watching it today, not so much. My first reaction when the ending credits rolled was a big ol’ Kanye shrug.
The Blair Witch Project is currently streaming on HBO Max. Rated R.
My grade: C+
My grade twenty-three years ago: A- (probably)
Principal cast: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Leonard, Joshua Leonard
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez
Written by Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez, and Heather Donahue