Directed by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Written by: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Starring: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard
I want to preface this by saying that a lot of this is discussion of found footage films before I get in to The Blair Witch Project.
I simply do not like found footage movies. While I can sit down and watch absolutely any movie, it takes a lot for me to actually consider watching this type of film; I find it easier to watch a terrible b-movie like Tammy and the T-Rex because the weaknesses and tropes of that genre of film are charmingly stupid to me, while aspects unique to found footage films I find mildly infuriating.
Most of the issues I have with found footage films is the fact that the camera has to be an actual component of the story, which requires the writers to actually insert reasons for the cameras to be there in every scene; the most egregious movie for this particular trope is Chronicle (2012). While the main character's reasons for using a camera (mostly) worked, Chronicle had a B-story that was ultimately superfluous to the overall plot, but didn't involve the main camera-toting character, so there had to be an additional reason for another unimportant character to also be constantly using a camera. Chronicle is overall a pretty good movie, but it seems the found footage style was holding the film back rather than helping.
Another fact attached to the existence of the camera is the fact that someone has to be holding it every scene, so when something important happens, filmmakers aren't sure what to do with the character holding the camera; helping usually means dropping or shutting off the camera, which obviously can't happen if the film is to keep going, and if the character doesn't help in a crisis then they just come of as stupid or evil, which isn't necessarily the filmmaker's intention. My least favourite examples are in Cloverfield: the character 'Hud' never puts down the camera or acts like an actual human being, including in one scene that involves the group of main characters getting attacked by monsters; Hud just films, he doesn't help fight the monsters off as every other character does. You could argue that Hud's inaction is due to fear causing his to freeze, but it's difficult not to think about the fact that it's actually just because the filmmakers need for the audience to see monsters.
An extension of these issues is the fact that the film style is very limited; either the camera has to be placed on a flat surface, giving us a static medium shot for the entire scene and not being at all interesting to look at, or the entire thing has to be handheld, which is difficult to look at because the camera ends up getting shaken all over the place. It makes the entire experience come off as very cheap, like the filmmakers didn't know any techniques so they just took a camera and put it in the hands of the actors, hoping for the best. This seems to have literally been the case for Project Almanac (2015), in which most of the filming was done with GoPros attached to the actors' bodies.
This leads in to another key issue I have with found footage film, especially found footage Horror, which is the fact that it has to toe a very thin line between effective storytelling and convincingly imitating realism. Part of what made found footage films a phenomenon is the fact that they were usually touted as true tales; Cannibal Holocaust and The Blair Witch Project drummed up controversy thanks to the efforts of the filmmakers outside of the making of the film itself; Ruggero Deodato (Director of Cannibal Holocaust) had the actors in the film, portraying a documentary crew that goes missing, disappear from the public eye for a time following the film's release, which hammered home the idea that what was happening in the film was real (though, to be fair, the acts of actual animal cruelty that happened on-screen probably helped with the 'realism'). Likewise, the makers of The Blair Witch Project created their own myth that they then filmed an actual documentary for, and released before the actual film's release, as a way of promoting the Blair Witch myth as a potential reality. While it's harder to do that sort of extracurricular activity for a found footage film in an era when found footage films are constant, it still shows that care and time was put in to making the film in a way that can't be expressed through the actual use of the camera. These factors make it easy for me to break my suspension of disbelief when watching a found footage film, because very little effort is put in to giving reasons for the films to be found footage, and so they end up just coming off as home movies people pay to see at the cinema.
Finally, I have a dislike for found footage films because they're incredibly played-out at this point. They're like the superhero movies of the Horror genre, easy to make money off of and pumped out as fast as possible for fear of that bubble bursting. People making these films don't seem to be trying to make a good movie first, they're just using the fact that found footage movies are cheap and running the subgenre in to the ground. If you need proof, look no further than the Paranormal Activity series.
With all this in mind, The Blair Witch Project is actually a very good film. It may not be the first found footage film, but it certainly threw a spotlight on the subgenre, and when trying to look through the lens of someone seeing this for the first time in 1999, it's easy to see why it was so effective. From the start, there is a reason for the characters to be using cameras, they are student filmmakers looking to film a documentary about the Blair Witch, a myth spread around the town of Burkittsville, Maryland, after a man committed a series of child murders and ended up blaming on the ghost of a woman who lived in the town of Blair (the site of which Burkittsville is built on) and was burned alive for the practicing of witchcraft.
The idea that people using the cameras are filmmakers here to film a documentary is the easiest, most believable reason to have them using the cameras at all times; I also thought the use of black and white at certain, seemingly random points in the film worked for this reason, because it's a slight stereotype that budding filmmakers use black and white to try and make their shots seem deeper or more poignant.
In addition to believably justifiable reasons for the style, the film has effective horror through a consistent use of 'less is more', attempting to play tricks on your mind by using black movement across a black nighttime shot and the seemingly genuine fear and distress of its characters. I have to give credit to the actors in this film, they're not anything amazing, but they're believable in the film's more tense moments and carry the film's cheaper ones.
There isn't much more to say about the film than that; it's got a simple but effective plot, with characters that don't really develop before they're thrown in to a harrowing situation, as most of the film's early stages are dedicated to building up the idea of the Blair Witch. The scares, once they arrive, are mostly gripping, built up slowly with light noises and a little disturbing imagery, similar to other found footage Horrors but with character tension in between so that the film doesn't become a boring game of me trying to guess when the next scare is going to happen. On a personally appealing note, the filmmakers don't try to stretch the film out too much, which is a good idea because there's only so many nights before characters being lost in the woods stops being thrilling and starts being boring before becoming plain silly. It's over in under an hour and a half, quick and easy, even for a type of film I dislike.
The Verdict: My personal bias against found footage films aside, The Blair Witch Project is a good film. It avoids a lot of the pitfalls that annoy me in other found footage films because it existed before those pitfalls did, and mostly just tries to be minimalist horror, using the found footage style in a time that it was new and exciting, not overdone and boring. The film starts slow and boring, but once the characters are in a place of actual potential danger, the film is effective at evoking fear without having to show much at all. It's worth a watch if you're interested in found footage films, certainly better than the other films I have mentioned in this review, and especially because it really got the ball rolling on the whole phenomenon, but if you're like me and don't enjoy found footage films, this isn't a must-see.
Rating: 7/10
Published December 22nd, 2016
No comments:
Post a Comment