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THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT Send This Review to a Friend
Beware of the hype. "The Blair Witch Project" is about as vapid as run-of-the-mill horror films, but it is easy to see how it could attract a following. In contrast to heavily promoted big-budget schlock, here's an unpretentious low-budget film made to look like a documentary in the process of being shot by fledgling filmmakers in home-movie style. It has the appeal of being as much about making a movie as making a horror movie.
But smaller doesn't mean better, just more modest. We're told at the outset that three people went out to film a documentary about a legend of a Blair witch in ominous Maryland woods, and that what we're about to see is their footage that was found. So we already know something terrible is going to happen to the disappeared filmmakers, who apparently have met a fate similar to that of children who have supposedly vanished over the years and of others said to have been done in by the reigning witch of the woods.
Since the characters, although convincingly played by Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams, are uninteresting in themselves, their trek through the woods becomes boring. The loss of a map, the coming across strange bundles of wood that appear to be symbols of some sort, the recognition that they are lost and the hysteria that develops produce little real excitement. It's a matter of waiting to see how it all ends, and when the ending finally comes, it's anti-climactic.
I have to confess to wishing they'd meet their fate a lot sooner. However, credit filmmakers Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick with an idea and a matching documentary style unusual enough to spark interest and curiosity. The marketing of the film has done the rest to help make the film an economic triumph. On the plus side, "The Blair Witch Project" may encourage other independent hopefuls, open some doors and perhaps even build some interest in real documentaries, a notoriously neglected art form. An Artisan release.
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