The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 found footage horror film about a trio of film students in 1994 who set out to make a documentary on the fabled Blair Witch in the woods of north Burkittsville, Mayland only to mysteriously vanish.
I’m not sure what was in the water back in 1999, but even a glance at the movies released, it certainly was an incredible year. Fight Club, The Matrix, American Beauty, Magnolia, Being John Malkovich, Cruel Intentions … all huge hits, but more importantly it was the year that film students Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez – armed with a paltry budget of $60,000 and a groundbreaking internet-based marketing campaign – saw their small film The Blair Witch Project generate an impressive box office return of $248.6 million.
The key draw to the film is that it’s completely shot from a first person perspective, which might seem old hat now, but twenty years ago, not so much. This pulled audiences into the witch myth, furthered by the now famous website setup by the directors that claimed the footage was real. Raise your hand if you fell for that? Many critics were quick to cite it as the first found footage horror film, despite the technique being used to great effect in Man Bites Dog and The Last Broadcast, the latter being released the year before and finding none of the acclaim that this film did. One could arguably say that it was even earlier still with Cannibal Holocaust, a movie that dispelled its own premise by occasionally breaking from the footage (director Ruggero Deodato had to convince the Millan courts that the actors weren’t really dead). But with Blair Witch, it’s a technique that really found its stride, working in the film’s favour to maximise its tiny budget and add to the almost unbearable tension and paranoia.
Shot on location in Seneca Creek State Park in Montgomery County, Maryland, right from the start little time is wasted in building up the mythos of the woods. While the in-movie filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams … all playing themselves) might be looking for the Blair Witch, it soon becomes clear from the interviews they conduct that it’s not the only urban legend in these woods. They’re told about “an old woman whose feet never touched the ground” as well as the mystery of Coffin Rock where five men were ritualistically murdered in the 19th century. Later they also learn of a series of child murders carried out by the hermit Rustin Parr seemingly under the influence of the titular witch and whose story in particular plays into the chilling final act of the film.
These urban legends and campfire tales are what fuels the film, especially when they play into those childhood memories we no doubt all have from our own shared tales of beasties and monsters lurking in our own local woods. The Burkittsville Woods are certainly no different. Needless to say when things start getting weird in The Blair Witch Project, it’s certainly where your mind goes.
To begin with, the Burkittsville Woods lures you into a false sense of security and really it’s only after the trio discover the seven cairns in a cemetery – and despite them looking like piles of rocks – we are to lead to believe by Heather, the group’s urban legend expert, they represent each of the seven child that Rustin Parr murdered, seemingly under the control of the Blair Witch. It’s only after Josh knocks one of these cairns off that strange things start to happen, such as their tent being attacked by unseen forces as well as Josh’s things being marked with the strange blue slime before he is later kidnapped, seemingly by whomever attacked the tent. It’s all bad for these young adventurers.
Like so much of the frights in these woods, the cairns play off a psychological twist of horror rather than straight up gore and splatter. This fear of the unknown is only heightened by the fact that we can only see what the camera is pointed at, so noises off screen and characters reacting to things are heightened in this kind of elevated state of fear. So much so that a mere stick man style figure became the key logo for the film, something that feels all the more like an ominous warning than it might seem in a more traditionally-shot film.
Fear is unquestionably what it’s all about, making the woods seem all the more uninviting. Desperation finds the young filmmakers traveling deeper and deeper into the forest as they become more and more lost with supplies dwindling. This is especially effective with moments where Mike reveals that he kicked their map into the creek in a fit of frustration and then the now iconic scene of Heather using the camera to record her frightened monologue where she apologizes to Mike and Josh’s parents, almost instinctively knowing they won’t be making it home. This realisation is made all the more harder for Heather as she has spent most of the film convincing the guys that in these modern times it’s impossible to get lost and that someone will find them. Nope.
Any glimmer of hope that she struggles to hold onto though becomes lost as panic begins to set in. By the time we come to the film’s climax with Mike and Heather discovering a derelict and seemingly abandoned house – one they believe the missing Josh is being held – they find walls covered with children’s hand prints, and they dash around the property attempting to find their missing friend, it only leads us to one of the most unsettling endings in horror cinema.
The woods meanwhile never change. We don’t get spooky lighting or special effects making the trees drip with blood. Instead, outside of a few simple props such as the bundle of sticks containing several of Josh’s teeth and the stick men hanging in the trees, everything else is drawn from the unseen noises and increasing desperation of the group. It’s carried right to the viewer.
In the aftermath of the film’s release, two failed sequels tried to recapture that magic, and the simplicity of the concept and construction of the film saw no shortage of found footage movies all attempting to cash in on this success, even to this day. A few notable exceptions managed to work, such as Rec and TrollHunter with the Paranormal Activity franchise sparking something of a resurgence in the genre. Most though fall into a pitfall of grainy footage and shaky cameras equalling frustration for the viewer as they attempt make out what is supposed to be happening. The Blair Witch Project succeeded because it set us in a location that plays off our already established fears of getting lost in the wilderness as well as what might be hiding in the dark. Sure, there might be a wealth of snarkcasters out there who are quick to poke holes in the film, criticising it as not being scary enough or for the improvisational acting but when this film was released it really was like nothing audiences had seen before and while its place in pop culture might have removed much of its edge, just like The Exorcist, this is still an engrossing mystery in the woods to go find yourself lost within.