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Director
Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez
Stars Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua
Leonard, Bob Griffith, Jim King, Sandra Sanchez
Certificate 15
Running time 90 mins
Made USA 1998
TAKE a deep breath. Exhale the hype. Settle down. What
do we have here?
"In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods
near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary... A year
later their footage was found."
Is this what this is? The Project? Well, almost.
Eight tenth of screen time is taken up with messy handheld bumbling
about in woods - trees, leaves, grass, stones, a river, setting up
the tent, taking it down, walking, shouting, having rows, laughing.
There is no art in this, no cinematic quality worth talking about.
It makes the Danish Dogma series look sophisticated. Also, Heather
(Donahue) and Mike (Williams) and Josh (Leonard) are not fun companions.
They act stupid, which may well be the point - "three stupid student
filmmakers disappeared in the woods" - and are conversationally out
to lunch. "It's pouring rain," Heather tells us. "We can't even get
a fire going." Shot of trees and rain.
However, the concept is clever. The performances are naturalistic
and believable. The dialogue sounds improvised - no-one could write
banality this well. The trick is to lull the audience into a false
sense of normal, so that when they hear noises in the night and find
odd things in the morning, it's going to spook the hell out of them.
As filmmakers, these so-called-students haven't a clue. They hike
off into the forest, having asked a few locals in the village about
the witch myth (camerawork all to pot), filming each other doing outdoor
stuff and not really knowing what they're looking for. In which case,
why keep the cameras rolling?
Credibility wears thin. They have a map. They don't know how to read
it. They have a compass. They still go round in circles. They admit
they're lost. Panic and hunger set in. They come back to the river
they have already crossed. Why don't they follow it? Rivers run straight,
remember.
It almost works. You know the ending. You don't know how. "A year
later their footage was found." This is not their footage. It has
been edited. Each student carried a camera of sorts, either black-and-white
or colour. The finished version mixes these up, giving an illusion
of continuity, except there are moments, particularly in the final
minutes, when filming continues where in reality it couldn't.
Fear is what you imagine, not what you see. Hitchcock built his reputation
on that. Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, the creative team, are
in good company. They deserve their success. They tried something
new - a rare occurance these days. Pity their protagonists are such
dorks.
The Wolf
Read Jonny Bravo's review of the Blair
Witch Project.
Blair Witch
Feature
Spook
yourself at the Blair
Witch Project web site
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