The Blair Witch Project (1999) **1/2

 

In 1981, an unknown filmmaker made a low-budget horror flick called “The Evil Dead.” The inventive, darkly humorous film not only made director Sam Raimi a household name, it did the same for its star, Bruce Campbell. In 1992, on a relatively low budget of $1.5 million, an unknown writer-director named Quentin Tarantino created “Reservoir Dogs” and became the legend he is today. In 1999, a couple of unknowns named Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez created a low-budget piece called “The Blair Witch Project.” For a couple hundred thousand dollars, they created the movie that launched the “found footage” movement and earned about $250 million, making it one of the most profitable movies ever. From this auspicious beginning, Myrick and Sanchez went on to do … not much. They did a couple of poorly-regarded Blair Witch sequels, and it looks like both did a couple more projects that you likely haven't heard of, but neither has come close to living up to the commercial promise of their first film.

I think this is because, while “The Blair Witch Project” was an incredible commercial success, it was not that great artistically, something I can see better watching it now, 22 years later. In 1999, it seemed brilliant and scary. Now, I mostly found it annoying.

The story is that a trio of college students venture into the Maryland woods to film a documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch. What exactly the witch is is hard to say. Some locals from a nearby town relate the story of a male hermit who murdered a bunch of children decades ago. Others tell about a woman all covered in fur. The documentary crew heads into the woods to film sites associated with the legend. They get lost, and things get weird. All we know of the story is what they filmed, and the movie is presented as being the footage that was found when their two cameras were later discovered.

The trick to found footage storytelling is capturing enough on film to actually have a plot, while making it believable that the characters would be filming all that action and dialogue. Sometimes it makes sense, and sometimes it's a strain. Much of “The Blair Witch Project” involves the characters arguing over the fact that they are lost in the woods. It doesn't make a lot of sense that any of them would be filming these arguments, and the filmmakers' solution is to have them yell at each other for filming. A lot. It gets old. The found footage conceit gets even more strained when things get scary, people start running, and you wonder why this person is still holding the camera.

You just have to go with it. Remember, there had not been much found footage film-making done up to this point. There are plenty of better movies in this style, including “Paranormal Activity,” “Cloverfield,” “Chronicle,” and “VHYes,” but these all came later. “The Blair Witch Project” was one of the first, and despite myself, all these years later, I still found the ending scary.

2.5 stars out of 5