I was eight years old when The Blair Witch Project came out, and I knew from the first trailer that I was absolutely not interested in seeing it. Being a notorious scaredy cat as a kid, I steered clear from scary movies, despite my intense curiosity about them. The Blair Witch Project boasted being both terrifying and true, so there was no way in hell I was going near that horrorshow.
I may have gone my whole life without giving Blair Witch Project another thought if it wasn't for my childhood friend Hannah, who watched plenty of scary movies and of course had to tell me every frightening detail as soon as she could. I give credit to Hannah for introducing me to many awesome formative things during our childhoods, but her affection for horror movies were never something I could bring myself to follow her on at that age. (It probably irritates her how much now I claim to love horror when I was once brought to tears refusing to watch Darkness Falls.)
So our elementary school was in the middle of farm country, mostly surrounded by cow fields, with a small pine forest bordering the back of the playground that separated the school grounds from the farmland. The forest featured a path that was around two miles, and it was common for our P.E. period to take place hiking the trail. Usually it was a rather nice walk, even for an indoor kid like me. The forest was especially lovely in the early winter when the mornings were bright and cold and you could just enjoy a walk in the woods while chatting with your friends.
It was during one of these early winter trail walks on a cloudy morning that Hannah decided to share with our group how she had just seen The Blair Witch Project...and how much the woods around here reminded her of the ones in the movie. I brushed her off at first, but Hannah continued to explain more about the movie, and claimed to see more and more familiar symbols all around us. The forest grew darker as we walked, the air seemed to grow colder, and by the halfway mark of the trail, I was in a cold sweat and begging her to shut up.
It was around this point of peak jitters that the trees broke to reveal the neighboring farmland, where there just so happened to be the sunken, rotting carcass of a cow resting against the fence. Any other day, it would have been nothing. That day, it was a hideous omen from the witch of the wood, and we all ran screaming for our lives. It wasn't until we managed to tear past all of our classmates and burst out the other end of the trail into the thankfully bright playground that I felt safe again.
I will never forget being doubled over and out of breath, panicked for my very life, when I heard Hannah say, "Oh, guys. I just remembered...the Blair Witch is in Maryland."
I could have killed her.
Some years have passed now and I have since come to a place of peace about that embarrassment, but it's always stuck with me as one of my first brushes with true horror. It also remains my main argument when talking about the resonating potency of The Blair Witch Project. Even without seeing the movie, even in broad daylight with people all around me, I was still captivated and terrified just listening to a classmate's summary of it. Hannah had told me about plenty of scary movies, but this one was visceral, raw, absolutely within the realm of possibility, even in our own backyards. That's the power of a good scary story--the kind that gets under your skin and holds you tight in its clammy grip, no matter how safe you feel in your fluorescent-lit modern world.
I may have gone my whole life without giving Blair Witch Project another thought if it wasn't for my childhood friend Hannah, who watched plenty of scary movies and of course had to tell me every frightening detail as soon as she could. I give credit to Hannah for introducing me to many awesome formative things during our childhoods, but her affection for horror movies were never something I could bring myself to follow her on at that age. (It probably irritates her how much now I claim to love horror when I was once brought to tears refusing to watch Darkness Falls.)
So our elementary school was in the middle of farm country, mostly surrounded by cow fields, with a small pine forest bordering the back of the playground that separated the school grounds from the farmland. The forest featured a path that was around two miles, and it was common for our P.E. period to take place hiking the trail. Usually it was a rather nice walk, even for an indoor kid like me. The forest was especially lovely in the early winter when the mornings were bright and cold and you could just enjoy a walk in the woods while chatting with your friends.
It was during one of these early winter trail walks on a cloudy morning that Hannah decided to share with our group how she had just seen The Blair Witch Project...and how much the woods around here reminded her of the ones in the movie. I brushed her off at first, but Hannah continued to explain more about the movie, and claimed to see more and more familiar symbols all around us. The forest grew darker as we walked, the air seemed to grow colder, and by the halfway mark of the trail, I was in a cold sweat and begging her to shut up.
It was around this point of peak jitters that the trees broke to reveal the neighboring farmland, where there just so happened to be the sunken, rotting carcass of a cow resting against the fence. Any other day, it would have been nothing. That day, it was a hideous omen from the witch of the wood, and we all ran screaming for our lives. It wasn't until we managed to tear past all of our classmates and burst out the other end of the trail into the thankfully bright playground that I felt safe again.
I will never forget being doubled over and out of breath, panicked for my very life, when I heard Hannah say, "Oh, guys. I just remembered...the Blair Witch is in Maryland."
I could have killed her.
Some years have passed now and I have since come to a place of peace about that embarrassment, but it's always stuck with me as one of my first brushes with true horror. It also remains my main argument when talking about the resonating potency of The Blair Witch Project. Even without seeing the movie, even in broad daylight with people all around me, I was still captivated and terrified just listening to a classmate's summary of it. Hannah had told me about plenty of scary movies, but this one was visceral, raw, absolutely within the realm of possibility, even in our own backyards. That's the power of a good scary story--the kind that gets under your skin and holds you tight in its clammy grip, no matter how safe you feel in your fluorescent-lit modern world.
It goes without saying that The Blair Witch Project is amazing, a fine specimen in the masterclass of horror. All the "true story"and "found footage" hubbub aside, the movie stands on its own as an amazing slow burn of paranoia and terror. I am naturally unnerved by spooky sounds at night, people yelling at me, and camping trips, so this movie is some of my deepest anxieties all mashed into one black-and-white nightmare. But it's not just the movie itself that spawned an obsession that keeps me coming back at least once a year...it's the ever-expanding, ongoing project of the Blair Witch.
It's difficult to put into words what a miraculous thing the web of Blair Witch lore is. The idea that it extends as far as it does is remarkable just given that it came out in the infancy of the internet, and still set the stage for Cloverfield-level ARG obsession. Aside from the original website , which is still accessible and delightfully archaic, there were several books as well as three video games following separate angles of Blair Witch lore.
Most fans are aware of The Curse of the Blair Witch, the TV mockumentary that delved into the bloody history of (fictional) Burkittsville. The special was comprised of unused footage from the film--mostly talking head interviews with locals, detectives, and folklorists. It follows all the same beats of any of the Dateline and In Search Of-type shows that were explosively popular at the time, and lent just an ounce more legitimacy to the true story claims. As far as publicity stunts go, it's impressively produced, admirably straight-faced, and--if you didn't know any better--absolutely convincing. The special can be found in the features of the DVD, but it's just as easily accessed on Youtube.
Lesser known are the other mockumentaries floating around Youtube that make use of even more deleted scenes and dive even further into history, one even going so far as to veer away from witchy territory to explore the story of Rustin Parr, which frequently parallels (despite predating) Making a Murderer and Cropsey. All of these feature casts full of natural actors playing experts and witnesses, some making appearances in multiple docs. All of these people are so effortlessly convincing that it causes one to wonder where they are now (hopefully they're at least doing local theater because these folks got charisma).
So what of The Blair Witch Project's actual legacy--that is, as far as pop culture is concerned? It remains one of the most successful indie films and one of the most profitable films of all time, with its microscopic budget earning back $250 million worldwide. While it didn't exactly invent found footage, it set the standard for many, many movies to come in the revolution of shaky cam cinema. It remains one of the greatest tricks Hollywood ever pulled, as the film was able to retain its "true story" badge for quite some time. True enough, anyway, to harass the residents of the real-life Burkittsville, Maryland into completely disowning any connection to the movie, going so far as to change to design of their town sign to prevent fans from stealing it...again.
There was a sequel the following year that abandoned the found footage angle to adopt a slicker, more Scream style in an attempt to be in fashion with other horror movies at the time. Personally, I have a soft spot for Book of Shadows because it's just good fun, but I understand why it isn't fondly remembered among horror fans. Its meta-humor isn't exactly respectful to the utter grimness of the original, and it suffers from major schizophrenia in the editing room, but somehow despite abundant silliness, it ends up being kind of wonderful and I'm glad it exists. (Plus, seeing baby Dodd Gerhart be a stoner goofball tour guide is never a bad thing.)
As far as the "official" sequel is concerned....it's not great. Blair Witch (2016) attempts to literally follow in the footsteps of the original by having some teens trek into the woods where Heather and her crew disappeared, only this time there are more people and more cameras. I can appreciate what the movie is going for, but aside from the stick figures and passing mentions of familiar lore, it isn't much different from any other run of the mill, forgettable found footage ripoff. (Seriously, what was even the point of having a drone in this film?) I will give them credit for the fleeting reveal of the witch and how she looks pretty close to what I always pictured (despite being fairly derivative of the monster from [REC], but I'll let it slide). Unfortunately, it takes away from the perfect mystery of the original film, which drew a lot from what we didn't see.
See, there was always a plan to show the witch. Near the climax of the original film, Heather and Mike flee their tent in terror and take off running into the woods. At some point in the chaos, Heather looks to the side and screams "What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that?" The camera jostles all around, but all we see is darkness, trees, and Heather running up ahead.
What we do not see is the paid extra standing somewhere off in the distance wearing a spooky getup and trying to look menacing, because the camera simply didn't catch him on film. The failed effect managed to remain in the final cut because, despite itself, it becomes even more chilling when we don't see anything. It remains one of the film's most frightening moments, because we are forced to wonder what Heather is seeing, if what she sees is even real, what could make her scream like that.
That's the true magic of The Blair Witch Project, the same magic that sent me running for my very life through the friendly, familiar woods around my elementary school playground. It's because the simple horrors are always the most effective. The very idea that what we think we know can be utterly useless, that three people with maps and survival manuals and all the modern day know-how could wander into the woods and never come back. It's a giggle in the dark, figures made of twigs and twine, a thousand tiny handprints on a dirty wall. The idea that something ancient, "of the Old World," still lurks in the wilderness, undisturbed until some overconfident millennial stumbles into its territory.
There was a sequel the following year that abandoned the found footage angle to adopt a slicker, more Scream style in an attempt to be in fashion with other horror movies at the time. Personally, I have a soft spot for Book of Shadows because it's just good fun, but I understand why it isn't fondly remembered among horror fans. Its meta-humor isn't exactly respectful to the utter grimness of the original, and it suffers from major schizophrenia in the editing room, but somehow despite abundant silliness, it ends up being kind of wonderful and I'm glad it exists. (Plus, seeing baby Dodd Gerhart be a stoner goofball tour guide is never a bad thing.)
As far as the "official" sequel is concerned....it's not great. Blair Witch (2016) attempts to literally follow in the footsteps of the original by having some teens trek into the woods where Heather and her crew disappeared, only this time there are more people and more cameras. I can appreciate what the movie is going for, but aside from the stick figures and passing mentions of familiar lore, it isn't much different from any other run of the mill, forgettable found footage ripoff. (Seriously, what was even the point of having a drone in this film?) I will give them credit for the fleeting reveal of the witch and how she looks pretty close to what I always pictured (despite being fairly derivative of the monster from [REC], but I'll let it slide). Unfortunately, it takes away from the perfect mystery of the original film, which drew a lot from what we didn't see.
See, there was always a plan to show the witch. Near the climax of the original film, Heather and Mike flee their tent in terror and take off running into the woods. At some point in the chaos, Heather looks to the side and screams "What the fuck is that? What the fuck is that?" The camera jostles all around, but all we see is darkness, trees, and Heather running up ahead.
What we do not see is the paid extra standing somewhere off in the distance wearing a spooky getup and trying to look menacing, because the camera simply didn't catch him on film. The failed effect managed to remain in the final cut because, despite itself, it becomes even more chilling when we don't see anything. It remains one of the film's most frightening moments, because we are forced to wonder what Heather is seeing, if what she sees is even real, what could make her scream like that.
That's the true magic of The Blair Witch Project, the same magic that sent me running for my very life through the friendly, familiar woods around my elementary school playground. It's because the simple horrors are always the most effective. The very idea that what we think we know can be utterly useless, that three people with maps and survival manuals and all the modern day know-how could wander into the woods and never come back. It's a giggle in the dark, figures made of twigs and twine, a thousand tiny handprints on a dirty wall. The idea that something ancient, "of the Old World," still lurks in the wilderness, undisturbed until some overconfident millennial stumbles into its territory.
No comments:
Post a Comment