the Blair Witch Project

As all things have a developmental course, so too does the hype for movies. Just as little girls stood in line to see “Titanic” for the 16th time, and others gained coolness brownie points by hating it, so too the Blair Witch Project has its hype. People have told me that is was the most terrifying movie they have ever seen, and were forever scarred and unable to stay home alone after viewing it. Then comes the second wave, of people so cool they could not be scared even by the popcorn prices at the Bridge theater! They triumphantly leave the theater laughing, saying, “I was not scared at all.” So I’m telling you to forget the hype and go see the Blair Witch Project with a sense of empathy and an open mind.

The reason is simple: the Blair Witch Project is the most brilliant piece of film to come out for a very very long time. It is not perhaps the horror it could be, especially to those of us who are desensitized to mass murder. I would classify it more as a psychological thriller. Was I scared? I wasn’t really scared, but I was tense the entire time. It hinted and suggested at horrors beyond what was shown, tapping into our own horror factories-the imagination. Think of it as H.P. Lovecraft for the big screen. But beyond the hype and horror, it is a fascinating film about the unwinding psyche, the results of what fear, rocks and sticks can do when you are lost in the woods.

The film is a pseudo-documentary, prefaced only by a written statement that in 1994 a group of students disappeared and were never seen again. A year later, their footage was found. The movie is a video and film account of the teenagers’ investigation of a local Maryland legend: the Blair Witch. This involves taking an overnight backpack trip into reputedly haunted woods to find a mysterious graveyard that is the key to the Blair Witch legend. The beginning is mainly reminiscent of home videos, which feels slow at the time. But by the middle of the movie, you find yourself wishing you had paid more attention, as events continually refer back to information uncovered by the film students earlier in the day.

The film was made on a budget of $25,000 (read nothing). No special effects. No fancy film process. No famous actors. No witch (I think there is no witch, but I’m still not sure). But you will never see sticks and rocks the same way again.

So what is so scary about sticks and rocks? Well, think about it. In this day and age when most of us fear corporate engulfment, rogue computers, and other futuristic science fiction outcomes, the Blair Witch Project reminds us of something we have pushed out of the conscious mind. We are out of our element. In the woods, the Witch understands sticks and rocks. The panicked minds behind the video camera do not. Sticks and rocks are so terrifying that the filmmakers need the camera as a filter, to make it not real, not happening. Unfortunately, it keeps happening and the filter of the camera can’t protect them.

The effect of the Blair Witch Project depends on your identification with the main characters. (If you identify with the Witch, as Max did, then you kind of want them to get it.) But not being tense or scared at all is a failure of the imagination. This is a movie that makes you work for the outcome. It is a film that depends on the primal sense of tribal mind to tell us what we can’t seem to forget, regardless of how many kilowatts we have at our disposal. Don’t fuck with sticks and rocks.

Witch positive score: What witch? Witchypoo gives it four pentacles. Check it out with a friend and sit in the back of the theater so you don’t get motion sickness.