| Title | The golden age of horror: The Blair Witch Project (1999) |
| Author | Chris Hornbostel and Rob Morton |
| Posted in | Features |
| When | October 1, 2014 |
Chris: You can see it in Mike's eyes the morning after. They fully register that something weird happened outside the group's tent that night. Not so with Heather, who we've come to realize is Ahab and this documentary her white whale..
Read the full articleThis movie takes me back to when I was single and living in an east coast town where I didn't know anybody. I would just decide to myself, I'm going to go see a movie right now, and I did. This was one of those movies. And to be honest, I didn't really get into its groove. I enjoyed the story it was telling and the authenticity of the experience, if that's the right way to put it. But it seemed too dark to see a lot of things that I think the movie wanted to show me, like when they found that bloody bundle full of what, teeth? bones? I don't know! And I didn't really get the ending either when I first saw it. I remember talking to someone afterward, he asked if I saw the witch in that final shot. I kind of nodded and said well, sure, I mean of course I did. But I didn't see anything but dude in the corner, which I guess after reading this is all there was to see. I'm going to try to watch this again, see how well it's aged.
I have a little theory about the ending that I didn't include because it's sort of rambly and probably stupid, but what the heck. I dare the comments section to stop me!
Back in 1978, I was still a dumb grade school kid, and I think I'd just started watching football on Sundays. It was the very early evening one Sunday in November and they were doing the recap show just before boring old Sixty Minutes started, and suddenly the network broke in with news. Apparently in some country I'd never heard of (Guyana), a congressman (who I only recognized as being sort of important, but not really, really important on the government flowchart) had been killed by something called a cult.
Two journalists died in that attack at the airplane. One was NBC News cameraman Bob Brown, who was filming as the assassins showed up. His camera footage was shown for the next few weeks on all the networks, all the time. The view from his lens shows a flatbed truck with gunmen in it pulling up, shots being fired, and then the camera goes down...and then snow. The implication--we know that the guy shooting that film was killed in that first hail of bullets--is kind of terrifying.
I've wondered for a while if BWP creators Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez (who are both older than I am, and would've been young teenagers when this happened) weren't familiar with this. I mean, if you were of a certain age, I don't think it was possible to have missed it--all three news channels aired that footage as part of coverage of the real horrors discovered days later in Jonestown. The final scene here is just incredibly reminiscent with the implication of the awful finality of what it means when the camera drops and goes to snow. I think that's why the ending here has always worked so well for me.
BTW, major thanks to Michael C. Williams for taking the time to answer the questions Rob and I had about the movie. All three stars of the film of late seem to be more willing to discuss their experience in recent years, but Mike has always seemed like the go-to person when it comes to really being able to express what it was like working on this landmark picture.
Yes, huge thanks to Mike Williams for the interview and the insight into The Blair Witch Project experience. Really fascinating to learn more about this unique movie shoot.
In my experience, it's a unique movie. I remember watching it in the theatre, enjoying it, but didn't think it was that scary. Later that night, I had some serious trouble falling asleep as the night just seemed so menacing. Never happened to me before or since, so they did something right.
As I recall, the ending is a callback to the story of the child murder who brought kids to the cabin and made one face the corner while he murdered the other. I think it totally works if you can connect those dots.
I cannot fully express how much of an impact this made on me growing up. For my friends and I, this movie redefined for us at an impressionable age what was real and what wasn't when it came to movies. I remember rumors flying around school that this was a true story, I remember about how many adults were confused as to what this movie was. In the wake were endless imitators and parodies, firmly entrenching in my mind just how much of a landmark it was. This was like a whole new 'scary' to get used to and it took us all a good 10 or so years to really get out the heebie-jeebies. I'm still reminded of this movie by films like 'Paranormal Activity' and just how, back in 1999, I was confronted with the realization that I had a very tenuous grasp on the scripted fantasy of movies and the raw horror of live news or documentaries.
Big shout out to Mike Williams for his awesome insights into making this film!
I didn't say I didn't get the ending, dude. Just thought there was something more. I imagine a second viewing will be a little kinder.
When I watched it this latest time through, I went in fully supportive of the "it's a serial killer" explanation. It works at times in the movie, but at others it doesn't fit. In any event, I think that's ambiguity is what gives the film some of its legs.
I remember seeing this in a packed theater; nobody said much of anything during the film. On the way out, the reactions ranged from confusion to anger that it "wasn't scary at all".
I will say that this is the only movie I think I've ever seen that legitimately creeped me out thinking about it for the rest of the evening.
First time I saw BWP was at a midnight sneak preview right before the official release date, so really all I knew about it before the day of the screening were the "people crawling out of the movie in terror" stories that trickled out of Sundance.
However, on TV that afternoon they played The Curse of the Blair Witch, an In Search Of...-style show that explored the disappearance of the filmmakers and also fleshed out the legend of the Blair Witch. Part of that legend was the story of how she would kidnap multiple children at a time, and when she was... done with one, she'd force the next to stand in the corner while she finished the job.
Needless to say, with that information fresh in my mind, the whole final sequence of BWP, from the child-size handprints all over the walls to the final shot of Mike standing in the corner, hit me like a ton of bricks.
Oh man. I wished I'd have had that experience. The viral marketing for the movie--which really was just based around a website they threw together--was tremendous. Listening to an interview with Myrick and Sanchez, a lot of that In Search Of-style footage came from the original draft of the movie. It was going to be more of a mockumentary, with the found footage from the students as only part of the film, and fake studio and voice over "reports" added in. The found footage was so good it became the movie, and the other stuff they'd filmed ended up as really effective promotional stuff.
It was pretty much the ideal circumstances under which to see it. The group I was with all came out of the screening in shock, and we had to find an all-night ice cream place to drive to just so we could sit in brightly-lit, stunned silence for a half hour or so, watching our sundaes melt.
"There was no such thing as a “found footage horror movie” at least that I knew of when we made BWP."
This is, of course, not actually true but I'm assuming that Mike just wasn't aware. The prime example would be Cannibal Holocaust, which is really kind of ground zero for the found footage film. The builk of the film is supposedly the actual footage filmed by the characters, so it has all of the handheld, documentatry style stuff going on. Plus it has a framing story setting up that the audience is going to be watching the "actual footage". There were also found footage elements in a lot of "mondo" exploitation films, including the Faces of Death series.
As for the Blair Witch Project, I saw it opening night when it came out. I’m too young to have seen the Exorcist or Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the theater, but I would imagine the atmosphere was similar. It’s almost weird to think about now, but people were actually screaming and running out of the theater. I saw a 300+ pound man just sitting in his seat shaking when it was over. Out in the lobby it was just this kind of hush…nobody was talking about the movie or anything like that. Very impactful.
It’s too bad about the film, because as a movie it’s terrible. There’s some lovely horror passages (the bundle of teeth/bones/etc. and the ending) but the rest of it is practically unwatchable.
And the less said about the sequel the better…although it had that awesome line from the redneck sherrif- “Their bodies were laid out in the shape of a pentagram!”
The marketing was some serious William Castle showmanship right there, and it was brilliant. I remember vaguely hearing about the movie on the internet and talking about it with friends- "I think it's supposed to be like some kind of real ghost footage or something". Ididn't suss out that it was fictional until right before it came out, so it created this amazing aura about it. Can't imagine pulling something like that off again.
Also...In Search Of was like the scariest show ever!
BWP came out when I was in college, and I didn't get a chance to go in the theater. It was talked up so much so often by so many unexpected quarters. I needed to see it.
I rented it when it came out on video on a night I was in the apartment alone. I was like, ok, time to friggin scare me. I was hoping it would keep me up all night, but was ready to be satisfied by just a shiver.
It bored me. I got tired of it. And honestly, the early parts were the most interesting. Once they were in the woods, it was all repetitive.
Maybe it was my mood? Maybe it was the saturation? Maybe it was that I was already tired of "shaky cam" (Which still will NOT GO AWAY)? Maybe I had unrealistic expectations? And then it ended, and I was so angry I yelled at the TV.
I have never been able to figure out why anyone thought it was so fantastic, despite have a lot of friends with intelligent, critical mind with backgrounds that made story and film deconstruction nearly automatic. This is the first time I've run into a discussion that made sense of it! So while this comment may seem like I'm complaining, I'm actually grateful to you guys for giving me some information I never had. I may even give it another try. My wife (who can't stand anything remotely scary, and has to this day STILL never watched a scene of Return of the Jedi that has the Emperor in it) is out of town next week, so it's a prime chance to indulge without malice.
To me, what TBWP really nailed hard was not so much feelings of fear or horror, but dread and despair. I've never seen a movie that so perfectly conveyed this feeling of, "We are so completely screwed." That moment when they get to the end of the day and realize they've been walking in a big circle all day all do is so perfectly terrible. It really connected with something in me, evoking real-life moments of crushing defeat and misfortune.
I'd always assumed that there were two kinds of BWP viewers: those who went in blind opening weekend (with echoes of the viral marketing pinging around inside their heads), and then everyone else.
I figured it was one of those "you had to be there" moments, and once the cat was out of the bag the real impact of the movie would be lost.
I was one of those folks who saw it on opening weekend in a packed theatre in Baltimore (went on opening night and couldn't get in, line was insane and down several blocks, had to come back way earlier the next night) and it scared the crap out of me. The ending especially stuck. I'm also happy to say that after watching it again this weekend, I think I'm wrong about the whole two types of BWP viewers.
It still works for me, and the pace, with the increasing dread and helplessness, is just great. I still love this thing, and so glad the bones of this year's 30 days of horror is built around it.
I remember being fooled by the marketing, but in an odd way. I somehow got the impression that the story was based on true events, but that the film itself was a re-enactment.
