I truly do wish I remembered better what this was like when I first saw it. I was 13 when The Blair Witch Project came out, and I remember hearing about it somewhat. I knew the independent movie theater in town was playing it, I knew it was a big deal, and I didn't really understand why. I likely saw it in 1999 or 2000 once it was a new release, but I don't remember.
The huge deal this movie presented was because like many things, it was simply the first. They were the first to do the true found footage thing, and they really presented it as a true authentic "found" footage. The directors hung posters about the missing actors, they listed them as missing on IMDb, they made a huge campaign over the "reality" of this movie. So much so that I wonder how it was even possible or legal - such a thing could NOT happen these days.
They were partially in the right place at the right time. With the infancy of the internet, Blair Witch was certainly helped by their obfuscation of the truth and of their intentions. People tried to crack this hidden code, they latched onto the mystery presented therein and took to trying to decipher it themselves. The only other thing I remember that tried this was Cloverfield, with mixed results. We'd been burned by Blair Witch, the next thing was not also going to pull the wool over our eyes.
However, like I said, right place right time, and people honestly DIDN'T KNOW this was a movie somewhat. They literally thought this might be real, a venerable psuedo-snuff film which was now free to watch by anyone, and which, also around the turn of the century, felt like a really world changing thing.
I was aware that they could not put a real thing like this into theaters, even if they wanted to, and yes tender reader, even at the age of 13 did I know this. But that didn't mean I wasn't interested. I watched it, and I remember what, exactly...?
Heather, Mike, and Josh are using one color camera and one black and white camera to film a school project. They are interviewing people about the Blair Witch, a local legend involving seven dead children in a Maryland town. They head out to the woods to find a cemetery for the kids, only to be increasingly bothered by strange noises at night. Tensions rise as they experience getting lost, getting no sleep, and getting hungry as what was supposed to be a 1 night trip stretches out into 2, 3, 4 etc. The sounds at night increase and soon enough this will have to lead to something.
The incredible thing about this movie which really sticks out in a rewatch and the now available behind the scenes information is truly how much of a experiment this movie was. It was a extreme experiment by the directors and creators in actually scaring their actors, in giving them just enough information or just enough to know what might happen, but not enough so that there is always some reality to what's happening. It's the perfect marriage between reality TV and scripted TV, something which again right place right time, was not so common that it is trite and lifeless.
I highly recommend the episode of Unspooled that talks about this film. I want to say more, but I'll leave it at this: Certain movies feel to me like a bridge built between the art that is film and what is generally accepted as a movie. I try to explain this to the people that dislike 2001 A Space Odyssey. 2001 is film, it is using film as a medium to create art. Most movies are not doing that. They are making entertainment. Their goal is not the same. I feel like similar to 2001, Blair Witch is using film in a different way - it is using it to create something besides a movie. It's got to be one of the most unique things in that way, something which elevates it to an extremely short list of films which are truly unique for one way or another. That alone makes it perhaps...a five star film.
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