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{{Infobox Film
{{Infobox Film
| name = The Blair Witch Project
| name = The Blair Witch Project
| image = [[Blair_Witch_Project.jpg]]
| image = [[image:Blair_Witch_Project.jpg]]
| imdb_id = 0185937
| imdb_id = 0185937
| writer = [[Daniel Myrick]]<br>[[Eduardo Sánchez]]
| writer = [[Daniel Myrick]]<br>[[Eduardo Sánchez]]

Revision as of 17:45, 15 April 2007

The Blair Witch Project
Directed byDaniel Myrick
Eduardo Sánchez
Written byDaniel Myrick
Eduardo Sánchez
StarringHeather Donahue
Joshua Leonard
Michael C. Williams
Distributed byArtisan
Release dates
July 16, 1999
Running time
86 min.
CountryUSA
LanguageEnglish
Budget$60,000

The Blair Witch Project is a low-budget American horror film released in 1999. The narrative is presented as a documentary pieced together from amateur footage. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company.

It tells the story of three young student filmmakers who get lost in the woods while filming a documentary about the eponymous local legend. After being terrorized by an unseen presence for several days, they mysteriously disappear, one by one. Neither the students nor their bodies are ever found, although their video and sound equipment (along with most of the footage they shot) is eventually recovered, several feet under a building foundation that was made at least a century ago.

The release of the film on July 16, 1999 came after months of publicity, including a ground-breaking campaign by the studio to use the Internet and suggest that the film was a real event. It was very positively received and went on to gross over US$248 million worldwide,[1] making it the most successful independent film ever made up to that point (this record was broken in October 2002 with Nia Vardalos' My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and the most profitable film of all time in terms of the ratio of production cost to box office sales. The Blair Witch Project was rated #30 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

Synopsis

Template:Spoiler

File:The blair witch project 3.jpg
Symbols left by the Blair Witch

Film students Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard go missing in October 1994 while making a documentary about the Blair Witch, a legendary creature believed to haunt the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland. Their bodies are never found. A year later, however, the footage the students shot has been recovered, and the film in its entirety is composed of fragments of that footage.

Shot in a mixture of color and black and white, with shaky handheld camera movements and either daylight or the flat glare of the camera's light during night scenes, the footage includes material that was intended to be used in the documentary, but the bulk of the film shows the experience of the three students as they wander through the woods. Occasionally, the view switches out to a kind of "mood footage" (footage of the environment without characters) while the audio track continues.

File:Blairwitchconfession.jpg
Heather's apology

Soon after setting out, they become hopelessly lost; their situation worsens when Michael, in frustration, throws their only map of the area into the river without telling the others. Over a period of several days, a number of terrifying, unnerving, and possibly supernatural events occur. In one scene, the crew hikes for more than half of the day only to end up in the same spot where they had started.

It is implied that all three students die, and there is some internal evidence within the film as to how and why, but much of the plot is open to the viewer's interpretation, including the finale; few concrete indications are given as to the eventual fate of the three filmmakers.

Release

The teaser poster and other advertisements for the film were designed to reinforce the 'documentary' concept, leading many people to think the film was an actual documentary, and that the three protagonists really had disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland.[2] To reinforce this idea, the Sci-Fi Channel aired a fake documentary, Curse of the Blair Witch, that claimed to investigate the legend surrounding the movie right before the film's release. The program contained interviews with friends and relatives of the missing students, paranormal experts, and local historians (all fabricated, of course). This was done so extensively that the three main actors were listed for a time as "missing, presumed dead" on IMDb.[3] While attending the Cannes Film Festival, the producers put up missing posters featuring the three stars of the film, which were removed the next day following the actual kidnapping of a television executive (who was later recovered and returned home safely).[4]

Cinematic and literary allusions

In the film, the Blair Witch is, according to legend, the ghost of Elly Kedward, a woman executed for witchcraft in 1785 in the Blair Township (present-day Burkittsville.) The directors incorporated that part of the legend, along with allusions to the Salem Witch Trials and The Crucible, to play on the themes of injustice done on those who were called witches.[5] They were also influenced by The Shining, The Omen, and Jaws for the technique of showing the antagonist as little as possible to create a compelling psychological drama.[2]

File:Blair Witch Project location.JPG
The "Welcome to Burkittsville" sign seen in the movie. The film was influenced by several American legends.

The Blair Witch Project is somewhat influenced by The Bell Witch legend, a series of disturbing and allegedly inexplicable, real events associated with the family of Adams Station, Tennessee (Robertson County) settler John Bell, between 1817 and 1821. The film may also have drawn upon the story of Moll Dyer, a Leonardtown, Maryland-based witch. Like the "Blair Witch", legend has it that Dyer was driven from her burning home in the middle of a winter night after being accused of witchcraft.

The concept of incorporating the camera and crew into the film's plot is not entirely new. Other films to utilize this technique include the Danish Dogme95 movies, and, most notably, the Belgian pseudodocumentary Man Bites Dog.

In addition, The Blair Witch Project bears many similarities to the film The Last Broadcast (1998), written and directed by Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler. Both are faux-documentaries dealing with characters who set off into the wilderness in search of legendary figures (in this case, the mythical Jersey Devil in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey) and vanish; however, the endings are quite different. It is unclear whether The Blair Witch Project was inspired by The Last Broadcast, or if they were conceived separately in isolation.

Cult film buffs also claim a further inspiration for the film is a notorious exploitation film entitled Cannibal Holocaust, filmed in 1979. This fictional documentary tells the story of a filmmaking crew that journeys to the jungles of South America in search of a tribe of cannibal natives only to exploit the natives, and eventually, end up being devoured by the cannibals themselves. Cannibal Holocaust also featured a similar marketing ploy prior to its release, which included contracts that prevented the actors from working for one year so their "deaths" could be sold to the public.

Soundtrack

None of the songs featured on Josh's Blair Witch Mix actually appear in the movie. This collection of mostly goth rock and industrial tracks is supposedly from a mix tape made by ill-fated film student Joshua Leonard. The tape was found in Josh's car after his disappearance. Some of the songs featured on the soundtrack (besides the last track, which is the 'song' featuring the famous creepy, industrial-sounding noise heard in the trailers and during the credits) were released after 1994, supposedly after the events of the movie have taken place.

  1. "Gloomy Sunday" - Lydia Lunch
  2. "The Order of Death" - Public Image Ltd.
  3. "Draining Faces" - Skinny Puppy
  4. "Kingdom's Coming" - Bauhaus
  5. "Don't Go To Sleep Without Me" - The Creatures
  6. "God is God" - Laibach
  7. "Beware" - The Afghan Whigs
  8. "Laughing Pain" - Front Line Assembly
  9. "Haunted" - Type O Negative
  10. "She's Unreal" - Meat Beat Manifesto
  11. "Movement of Fear" - Tones on Tail
  12. "The Cellar" - Antonio Cora

Computer games

In 2000, Gathering of Developers released a trilogy of computer games based on the Blair Witch movie, which greatly expanded on the myths first suggested in the film. The graphics engine and characters were all derived from the producer's earlier game, Nocturne.[6] The trilogy was not particularly well received by critics. The first game, Rustin Parr, was criticized for being very linear but praised for its relentlessly creepy atmosphere, including audio that was faithful to the movie.[7]

DVD release

The DVD was generally well received, though by the nature of the film, it does not exploit the full quality of the DVD format in either video or audio, though the extras were thought to be extensive.[8]

Curse of the Blair Witch

Curse of the Blair Witch is a mockumentary produced for the Sci-Fi channel in 1999. Much of the footage was originally intended to make up the first third of the film of The Blair Witch Project; it was cut from the film prior to release, and reworked and expanded upon. The program is a believable attempt to help make the film The Blair Witch Project look like real footage taken by three student film makers that went missing. The mockumentary itself could be seen as a success, as many people did believe that the film was taken from real footage, which made the film a huge success despite its low budget.

The Curse of the Blair Witch uses everything real documentaries do to create the illusion that events actually happened. There are interviews with the townspeople, scientists and the students' teachers, that help bring the characters from abstract creations to real people that family and friends dearly miss, and also fake news clips regarding the search effort for the filmmakers.

Clips and historical "evidence" are given to back up the story and, after watching, it is easy to see why so many people were convinced that these events actually happened, which just made the film all the more disturbing. The legend that the film, and this program, present goes back a fair way to compound the illusion of its authenticity; this may be due to its striking resemblance to The Bell Witch, which the program mentions briefly.

References

  1. ^ "The Blair Witch Project". Box Office Mojo.com. 2006-01-01. Retrieved 2007-04-14. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ a b Klein, Joshua (1999-07-22). "Interview - The Blair Witch Project". avclub.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Mannes, Brett (1999-07-13). "Something wicked". Salon.com. Retrieved 2006-07-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  4. ^ "Trivia for The Blair Witch Project (1999)". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
  5. ^ Aloi, Peg (1999-07-11). "Blair Witch Project - an Interview with the Directors". Witchvox.com. Retrieved 2006-07-29. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  6. ^ "Blair Witch Project Interview". IGN.com. 2000-04-14. Retrieved 2006-07-30. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
  7. ^ Lopez, Vincent. "Blair Witch Volume 1: Rustin Parr". IGN. September 21, 2000. Retrieved January 11, 2007.
  8. ^ "Blair Witch Project, The". IGN.com. 1999-12-16. Retrieved 2006-07-30. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)
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