| The Blair Witch Project | |
|---|---|
| File:Blair witch project ver3.jpg | |
| Directed by | Daniel Myrick Eduardo Sánchez |
| Written by | Daniel Myrick Eduardo Sánchez |
| Starring | Heather Donahue Joshua Leonard Michael C. Williams |
| Distributed by | Artisan Entertainment |
Release dates | July 30, 1999 (USA wide) |
Running time | 86 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$25,000 |
| Box office | $248 million est. (as of July 26, 2006) |
The Blair Witch Project is a low budget American horror film released in 1999. Though the film is entirely fictional, the narrative is presented as a documentary pieced together from that footage.
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.
The release of the film on 30 July 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 recieved and went on to gross over $US 248 million dollars worldwide, making it one of the most successful independent films ever made, along with Halloween and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
The concept of the Blair witch originated in the filmmakers desire to get the characters lost in the woods.[1] The filmmakers advertised in Back Stage Magazine for actors with strong improvisational abilities.[2] The script began with a 35 page outline with no dialogue, as that was intended to be improvised.[3]
During filming, the actors were given only vague direction, usually in the form of notes that the trio would recieve along with brief character bios. Many of the townspeople interviewed in the film were not actors, and some claimed to have heard about the Blair Witch, though the story is ficticious. Almost 19 hours of useable footage was recorded which had to be edited down to 90 minutes.[4] Filming took place in the October 1997.[5] The process of editing in post production took more than eight months. Originally it was hoped that the movie would make it on to cable television, and the filmmakers did not anticipate wide release.[3]
Many of the characters names are anagrams, such as Elly Kedward (The Blair Witch) is Edward Kelly, a medieval mystic. Rustin Parr, the fictional 1940's child-murderer began and an anagram for Rasputin.[6] For the revelation of the human remains in the film, teeth were obtained from a Maryland dentist. During filming, the actors were given clues as to their next location through messages given in milk crates found with Global Positioning Satelite systems. They were given individual instructions that they would use to help improvise the action of the day. The film took only 8 days to shoot.[2]
The initial investment by the three Central Florida filmmakers was about US$35,000. Artisan acquired the film for US$1.1 million and spent only US$25 million to market it.[7] Prior to the film's release, the three main actors were listed for a time as "missing, presumed dead" on IMDb.[4] The actors signed a "small" agreement to recieve some of the profits from the films release.[2]
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. A year later, though their bodies are never found, 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 only natural lighting, 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.
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 (some speculate that the Blair Witch had set up a sort of space-time trap).
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.
The film was marketed heavily via the World Wide Web, leading some to wonder if some of the fan enthusiasm was generated covertly by the film studios.[8] It had an unusually receptive audience at the Sundance Film Festival.[9]
The teaser poster and other advertisements for the film were designed to reinforce the 'documentary' conceit, 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.[3]
Just before the general release of the film, The Sci-Fi Channel aired a fake documentary, Curse of the Blair Witch, that claimed to investigate the legend surrounding the movie. The program contains interviews with friends and relatives of the missing students, paranormal experts, and local historians (all fabricated, of course). While attending the Cannes Film Festival, the producers put up missing posters featuring the three stars of the film (whose real names are used in the movie, further reinforcing the charade) which were removed the next day following the actual kidnapping of a television executive (who was later recovered and returned home safely).[10]
The Blair Witch Project grossed over US$ 160 million in the United States and totalled 248 million worldwide.[11] The film was featured in the Guinness Book of Records as having the highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture ever, making back over US$10,000 dollars for every dollar spent.[10]
The film recieved an 84% positive rating overall from critics.[12] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times gave the film 4 stars, calling it "an extraordinarily effective horror film".[13] It was listed on Filmcritic.com as the 50th best movie ending of all time.[14] Critics in particular praised Heathers apology to the camera near the end of the movie, noting its ability to cause "nightmares for years to come."[15] After the release of the film, there was considerable backlash against it, which led to threatening encounters and difficulty seeking employment for actress Heather Donahue.[16]
A sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, was released in the fall of 2000 but was poorly recieved by most critics.[17] A third installment was announced that same year, but as of yet (2006) has not materialized.[18]
The directors of the film used a very informal improvisational audition process to narrow the pool of actors.[4] Over 2,000 actors auditioned for the part.[1]
The directors were influenced by the Salem Witch Trials and The Crucible, and the themes of injustice done on those who were called witches.[1]
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 home in the middle of the winter after being accused of witchcraft. Her body was found kneeling at a boulder on the coast, which still bears her handprint to this day. 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 picture 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 end up being devoured by the cannibals themselves.
Heather's trademark confessional scene has been parodied in many films due to the framing of her face used in the movie. The Simpsons has parodied the movie twice: with Lisa re-enacting the scene where Heather apologises to the camera, and with Bart and Lisa running away from a school field trip. In an episode of Trailer Park Boys, J-Roc (Jonathan Torrens) and his pals talk Sam Losco (Sam Tarasco) and Bubbles (Mike Smith) into starring in their amateur porno "The Bare Pimp Project". Whose Line is it Anyway? also parodies Heather's apology; whenever the movie is mentioned, the performers run to a camera and say something like "There's going to be a crappy sequel". The first episode of the second season of a TV series featuring British Pop Band S Club 7, known as LA 7 (S Club 7 in LA in the U.K.) is a spoof of the Blair Witch Project. In the episode The Thin White Line of Family Guy, Brian is sentenced to community service and volunteers as a seeing-eye dog and tries to describe the action in the film to a blind man. He explains: "Ok they're in the woods. The camera keeps on moving. I think they're looking for some witch or something. I don't know, I wasn't listening. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening. Something about a map. Nothing's happening... It's over. A lot of people in the audience look pissed." The Powerpuff Girls had an episode which spoofed the movie. The Bogus Witch Project also parodies this movie, and other horror movies. The Blair Thumb is a short film that also parodies this film. In Scary Movie, a parody on thriller/horror flicks, Gail Hailstorm (who is also a parody on the Scream character Gail Weathers), recreates the Heather confessional scene, and involuntarily releases large amounts of liquid mucous from her nose.
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.
It is interesting to note the anachronism that 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.
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.[19]
The first game, Rustin Parr, takes place in the 1940s when a hermit named Rustin Parr who lived near the town gave himself up to police and admitted to the murders of a number of local children, claiming to have been possessed by the Blair Witch. The player takes on the role of a paranormal investigator sent to look into the bizarre circumstances surrounding the alleged child-killer and rumours of the involvement of demonic forces. The second game, Coffin Rock, takes place further back in history, during the American Civil War; the player takes control of a soldier who has lost his memory and encounters strange visions after waking up in the forest near the town of Blair. The third game, The Elly Kedward Tale, is set further back in time, in 1785. The player takes on the role of Jonathan Pyre, a witch-hunter who travels to Blair after hearing rumors of the disturbing activity that has recently taken place after the alleged Blair Witch has been banished to the forest.
The trilogy was not particularly well received by critics. The 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, such as the sound of cracking twigs and giggling children heard in the distance as the player-character treads through the forest.
The DVD was generally well recieved, 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.[20]
