Sometimes there are well known movies that live up to the hype and you understand why that hype surrounded it. While I did not love this movie, not much compares to how intense it felt at times. My experience with found footage is limited. This movie made me understand why it has become such a phenomenon. Everyone wanted to make a slasher movie after 1978's HALLOWEEN. This spawned an interest in found footage. Also the marketing to make this movie seem real was genius, and will never be replicated. Like I said previously, my experience with found footage is limited, so I don't entirely know if anyone was able to capture the lightning in a bottle that this did. This movie felt genuine. The horror really isn't in the supernatural aspects, so much as it is with the fear of being lost in the woods and the level of interaction I felt as a viewer because this was found footage. This reminded me of playing some of the scariest video games I have played. ALIEN: ISOLATION comes to mind first. The intensity I felt while playing that game because it was interactive was unparalleled. The found footage aspect of this film had the same impact. However, this movie feels like it is building to some kind of payoff. There was supposed to be some kind of payoff in one scene but a crew member did something wrong with the camera, thus no visual payoff. The lack of payoff is why I can't give this full marks.
Synopsis: Found video footage tells the tale of three film students (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams) who've traveled to a small town to collect documentary footage about the Blair Witch, a legendary local murderer. Over the course of several days, the students interview townspeople and gather clues to support the tale's veracity. But the project takes a frightening turn when the students lose their way in the woods and begin hearing horrific noises.
I liked the real cultural aspects we got to this early on. The real footage of Burkittsville and the people they interviewed made this feel genuine, a word I'm going to repeat in this review. I'm not sure if the people they interviewed were from the area or were people involved in making the film. I do know though that most of them have no other credits. All of the acting in this movie was genuine. The actors would get notes in canisters everyday in the woods while filming. The directors were nearby in need of emergency but the cast members filmed a lot themselves. That is why when I talked about the lack of payoff earlier, Heather was supposed to pan the camera when he acts all scared when she sees something. She never did, therefore the lack of payoff. The interviews with these people and seeing Heather, Josh, and Mike getting ready to leave all felt real. All the conversations they have as the movie goes on feel like real conversations and not as cinematic. I actually enjoyed the moments where the camera was turned off and all you heard was the sound of their voices and the atmosphere. So many movies make pitch black feel lighter than it really is and just having the sound with no visual felt real.
Heather Donahue
The horror starts to happen when the last day they are filming in the woods they can't get back to their car. They eventually lose the map, later we find Mike kicked it away. After that they find themselves lost in the woods for many days. Things only get worse from there. Every single night they keep being awakened by sounds and things happening to them at night. One night they hear breaking twigs. One night their tent gets shaken. At one point they hear the voices of children. One morning they awaken to three piles of rocks outside their tent. Someone goes through Josh's equipment and slime is found on it. After Josh goes missing, that next day Heather awakens to a bundle of twigs outside. More disturbing things are eventually found in that bundle.
The horror in this comes just as much from how these characters lose their composure and how they get lost. THE DESCENT is a horror film where the horror comes just as much from being isolated in a cave as it does the creatures that are hunting the characters. I would compare this to that. The isolation of being lost in the woods and how these characters turn on each other in different ways is just as scary as the looming supernatural aspect to it. What I liked was the progression. Heather gets mad at Mike for getting rid of the map. Mike is mad at Heather for continually filming them as they lose their stability. Later Mike and Heather actually start to keep their composure more than Josh who seems really out of it. This took me back to the time before GPS. I remember my Mom driving and getting lost several times when I was kid. There were no cell phones, so they couldn't communicate with anyone and had no way of knowing where they were. Heather is the only one who brought a compass and the only one who seemingly knows how to read the map. From that aspect this movie could be a cautionary tale of not going into the woods unprepared. These people thought they were going to film a documentary about a folk legend rather than just spending time getting lost.
I found the acting in this film amazing. I can't believe Heather Donahue won a Razzie award for worst actress for this. That awards show really is just one big troll. That being said, the fact that these three, specifically her, had a hard time finding work after this is beyond. Once again, everything they did felt genuine. The outbursts Heather has, especially when Mike says he kicked the map, were incredible. The monologue she has while filming herself, which is the most famous image from this movie was, incredible as well. The emotion all of these actors were able to conjure made this feel more like a documentary than a film. I enjoyed that aspect of it.
Famous cover art where Heather gives her monologue, resigned to her fate
SPOILER SECTION
While I talked about there being no big payoff, there are subtle moments of payoff. When Josh accidentally knocks down a cairn of rocks I think that might activate or alarm the forces of the woods. The voices of the children and Josh later do confirm there is a supernatural element to the woods. When they did all the folk horror imagery with the sticks in the trees that also was interesting. I understand this was shot on a low budget and they didn't have much money for effects work. I didn't need any detailed effects. With the way this movie is shot you could have masked primitive effects anyway. I just wanted something. Some kind of visual that represented the blair witch or the force within the woods. I've seen that the ratings for the sequels, specifically the second movie, are bad. I am interested in watching them though just to get some kind of payoff. I want to see what they add to the mythology. If this movie had given me that, I would have been completely satisfied. As it is this movie did haunt me when it was over but it could have been an all timer if it built up something and showed us something and left us with that.
One of the more unsettling images is Mike turned away from the camera facing backwards at the end of the film
I would be remiss if I didn't talk about how much this movie reminded me of CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST. While this is a completely found footage movie and that is only partially one there are still many similarities. Both deal with interviews before the actual trip to a woodland area. Both deal with taboo subjects, in this case cannibalism and witchcraft. Both movies have characters' fates on screen through camera footage. Both movies had effective marketing campaigns where the actors were actually said to be dead while making the film. In the case of this movie I believed it more. Everything looked and felt genuine enough for that to work. The methods by the filmmakers and cast members could only work this once. Many other found footage movies and TV shows have not been able to capture this the same way.
The film's marketing campaign had it based on a true story and promoted as such
Trivia: Heather Donahue's mother received sympathy cards from people who thought she was actually missing or dead
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