The Blair Witch Project (1999)
It was October, 1999. My best friend, Sam, and I were crammed into a packed Showcase Cinema in Teeside to see “the scariest movie ever.” Coincidentally, I also saw the other two of my top three, all-time scariest films that year – 1973’s The Exorcist, which I eagerly grabbed off the shelf and rented the same day the BBFC lifted its video ban, and 1974’s slasher classic, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which I also finally saw with Sam on tape as soon as it received its 18 certificate.
From Blair Witch’s pitch-perfect beginning; the Haxan films logo, the slightly juddery – as if projected, opening title, and the iconic simplicity of its opening gambit; it had us firmly in its grasp. To this day, I recall it being the most visceral cinematic experience I’ve ever had. So much so, I remember pinching a Time magazine from college with the Blair Witch guys on the cover as a kind of symbolic token. Convenient happenstance certainly played a part; the shot in which Heather smushes the Hi-8 video camera into a bag of “marshmallows,” conveniently framing the word, is uncanny. There were so many fortunate accidents like this, including the first major chill of the movie – the little girl, Ingrid, covering her mother’s mouth as she is interviewed about the Blair Witch, as if she knows, on some level, what the adults are discussing is forbidden. It’s cinematic magic in a bottle, and miraculous in the sense that it’s totally out of the blue; the kid is clearly too young to be directed. Later, Heather gets her hair caught on her backpack during a low moment of internal crisis – it’s so natural and real, and impossible to fake.
Heather jokes about “saving the bloodletting for later”; but writer/editor/directors, Myrick and Sánchez, bravely save it for never, as we actually see very little. A few of Josh’s pulled teeth in a bloody trinket is the extent of the gore. The end is predicated on a ten-second tale, spun at the very beginning, during the interview mentioning Rustin Parr. In order to get the payoff, you must pay close attention. Blair Witch’s horror exists purely in your imagination; if it doesn’t scare you, I hate to break it to you, but you have no imagination.
I still consider The Blair Witch Project the most punk rock film ever, in the sense that it cost a mere $30,000 and made $240 million, but also the postmodern direction, and the way it stripped away the bullshit. Everything is crucial, and serves the story. It’s very smart filmmaking, and its repercussions can still be felt in contemporary horror, most obviously, the found footage genre. But unlike many of the films it spawned, it has little to no artifice. As Stephen King once observed, it “looks and feels real.” The Hi-8 video and the CP-16’s black and white film is a hell of a juxtaposition, and already, in 2020, makes the film appear like it was from a totally different time. It’s locked in the nineties where it belongs.
Driving home alone that night, through the woods surrounding Croft-on-Tees, was unnerving to say the least. I got goosebumps recounting the movie for this introduction. The DVD menu still scares me. That’s how far this 82-minute masterpiece burrowed under my skin. It’s still genuinely frightening. Just as Jaws terrified beach-goers indefinitely, and swimming in the sea was never quite the same, you won’t be in a hurry to go hiking or camping in the woods again after witnessing The Blair Witch Project. So this Hallowe’en, make sure all lights are off, turn the volume up loud, and experience what I believe to be not only the greatest horror movie mythology ever conceived, but also “the scariest movie ever.”
Scarious Artists 