In October of 1994 three student filmmakers
disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a
documentary...A year later their footage was found.
The Blair Witch Project was once the highest-grossing film
picked up at a film festival. Twenty-seven years later, the record was
surpassed by shock hit Obsession. Curry Barker's breakthrough feature arrives
at a moment when cinema's future is being mulled over by muttering cinephiles
and film buffs. The fragmented state of modern media has posed heavy questions
about cinema-going, and Obsession’s popularity has suggested that the kids are
all right. Audiences still enjoy munching on popcorn in a darkened auditorium
and glaring at the silver screen. But by outgrossing The Blair Witch Project,
it feels like a baton is being passed.
Movie hype has been with us since The Arrival of a Train,
but Blair Witch’s marketing campaign defined movie promotion for years to come.
In some ways, it set a precedent. Hollywood only came around to the idea that
the worldwide interweb could sell movies after The Blair Witch website showed
them the way. Before we knew the name and tools, The Blair Witch and its early
internet space, rich with the film’s fictional mythology, created what we now
know as virality. Reading the multitude of fan theories and extended lore of
Obsession that litter social media only highlights the foundations built by The
Blair Witch Project and its multimedia assault.
The tagline is perhaps the most succinct way to describe the
film’s story. But to elaborate, Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard and Mike Williams
head to the Maryland backwoods near Burkittsville to film a documentary about
the notorious Blair Witch. They wander around the town and film some pithy
interviews with some of the colourful characters before heading into the woods
to film the rest of the documentary. Things go awry when the trio lose their
bearings in the woods and find themselves stalked by an unseen presence. The
collected footage was allegedly found, assembled chronologically and presented
to the viewer as the last documented footage of the filmmakers.
The Blair Witch Project is not the first found-footage film.
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is noted as the forefather of the genre. However, it
was banned in countries like the UK, and notoriety kept it in stasis. From a
release perspective, The Last Broadcast (1998) pipped The Blair Witch to the
post by a few months. Yet it remained a lesser-seen curiosity of video stores
as the marketing hype attained elsewhere eclipsed anything that feature could
provide. These earlier movies never marked the genre aesthetic the way Daniel
Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez's film managed. No matter the genre, every Found
Footage film from Cloverfield (2008) to Project X (2012) to Project Almanac
(2015) seems to look to The Blair Witch Project as the main source. Notable
successes like Paranormal Activity (2007) and Rec (2007) not only became
popular franchises in their own right but also pushed the bar in what the genre
could do. Yet as more of these films came about, the mechanics behind them
became more “produced”. These later projects are entertaining (I absolutely
adore Cloverfield), but all share a taste of the theatrical that affects the
immersion The Blair Witch Project provides.
The seeming lack of artifice found in The Blair Witch
Project, along with its unique placement in time, still makes the film stand
out today. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez took a distinctive
guerrilla approach to filmmaking to get what they wanted for the production.
The duo asked their trio of actors to improvise their performances through
messages left for them each day. The two camps communicated via walkie-talkie
while the actors filmed their footage each day. During the day, the actors were
deprived of food. At night, the filmmakers would unnerve the actors by
disturbing them in their sleep. The combination of elements resulted in the
cast becoming disoriented, distressed, and more susceptible to the fictional
nightmare forming around them.
The blend of vérité-style filmmaking and improvisational
boot camp set The Blair Witch apart from its predecessors. This experimental
blend of elements makes it the best example of a student film gone wrong.
Praise was heaped on the film as a great showcase of creating maximum tension
with minimal material at their disposal. But the film owes so much to its cast,
who suffer the director's unconventional treatment to become the disparate trio
of youths thrown together into a wooded existentialist hell. From the start,
the three characters already hold an open hostility towards each other. Mike,
the baby of the bunch, is only on board the project as a favour to Josh, in
that typical student style. Heather’s upbeat assertiveness is misinterpreted
and soon attacked for directorial hubris. Josh comes across as the cool kid who
thinks he knows it all. Perhaps the most horrific aspect of the
film is that Blair Witch doesn’t need to be seen or perform any wild spectacle
on her victims. The group lose their way unusually. Perhaps
supernaturally led astray by unseen forces. Yet the group's charged egos do
little to help matters. The film becomes an update of Sartre’s No Exit. The
Witch may be manipulating the woods, but the trio don’t help themselves. They
wear themselves down, allowing their bodies to be mentally tenderised for an
unseen presence. Remove the supernatural element, and this is an accurate
takedown of an amateur film disintegration. The things that go bump in the
night are unsettling, but the ease with which these three emotionally tear each
other down becomes equally disconcerting.
The cast regretted using their real names for the film.
Despite the film becoming a huge hit, none of the actors broke into Hollywood.
Their filmographies are scant, with Josh Leonard being the most successful of
the three. Heather Donoughe quit acting, changed her name, and became a weed
seller. The film was presented to people as a true story, with the film's
marketing going through the roof with the idea that all three were missing,
presumed dead. The marketing campaign drew a vast amount of critical attention
towards the cast, who were both praised and derided in equal measure, while the
cast picked up Razzies for perceived bad acting. Yet what makes The Blair Witch
Project stand out from its counterparts is the unique rawness that stems from
the performances. Although you can mimic the aesthetic easily, most imitators
never dream up the same cocktail of chemistry and improvisation the ensemble
served. Its cast, handpicked for their ability to improvise, were asked to rely
on their wits while the crew of the film quite literally fucked with them in
the dead of night. This bizarre mixture of elements hasn't been replicated
nearly as well by other films, except perhaps REC. Also, with the thrall of
hype and marketing now further removed, the performances are even stronger,
despite some of the narrative's bizarre features. Such aspects are best written
off as witchy manipulation.
Rewatching The Blair Witch Project in 2026 can have viewers
seeing Heather as the original Skyler White (Breaking Bad). Original reviews
labelled Heather as an egotistical bitch, whose self-serving personality was
leading these poor, harmless boys to certain doom. In fact, Heather, for her
faults, was derided for trying to preserve order. It is both fascinating and
saddening to see Heather as a prototype for modern female creators now.
Watching Heather now reminded me of director Anna Biller detailing her troubles
making The Love Witch (2016). In interviews, Biller details the deep scrutiny
that her filmmaking decisions faced. I found Heather to be under similar
scrutiny. Plot revelations expose the unwanted pressure she was under. Josh and
Mike’s obnoxiousness contrast fiercely with Heather’s self-conscious need for
influence. From the start, the boys snipe and needle her over little things.
They rattle Heather's cage even when the shit really begins to hit the fan. The
film points towards the future in one telling moment, when Josh, at the end of
his tether, makes a pointed statement about Heather’s love of being behind the
camera:
“It's not quite reality. It's
like a totally filtered reality. It's like you can pretend everything's not
quite the way it is.”
It’s a moment that triggers both Heather and us now that we
live in a world consistently filtered through cameras and screens.
The films muddying the waters of reality didn’t help
matters. People saw this fictionalised version of Heather as the real person.
The relationship between actress and audience became parasocial. For me, the
animosity Heather managed to create exposes just how potent her performance is.
At one point, she is berated for her desire to keep shooting despite clearly
being stalked by an unknown entity. She screams that this is all she has left.
It’s a moment that hits home since the rise of incident as media content. Now
all we do is document everything that happens to us. Heather's desire to keep
documenting the supernatural events around her is now riffed on in
found-footage films for now and beyond. Famously, the character Hud, played by
TJ Miller in the sci-fi found-footage film Cloverfield, also notably highlights
his need to keep filming. A film that would not exist without The Blair Witch
Project. And Hud is a far more annoying character than Heather ever was.
However, he got none of the hate.
Heather Donahue decision to quit acting and reinvent herself
was an unfortunate fallout from the film's release. Finding a female horror
performance as powerful as Heather's turn is tough. Is this hyperbole? Well
yes. But the infamous apology, where the young wannabe filmmaker's wide-eyed,
teary visage faces the camera while grimly accepting accountability for this
tragic chain of events, has been one of horror’s most iconic images for a
quarter of a century now. And for good reason. Think of The Blair Witch
Project, think of that scene. All the imperfect components make the moment so
distinctive. The awkward composition, dripping snot and quivering voice make
the scene. Every time I watch that monologue, I’m completely immersed. In that
moment, I believed her. I feared for her.
But I feared for all the characters. This is thanks to the
publicity, which did a great job of creating concern. Now that the media
shenanigans have subsided, I still love the rawness of the performances and how
well Myrick and Sánchez crafted a one-of-a-kind product of controlled chaos. My
favourite example may be from the early vox-pop interviews the students hold
with the Burkittsville townsfolk. The interview involving a mother and child
(Susan Gooch and Ingrid EmGee) is a wonderfully unscripted moment of
serendipity. As an infant, Ingrid actively tries to silence her gossipy mom
from telling a scary story in a way that couldn’t be captured if
“planned”. Yet in simply deciding to
keep an unknowing child's instinctive reaction becomes the perfect primer for
the events that proceed later.
As more time has passed since its release, the film's
contrivances are now more obvious. The cynical eye of the present would provide
a higher level of scrutiny, especially of the marketing hype. The website and
surrounding fake documentaries were unique when they were created. These days
the marketing lore wouldn't look out of place on a creepypasta wiki, next to
the likes of Slenderman, an internet legend that owes a lot to The Blair Witch.
However, the “raw footage” that became The Blair Witch Project still holds
water. The filmmakers' use of form sows deeply embedded seeds of doubt. The
performances don’t feel “performed”. It's easy to get wrapped up in the fear
and confusion on display. None of it works if anyone knew more than they did.
Something that feels impossible to pull off now.
The theme that stands out most in 90s American Horror is
postmodernism. This ranges from Candyman's (1992) then-modernised commentary on
race and class to the meta-winking references featured in Scream (1996). The
Blair Witch Project lands at the decade's end as an exclamation point. Scream
toyed with the idea that everyone was hip to cinematic lore. They knew what
they were watching. Which was part of the fun. The Blair Witch Project shifted
things into a different gear, pushing through the fourth wall and throwing
everyone into a realm where no one is sure what is real or fake. It demolishes
the media riffs of Scream or Urban Legend (1998) and rebuilds horror cinema
into something uncannier: A mutated hybrid of urban legend, audience
participation, and cinema verité.
The Blair Witch caused a storm on its release and looks very quaint now. Many scoffed at the time, and it is easy to dismiss now. Modern films operating in the same sphere have eclipsed what it did. Just look at Obsession or even the famous imitator Paranormal Activity. But undeniably, The Blair Witch changed the game. Even now, with the marketing removed, something about the film still lingers for fans like me. The film worked on me as a 15-year-old on my first viewing. That time, I had walked to the cinema via a shortcut through the woods. The film ensured I got a lift home rather than walking back through the woods. But the most striking example of Blair Witch's effectiveness was in my third viewing. I was in college only 3 years after its original release. I was studying film and one of the few students (possibly the only one) who had seen it previously. These other students had heard of the film but had no idea what to expect. That frame of reference was missing. No marketing hype for these kids. The class watched the film on VHS on a tiny-screened, big-backed television. It was that long ago. The film finished, and the audience was silent. Once we left the lecture theatre and daylight hit our eyes, the group began chatting emphatically about what they just watched. For all the conversation Obsession has generated recently, let's hope it still holds the power to have film students debating so ardently in 2050, as my colleagues and I did 20 odd years ago.
The Blair Witch Project can currently be found on various streaming channels
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