In October of 1994, three student filmmakers dissapeared in the woods near Burkittesville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. One year later, their footage was found.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
(Artisan)
Starring:  Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard.
Screenplay:  Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
Producers:  Gregg hale and Robin Cowie.
Directors:  Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
MPAA Rating:  R (profanity, adult themes, intense situations)
Running Time:  86 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
     The last of the 34 films I screened at Sundance this year was not
merely the best film the festival had to offer.  THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
is a work of genre-redefining brilliance, a strong early candidate for the
best film of 1999, and one of the most unnerving psychological thrillers
ever made.  It works on the kind of primal level that will leave you
shaking for hours afterwards.  It's the kind of film for which festivals
like this truly exist.
     The concept alone is ingenious enough to grab interest (though not
utterly unique): an on-screen caption at the beginning of the film
announces that three college students disappeared in the Black Hills of
Maryland in 1994 while making a documentary film, and that only the
footage they shot was ever found.  Thus begins a 90-minute, verite-style
tale of the three students -- director Heather (Heather Donahue),
cameraman Josh (Joshua Leonard) and sound man Mike (Michael Williams) --
and their project to make a film about a local legend.  The story goes
that mass child murders and other disappearances in the area formerly
known as Blair are the work of the "Blair Witch," who lives in the hills
above the town.  The project leads to a two-day hike for location footage,
two days that we watch turn into a seemingly endless nightmare when the
trio gets lost and the sounds at night grow ever more disturbing.
     THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT begins with a seductive lightness of tone, as
the filmmakers record both their own preparations for the project (on
digital video) and the background interviews that will become part of
their film (on 16 mm film).  The interviews are frequently quite funny --
including a mother whose toddler grows disturbed by the scary story she's
telling -- while they also provide insight that the filmmakers really
don't take the legend very seriously.  The video pieces, meanwhile,
establish character traits that become crucial later in the film.
Heather, the project's leader, shows an unshakable-bordering-on-foolish
confidence in herself, leading to trouble; Mike, who expresses concerns
earlier than anyone, becomes the voice of common sense.  Writer/directors
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez don't just set up a scary story -- they
set up the people to whom this scary story will happen.
     And folks, scary ain't even the half of it.  THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT
is the kind of film that wreaks its havoc almost entirely in your head,
just as the events in the film wreak havoc in the heads of the characters.
The directors use darkness and sound with shudder-inducing effectiveness,
never once resorting to cheap, trite tricks like people jumping into frame
or blasts of dissonant music (there is, in fact, no musical underscore of
any kind).  What we experience in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the collapse
of sanity -- as days go by, the three filmmakers run out of food, suffer
from sleep deprivation and cold, and gradually come to believe that they
may never find their way home again.  Heather reassures herself and the
others early in their experience that "it's very hard to get lost in
America, and even harder to stay lost," but the film plays on exactly that
fear of the wildnerness with a technique that will leave you
adrenaline-charged and breathless.
     Some viewers may be put off by the fact that the set-up guarantees a
bad end for the protagonists, or incredulous regarding why they would
continue to record their experiences.  Those elements might have troubled
me had THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT not established its characters so well that
they mattered more than the situation in which they find themselves.  All
three of the largely-improvised performances are dead on -- I dare a
viewer to find a moment when you can tell anyone is acting -- but Heather
Donahue's work is emotionally shattering.  Late in the film, she
videotapes an apology to her own parents and the parents of the two men
for placing them in such danger, the camera capturing only her eyes as she
speaks.  They are the eyes of a hunted animal, and the words she speaks
will chill you to your soul.  THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT works as a study of
disintegrating humanity only because we feel the humanity of these three
brash kids to begin with.  You expect a good horror film to be terrifying.
What makes this one great -- perhaps one of the best ever -- is that it's
also heartbreaking.
     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 witch crafts:  10.
                   Visit Scott Renshaw's Screening Room
                    http://www.inconnect.com/~renshaw/
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