Spooky Season 2022: The Blair Witch Project Review

It’s the summer of 1999 and a little film called The Blair Witch Project is about to be released and change the horror genre forever. The film generated a ton of press for several different reasons and went on to become one of the most successful independent horror films of all time from both a critical and financial standpoint making nearly $250 million on a budget of less than $1 million. The film follows three film students who venture into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend. The film is presented in the found footage format and a text at the start indicates the three students went missing and the footage was found a year later. The film stars Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams as the three film students and features both actors and non-actors as the townspeople of Burkittsville, Maryland.

One of the biggest debates when this film initially released was if the footage in the film was real or not. The studio created an elaborate marketing campaign to support this including faux police reports and having the three main members of the cast listed on IMDB as missing or presumed dead. It’s also one of the first films in history that was marketed primarily through the internet. Even over 20-years after the film’s release and it being well-proven to be a work of fiction, it still captures a raw authenticity that few films have ever captured. It really does feel like one is watching exactly what would happen if three film students got lost in the woods while making a documentary on a local legend.

This is the true definition of a love it or hate it film with some people praising it for how terrifying it is and others finding it to be an uneventful slog that’s the farthest possible thing from being scary and it’s hard to argue against either side. It is truly a slow burn with a lot of the more frightening aspects being implied or heard rather than seen which makes it all the more effective and uncomfortable for those who appreciate that sort of horror. The atmosphere is truly creepy throughout, and the third act is still just as chilling and scary to watch to this day as it was over 20-years ago. But at the same time, it’s genuinely not for everybody and it’s very easy to see why audience reactions were so divided in 1999 and continue to be still.

A large part of why it works so well and feels like a real documentary is due to the performances from it’s lead cast. They all feel like real people and never once feel like actors which is the highest compliment to give a film like this. They perfectly sell the fear and terror their characters are going through in such an authentic and disturbing way. They bicker like real people and behave in a way that feels exactly like what a normal person would do if they were lost in the woods and started encountering a bunch of unsettling things. The characters might be a bit irritating at times but that only adds to realistic feeling of it all and major props for using non-actors in a lot of the town scenes at the start of the film.

In the end, The Blair Witch Project is something that everybody should see at least once in their life just to see what side of the coin they fall on. It might not be all that scary by today’s standards for some but its influence on horror and especially the found footage genre is still felt today. Even if one hates the film, it’s hard not to appreciate what it did and how it does it. It’s the perfect film to watch around Halloween time and the exact opposite type of film to watch before going camping in the woods.

still courtesy of Artisan Entertainment

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/