Meadhall of the Comitatus

Day 2 of the review-a-thon, and I picked a much better movie to fall under the scope this time. It’s a movie I’m sure not many people have ever heard about, but it is my duty to show a whole new world to you, the faithful reader.

This is a bad, bad place to suddenly find yourself in the middle of the night. If this ever happens to you, just turn around and leave. Seriously.

Okay, that last line is all bullshit. C’mon, say it with me: “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.” And 4 years after it hit the theaters, my review was found.

Premise – 4/5

If you ask me, it’s hard to get more ingenious than this. Three film students decide upon making their big documentary project a sort of “In Search of…” about the mythological Blair Witch. Folklore and legends abound that the woods of Burkittsville have been haunted by this being for centuries, and so the team heads down there to pick up her trail and weave their documentary. As you can tell from the intro and all the promos, things don’t turn out quite as the three plan.

Now, that’s a simple, albeit cool, premise for a movie anyway, but what really sets “The Blair Witch Project” apart is the style it adopts to tell you its story. There are no cameras except for the two that the students brought to film their documentary, and everything, literally everything that you see in the movie comes from those. It’s an insanely immersive effect used to its maximum potential, and would score major points for that alone. But that ain’t all.

No sir, not only is everything you see from the documentary that will never be finished, but The Blair Witch Project has almost no script to speak of. The three actors were sent out into the woods (after the fun townie interviews they filmed for “their” movie), where they were promptly cut off from any direct contact with anyone but each other. The devious-ass directors would simply slip notes into a basket when the actors were either asleep or elsewhere, and these notes would have directions for where to head next, and any relevant scenes or action they wanted the actors to play. And the parts where they get woken up in the middle of the night to weird sounds and other freaky stuff? Most of the time, the actors never knew what was going to happen and when. Obviously, they knew *something* would happen, but they were completely in the dark and caught by surprise as often as not.

Just friggin’ brilliant, when you think about it. Not only did the movie use only two cameras, but they didn’t script hardly anything, and almost all of it was ad-libbed on the fly. And don’t even get me started on the stellar marketing campaign that accompanied this movie. What an incredible package!

Cast – 3/5

I don’t even know what to say about this category. It’s hard to say that they were acting, when really, the whole time Heather, Josh, and Mike were playing themselves (didn’t even change their names, which is probably a good thing since they’d be hard to keep straight 24/7 and when the adrenaline or fatigue start kicking in), with certain additions based on the concept of the movie. They really were hungry, lost, and freaked the hell out. Although there is some definite “acting” involved in certain scenes, occasionally they’re overacted and almost cringeworthy (the infamous “where’s the fucking map?” scene springs to mind). But at times there’s a remarkable intensity to their performances, especially given that, in the back of their minds, they *had* to know they were only in a movie. Since I don’t know how to score it, I’ll mark the casting as happily average.

Cinematography & Design – 3/5

Another tricky category to designate a solid rank to. Everything’s very much film as you go, so there aren’t any spectacular angles or what you could exactly call innovation. But at the same time, this is way more a credit to the movie than a bad thing. The lack of flash, bang, boom, and zing emphasizes the realistic, primal experience that the cast is trapped in, and for a fictional movie, you don’t get much more cinema verite’ than this.

There’s only a couple of actual sets created (or at least, tweaked) in this movie, as well. Particularly eerie is the small grove that the students stumble on, from which every tree hang the iconic stick-man effigies. Did you ever think a lack of a soundtrack or score could sound so good? Also worthy of praise is the creepy as hell, dilapidated Rustin Parr house. If you’ve seen the movie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. The fact that the only lighting comes from those mounted on the cameras of the unfortunate students has a really unsettling effect. It makes you part of the action, and in my opinion, that’s just about priceless.

Special Effects – 5/5

You’re probably wondering how in the hell I could give a 5/5 rating to special effects, when there really aren’t any at all to speak of in this movie. If so, then you’ve just answered your own question. This movie is not about special effects, this movie’s about very real people in a very real situation, and if the producers had decided to show us anything resembling a Blair Witch, or fountains of blood, then it would undo everything that makes it work so well in the first place. The lack of special effects isn’t an absence, really, it’s just something completely unnecessary and potentially damaging to the story, and that’s that.

The only blood you’re going to see in this movie shows up at the beginning of the final act, and is most effective in its minimalism. I’m not sure what that is in the flannel wrap, other than the blood, but I’m not 100% sure that I want to, either.

Popcorn Factor – 3/5

Well, if you’re looking for a fun movie with a high body count and some sort of masked killer, prepare to be let down. The first part of the movie isn’t exactly fast-paced, though it’s still enjoyable. The set-up of the documentary, the interviews with the townies, and the soon to be gone sense of fun and adventure the students feel succeed in giving you all the backstory, early characterization, and exposition you require. It would seem to be a film no-no, but since it’s part of the documentary, getting that stuff out of the way first works quite well. Unfortunately, the middle section, when they slowly begin to get more and more lost in the woods barely plods along, and some of the characterizations really make you want to slap the actors. Eventually, that passes, and the final act’s intensity is let loose to be every bit as cool and suspenseful as one could hope.

You have to realize some things about The Blair Witch Project. This movie isn’t about making you jump in your seat, and then having you giggle about it. It’s all about concept. It plays with your imagination in the dark as you struggle to hear what’s out there, and makes you hope it’s all a mistake, or that you’re hallucinating. What the core of this movie boils down to is the terror of becoming completely and hopelessly lost, something that every person has felt to some extent. It’s about the stress that such a situation can cause, bringing a person to the breaking point, and, of course, about a Very Bad Thing that we will never know or fully understand.

As long as you’re willing to watch this movie without any preconceived notions of what “horror” and “fear” are supposed to mean in cinema, as long as you’re willing to let yourself be absorbed by the experience, and not the medium, you will not be disappointed by The Blair Witch Project.

I don’t often have occasion to say this, but this movie is fucking scary.