You know you're in for some deep, psychological shit when there's a disclaimer at the beginning of a film. We already know that our three protagonists fail to make it out alive, let alone out of the woods. It's like saying, "We're going to film a train wreck, and you get to watch the crash."
For starters, I was in a painfully bored and lazy mood today (I don't have school Tuesdays or Thursdays because I transferred out of general ED, which means almost everyone I know is in class while I am not) and it was about 3:15 when I decided to finally buckle down and see what all the hype was about this movie. I'd heard rumors, but I wanted to see for myself how if I could handle this. I have a very, very weak stomach and nervous system when it comes to horror films, and this was exactly that: horrifying. Well, darn.I knew the basic premise: a 1999 mockumentary about three filmmakers (I thought they were from NYU but it never says) who go out into the woods in Maryland to see if this "Blair Witch" lady really existed and document their entire, haunting escapade. Thing is, the three people filming, Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, and Mike Williams (all using their real names), are actually improv actors cast by the actual writer-directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who are the first film students of UFC. Daniel and Eduardo gave the actors two cameras, a black and white 16 mm and a colored 8 mm, put them in the woods with a shitload of equipment to carry and a GPS (knowing what the task was, of course) and were told to follow it to the sites the production designers had decorated with witch craft trails, and act out the scenes. And guess what? It friggin worked. It was the first mockumentary to look like a documentary. And then some.
We start out with the enthusiastic, enunciating Heather (who must've had some kind of actor's voice training at school because she speaks like the actors in the 30's) and her two friends, Josh and Mike, who help her film some interviews with the residents of the town Blair in Maryland, including a crazy woman who is said to have met the witch as a child. There are some lines of dialogue that echo in my brain and make my spine shutter. Like, "She had this thick hair all down her arms, like horse hair. Like fur. And a wool shawl. And her face was just strange." "A little girl disappeared and returned 3 days later and talked of the old lady who's feet never touched the ground." "An abnormal amount of children disappeared...." "Seven children were found dead in the dead in the woods at her supposed site." Shit like that.
Once they get what they need at the town, they make the drive up to the woods to an unmissable trail and begin their hike upwards relying on only a map and a compass to guide them. Nothing for miles but brush and trees and sky. It's all or nothing. The cameras are shaky as Heather, who is the main narrator and very willful about what they're doing, Mike, who turns out to be the whiner of the group, and Josh, the calm, logical one, trudge to their first landmark, a stream. The first night in the tent is uneventful.
The second day on the job does not go so smoothly. Mike pulls his first tantrum when he stops trusting Heather with the directions on the map and thinks they're lost. Heather insists they're not lost and they continue to another site. Only this one is by accident. And it's the creepiest thing I've ever seen. We hear Mike yelling at something hanging from the trees, "all around us!" It's stick children. Sticks formed into bodies and hanging from rope by their "necks." They turn slowly in the breeze, silent and eerie. There's a lot of them.
The second night is the first time the three wake up in the tent in a fit of whispers. There's a sound. It's not that distinctive, but it's there. Heather, being annoyingly brave, unzips the tent and listens, Mike with the sound equipment. It sounds very much like falling rocks every few moments. Little, sharp ones just falling into a pile of more rocks far off, but we don't actually see it. We just know they've been discovered.
To make it worse, the viewer is realizing the simple mistakes that you realize only draws the Witch closer to the pack. Mike. He yells in anger. Loudly. Very loudly. And it's completely unnecessary that he do this other than that he is pissed off. No one catches him on this and you just want to tape his mouth shut.
From day 3 on is a masterpiece of terror. Reason numero uno for this symphony of nervous breakdowns (both on screen and happening inside me) is the outstanding performances. This film would not be half as scary if you didn't believe the tidal waves of emotional conflict and tears and arguing and screaming that happen to these three completely developed characters, especially Heather. They're off the charts. Too much for one person to handle let alone a viewer to witness. But you're so thoroughly engaged that it's impossible to look away. The three are completely lost. And they're being hunted. And the worst thing? You believe every second of it.
On the third night, all hell breaks loose, but only temporarily. They're woken up again, only this time they don't even have to go outside the tent to freak out completely. They hear the rocks closer and scramble to get their clothes on and then sprint out of the tent, the camera shaking like crazy. But Heather still manages to film, for about 6 seconds, a hovering figure at a constant distance in front of them, as she screams, "What the fuck is that?!" And my brain went into overkill. It's a lot to handle.
Long story short, I started to pause quite frequently once Josh is missing one morning. And then stopped the thing as Heather and Mike venture into the witch's lair. The last 5 minutes are said to contain some of the scariest images in film history as we witness Heather in her last moments before the camera is dropped. I turned it off before that. Done. No more, please God. But it did it's freaking job. It's absolutely bone chilling. I think I'm hallucinating random sounds now.... I need a hug!
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