The Blair Witch Project (1999) Review

When I started this blog I told myself that I would review every horror film I watch from now on and so far I’ve done this. Sometimes this means writing a review of a film I assume nearly every horror fan has seen. So just think of these types of “reviews” as more of a nostalgia trip, a look back to horror films of the past! So here’s my review/look back of The Blair Witch Project.

Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez (as Eduardo Sanchez)

Writers: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez (as Eduardo Sanchez)

Stars: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard

Budget: $60,000

Run Time : 81 minutes

Trivia – The actors were given no more than a 35-page outline of the mythology behind the plot, before shooting began. All lines were improvised and nearly all the events in the film were unknown to the three actors beforehand, and they were often on-camera surprises to them all.

Trivia – At 85%, this has the highest score on Rotten Tomatoes of any film that was nominated for the Razzie Award for Worst Picture.

The Blair Witch Project is responsible for 100’s of found footage films being made and why not? After all it was made for $60k and grossed $140 million in the USA alone. I’ve always liked found footage movies and this one was the first one in a while and the first to make a massive impression at the box office.

For me I always like the idea of this style of film but when I watch it more often than not they’re a disappointment I’ve reviewed a few for this site (click the title to read my review Unfriended (2014), The Entity aka La Entidad(2015), The Houses October Built (2015), JeruZalem (2015), As Above, So Below (2014), REC and REC 2(2009))so I decided to rewatch the one that kicked all these modern found footage films off, The Blair Witch Project as I hadn’t seen it since just after it was released.

After seeing the film people actually visited Burkittsville to try and find the Blair Witch

Now the premise is simple three students make a documentary about a legend in Maryland known as the Blair Witch who lives in the woods. They interview several locals who seem to think the legend is real.

The three students then head back to their hotel before making their way into the forest to see what they can find. It’s here the film starts with the scares, during their camping they begin to get lost and fall out with each other.

During the arguments they come across a few creepy things, weird twig dolls all over the place, stones appearing outside their tent in the night and most of all strange noises as they try to sleep.

The actors improvisation is tremendous!

This all leads them to a house and inevitable found footage style ending where you never really know what’s happened to them.

The Good

The atmosphere it creates is brilliant, this film was marketed extremely well and now it’s impossible to do what this film did, it made people question if it was real or not. The acting is so superb and with hardly any found footage coming to main stream attention before this the makers could claim it was real and have people believing it was.

The three characters are so superb and this is easily the most believable found footage film I’ve seen. Add the acting to the pacing of the film and you’ve got a successful combination.

The creepy house that plays a key role towards the end of the film

The Bad

Is it scary? Some people just don’t think so, all they see is a snotty woman crying into a camera, a bunch of stones and some noises in the night.

I really enjoyed this film when it first came out and although it’s not as good on a second watch it is still a cracking film. I think imdb is harsh in rating it at a 6.4, it seems there’s a lot of people hating on this film for some reason. Personally I think every horror fan should have seen this film once.

Creepy twig dolls or stupid bunch of unscary branches?

I think people who dislike found footage films really hate this film as it’s the one that spawned a now totally overused sub genre of horror. Blair Witch is often imitated but rarely match in it’s realism. I find it hard to believe any of you wouldn’t have seen this but if there are some of you out there go get a copy and watch it!

Overall Score – 8.5/10