I saw the Blair Witch Project last night. It's a truly great
horror film. At a time when so many movies are relying on
computer-generated effects for landscapes, creatures, and even
main characters, this short, inexpensive film shows that the best
thrills are left to the imagination of the viewer.
The cast consists of three amateurs; the setting is an eastern
woodland forest, located in Maryland, which in many instances
most people would consider it a relatively unspooky place; the
camera work is left to the amateur crew; the film is only 82
minutes long. Everything I have described would normally work
against any movie wishing to appeal to a mass audience, but the
result instead is likely to be this Summer's biggest hit after
the turgid Phantom Menace.
Some parts of the movie in the beginning -- despite its short
length -- move very slowly, but in retrospect I think this was a
smart move by the film makers. The commonness of the conversation
between the characters in the beginning gives a bigger payoff to
the horrific sequences in the final 30 minutes. The final scene
is so haunting that I'm still not able to put it out of my mind.
I have to disagree with Rask's complaint on the camera work. The
herky-jerky movements of the hand-held cameras were essential to
put the audience in the same disoriented state as the characters.
We see nothing they do not see, and the erratic and jumpy pans of
the black forest as the cameras search for whatever is out there
in the dead of the night are some of the scariest scenes in
recent filmdom.
