This hour and a half long film has been called, “one of the creepiest films since ‘The Exorcist,” by Entertainment Weekly. Roger Ebert said, “Thumbs up! Creative, inventive and ingenious.” This film, which was finished in 1999, had taken a new twist on the already popular horror movies. The producers and directors have decided to use a rather different style of mise-en-shot; they have decided to use a first-person, amateur, first-person point of view. Almost every camera shot has some movement to it because the camera was being held by one of the characters. The camera is not always in complete focus, at least at first; and most of the shot that are taken are very long shots. The creators of The Blair Witch Project have not done any real popular films previous to this, but were able to create a box-office hit because of the uniqueness of the final product.
The film begins with brief narrative, “In October of 1994, three student film-makers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary…A year later their footage was found.” This immediately grabs the audience’s attention and sets the stage for a litany of events that will soon give an answer to the question of what happened to the three students while they were in the woods. This formula of question and answer is common in many films in this industry. The movie follows the typical format of a movie in the genre of ‘Fantastic’, and never lets you really know the answer to the question. Throughout the film we are lead to believe that something super-natural is occurring but due to the unique camera-view that audience is indulged with, the audience is only able to see what the characters see. This brings up yet another point behind the uniqueness of the film. In most stories, the audience has more information than the characters in the film, the audience is often given inside information—but in this movie, that is not the case.
The onset of the movie begins with the group interviewing the local townspeople regarding the local legend of the Blair Witch. Taking the information as an introduction to their film the three students go into the woods and upon entry stumble across a pile of stones that are neatly placed. The first night in the woods the crew is awakened by some noise and when they wake and go outside they see three more piles of rocks, placed just how the others were when they first entered the woods. Since the stones were not there the night before, someone or something must have put them there. It is here that the monster’s presence is first noticed. There is an extended onset stage in the movie, because none of the three students want to recognize that there might be something un-natural out there. There was a series of unlikely and misfortunate events that took place such as: ‘losing’ their map, running low on supplies, etc. At the point where their tent is violently shaken in the middle of the night the group begins into the discovery stage of the movie, and they all decide that it is best to head back to the car and go home. Unity of the group starts to deteriorate to say the least and the group whom is now very lost in the woods sets-up the tent and will have to spend another night in the woods. When the awake in the morning one of the characters, Josh, is missing and is never ‘fully’ found. When Heather, another of the characters and the main camera worker, finds a bundle of sticks wrapped up with Josh’s shirt she opens it to find some of Josh’s body parts. At that point some type of monstrous being is confirmed for the characters, but the audience is still skeptical, because all the events that have occurred could have been logically explained.
The two remaining characters decide that they will make it back to the car and they hike all day with no such luck. As night begins to fall, the two hear what they believe to be Josh’s voice and they run vigorously to find the source; thus, coming upon an abandoned house. It is now completely dark out and the only light we see as the group runs all through the house is that of the camera, which Heather refuses to discard. Heather follows Mike—character number three in the film—to the basement where the final “confrontation” occurs. Something happens that causes Heather to drop the camera and for both of the individuals to perish.
This film has been labeled a horror flick by popular media, but as far as philosophers in this arena are concerned it may instead be considered a movie from the fantastic genre. This movie—minus the unique camera style—is very similar to Cat People, in that it never really shows the true being that is causing the chaos. In Cat People, we are given more hints and suggestions that lead us to believe that Irena is a shape-shifting panther, but in The Blair Witch Project, we are left out in the cold. Even at the end of the movie we are ‘up-in-the-air’ as to whether or not the group drove themselves crazy on their own, whether someone was following them and playing tricks on them, or whether there really was something paranormal going on. With that being said I believe that Noel Carroll would have to say that this movie is to be considered a member of the fantastic genre, because all of the events that occur could be linked to some explainable scientific reason, and that there is, in general, a lack of what Carroll would consider to be a ‘art-horror monster’. The definition of an art-horror monster says that the creature must be impure, threatening and cannot be explained by natural occurrences or be proven be any possible scientific reasoning as we understand it today. Although the movie was very successful in sparking horror in the audience, the film would not be labeled as a “horror” movie according to Carroll’s standards. This is why I believe that Carroll’s definition of what it means to be a horror movie is too narrow. Any movie whose purpose is to frighten the audience through acts of terror should be considered a horror movie. There should not be this requirement of a monster, at least no the very narrow description of an art-horror monster that Carroll details. In my opinion this is an ingenious horror film that served its purpose of making money and scaring the audiences.
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