The Blair Witch Project is an American psychological horror film which was was released in 1999, directed and written by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, and produced by Robin Cowie and Gregg Hale. The film stars Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard, all playing themselves and the film was distributed by Artisan Entertainment.
The film is one of the first psychological-documentary style films of its time, and its said that it set the benchmark for sililar films such as the Paranormal Activity films. Unlike most horror films, The Blair Witch Project is not based around graphic violence or 'torture porn' style films of its time, like SAW for example, The Blair Witch Project is in fact much more intelligent and thought provoking than the gore theme, and arguably much scarier.
Although the film is of documentary style and is much different from other high-budget, large production films, it still loosely follows Todorov's narrative structure. At the beginning of the film, the trio are at thier house and are quite looking forward to the journey they are about to go on, they are definitely calm and this is definitely the equilibrium stage of the film. The next part of Todorov's structure would be the problem stage. This arises when they get to the woods and actually become lost. Feuds begin to influence the peace within the group and there is no longer the calm atmosphere which was apparent at the beginning of the film. When the problems begin, the male characters blame Heather for losing the map, and therefore why they are lost "you lost it, admit that first" "I know were not lost" she is in denial at this stage and wants to remain the leader of the group, which goes against normal convention as Heather is actually female. Eventually however the team eventually recognise that they are in fact lost and are in potential danger. This is the recognition stage of the film when the characters realise they are in trouble and are in a a quite dangerous situation. How ever much the trio dont want to admit to the trouble they have got themselves into, they certainly cant help it and they do eventually move onto try to fix the situation they are in. Although they are very helpless and very lost, they attempt to find thier way out of the woods. This is where the film starts to climax and intensify. The sounds they keep hearing in the woods become more loud and impactful and they encounter the voodoo like dolls and piles of rocks more frequently. Until this point, the film mainly follows Todorovs structure. However, the final stage of the structure is when the film becomes different from the structure. Usually there would be a final equilibrium in most films, where everything goes back to calm, howvever in The Blair Witch Project there is an entirely different ending. While trying to escape the woods and The Blair Witch, the trio discover an abandoned house, and in the house, many hand prints and scary objects. This is when the film really intensifies and climaxes, and it doesnt actually calm until Michael, Heather and Josh are all killed by the Blair Witch. This opposes with most horror films when the protagonsits are safe by the end, for example Let The Right One In. So although the film mainly follows the structure, the final stage is not followed, which in my opinion differentiates it from other films and this makes it so brilliant.
I think the audience would find this particular film very scary due to the use of hand held cameras and the way the film is made to look like real life, and with normal people. The audience would be imagining themselves in the situation and they would be able to do this because of the way the film is very realistic and it shows how easy it is to get into one of these awful situations. The audience will side with the protagonists and will be putting themselves in their situations throughout the entire film.
The things that make this film a horror are different from the usual film of the horror genre. In normal horror films, you would expect to see blood, gore, monsters, demons and generally quite scary things, however in The Blair Witch Project the viewer never actually sees anything, however its the way the film is made and the way the actors show their fear is what makes the film so scary. The horror from the film comes psychologically rather than an obvious scary demon or thing, this is what makes the film so different from others.
The film definitely moves the horror genre forward because at the time their hadn't been any similar films made in the sense that the film and whats scary about it is all psychological. The Blair Witch Project has been said to have been the influence of many similar films for example the Paranormal Activity films because they are predominantly hand held cameras and documentary style. Therefore the film has definitely influenced the horror genre and has moved it forward greatly.
There are 3 main characters in the film and it would be difficult to apply Vladamir Propp's theory about character roles. He suggested there should be; the villain the hero, the donor, the helper, the father, the princess, the dispatcher and finally the false hero. In this film however the only character you can say fits to this theory would be The Blair Witch, the villain. However none of the 3 protagonists fit the other roles as eventually they're all killed therefore none could be the hero. You could argue that Helen may be the false hero as she tries to take the lead however.
There is binary opposition in the film, in this case it would be good and evil, with the 3 protagonists as the good characters and The Blair Witch as the evil character. And there is also opposition in the sense of whats reality and whats not reality in the film. As it advances, the 3 become more and more scared by everything and they become more disorientated. This means the film builds in intensity and therefore fear increases.
In conclusion, although The Blair Witch Project is very different to the quintessential horror movie, it is still very scary and has become an example to other horror producers, such as Steven Schneider and Jason Blum who produced Paranormal Activity. The film is very effective and well written, which is why its been voted as one of the best horror films of all time.
Kieran Browne
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