Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s “The Blair Witch Challenge” (1999) was not the primary horror movie to make the most of the “discovered footage” angle.
Others got here earlier than it that additionally claimed to be “actual,” documentary footage of a daunting anomaly that was caught on digital camera. Nonetheless, even with movie historical past reminding us of different works that pushed this angle (extra on this later), “The Blair Witch Challenge” succeeded in a approach that not solely created a particular sub-genre of horror movie however discovered widespread reputation by being among the many first movies to make the most of the Web as a advertising and marketing device.
Additionally, and that is most necessary, the movie remains to be scary a long time later.
The very first thing we see is “In October of 1994, three scholar filmmakers disappeared within the woods close to Burkittsville, Md., whereas taking pictures a documentary. A 12 months later, their footage was discovered.”
After the title card (which additionally adorned a lot of the posters and trailers main as much as the discharge), it begins with a blurry shot that switches into focus of documentarian Heather O’Donohue. It’s an ideal begin, as O’Donohue, enjoying herself (as do her two male co-stars), is the true focus of the movie.
Set on Halloween, with a movie crew of three – O’Donohue, Michael Williams (embodying the face of concern) and Joshua Leonard (the mandatory skeptic and, arguably the one who suffers probably the most for his doubts) – examine the rising fantasy of the Blair Witch.
If all you keep in mind about “The Blair Witch Challenge” is the forest-set squabbling, shaky digital camera work and histrionics, it’s a pleasure to remind viewers how involving the primary act is. The footage is at all times handheld and alternates between colour and black and white.
The early interviews with the townsfolk are participating, good humored and well-paced. At one level, there’s an interview with a lady who identifies herself as Mary Brown – it’s chilling, as she presents woodwork that, in my ’99 mindset, offered an apparent clue.
Is Mary Brown the Blair Witch?
The leads journey deep into the Maryland woods and, with each passing day, uncover they’re misplaced and that somebody or one thing is making nightly visits to their campground. Then one in all them vanishes.
Whereas not the primary “discovered footage” fake supernatural documentary, “The Blair Witch Challenge” was the primary to catch on like this. Pre-“Blair Witch,” there was Charles B. Pierce’s nonetheless fantastic, if awfully quaint “The Legend of Boggy Creek” (1972) and Dean Alioto’s easy, chilling “The McPherson Tape” (1989).
Put up-“Blair Witch,” we not solely bought the rapidly made, formidable however conceptually misguided “Guide of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” (2000), however the apparent rip-off of “The St. Francisville Experiment” (2000), “Cloverfield” (2008), “REC” (2007) and the American remake “Quarantine” (2008), “Paranormal Exercise” (2009) and “Chronicle” (2012), to call only a few.
There have been additionally style movies that utilized the approach as a storytelling system, starting from “Halloween: Resurrection” (2002) to George A. Romero’s “Diary of the Lifeless” (2008) and M. Evening Shyamalan’s “The Go to” (2015).
Whether or not you go way back to “In Search Of…” think about the notorious “Cannibal Holocaust” to be the true originator of this style (I don’t), the devious novelty of watching a “actual,” discovered encapsulation of the unnatural has at all times been irresistible. The Blair Witch was solely one in all many media Pandora’s Bins to return earlier than and since.
As a result of “The Blair Witch Challenge” was shot on movie and within the overly acquainted digital mode that virtually each subsequent discovered footage horror film has been since, it has a scrappy really feel, akin to Romero’s “Evening of the Dwelling Lifeless.”
O’Donohue’s is the movie’s middle. She is typically irritating but in addition clever, engaged and genuine. Whereas her work has been usually parodied, O’Donohue offers a terrific efficiency, and her massive scene (you already know the one) might have been filmed at an unflattering angle however her straight-to-the-camera confession remains to be heartbreaking.
The photographs of the documentarians filming themselves turns the digital camera into a personality and storytelling device, not a POV.
All of it begins like a droll tenting journey video and turns into more and more unusual (one other odd concept that circulated the 12 months of the movie’s launch that also holds up – if it’s not Mary Brown, then perhaps it truly is simply O’Donohue (the character, not the model of herself she’s enjoying…you already know what I imply).
Because the filmmakers get misplaced (“I agreed to a scouted-out mission!”), the tensions construct. Within the age of YouTube, Tik Tok and actuality TV, that is much less arcane than one would think about.
The complaints lobbed on the movie in ’99 nonetheless maintain up. The digital camera shakes an excessive amount of, the characters get on our nerves and the third act reveal is extra cerebral than finite.
Contemplating the way in which the characters are sometimes offered in an unfavorable gentle (Heather’s shrill self-importance contrasted with the sulking whine of the lads), it’s no marvel audiences thought this was actual.
Nonetheless, “The Blair Witch Challenge” (particularly if seen with the lights off) is horrifying, because the distant noises that encompass the camp at evening, the sudden look of the Stick Males and the morning “present” outdoors the tent are nonetheless jolting.
The digital camera is weaponized, because it not solely captures the horrors however sometimes turns into the device by which the three use to outlive; their cameras are additionally utilized by us as a personality examine and by them as a confession sales space.
Somebody notes, “I can see why you want this digital camera – it’s not fairly actuality.”
Certainly, it’s simpler to have a look at the display screen than face the reality in entrance of them. At one level, the trio decides to move east, as a result of they recall The Depraved Witch of the West. The ultimate scene performs like “Hansel and Gretel.” The ending remains to be severely terrifying, an immersion right into a haunted home with the ultimate photographs creating insufferable stress.
As a result of the footage is allegedly actual (and that was what many believed in ’99, even after the movie performed in theaters!), we lean in nearer, trying on the prospects.
It is a Rorschach Check of a horror movie, as some felt cheated and declared it the Emperor’s New Garments, whereas others deemed it an prompt basic.
How a lot ought to the celebrities of The Blair Witch Challenge been paid? @Forbes has estimated what they made—and the way a lot they COULD have made, if their authentic contract was honored.
My newest on what occurred, w/interviews from the celebrities themselves: https://t.co/DUYuhBrswr
— Lisette Voytko-Finest (@lisettethebest) July 28, 2024
The subtext is pretty wealthy: one of many filmmakers declares, “It’s very onerous to get misplaced in America today.” This turns into a cautionary story of assuming a paper map, a compass and youthful nerve are sufficient for novice hikers to outlive the unpredictable obstacles inside nature.
To step away from the phenomenon the movie created, this can be a eager reflection, each then and now, on our obsession with self-preservation by way of documentation.
Except for the eerie, ambient finish credit “rating,” there’s no music. The characters really feel trapped in these woods and we really feel it. Nothing that occurs is a given and no Hollywood conclusion is in sight.
Really, if there’s an ideal and sadistic double characteristic available, try this film and comply with it with John Sayles’ “Limbo,” which additionally got here out in 1999 and is each bit as riveting and irritating as “The Blair Witch Challenge.”
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSjiCN–ZKs
There must be a film made concerning the making of “The Blair Witch Challenge.” For now, right here’s what we all know: it was filmed in October of 1997, principally improvised, with 20 hours of footage lower right down to 82 minutes. After post-production, it price lower than $1 million. It was filmed in Seneca Creek and Patapoco Valley State Parks in Maryland.
The three actors weren’t correctly compensated and need to really feel cheated. It is a bare-bones manufacturing, which grossed an astonishing $130 million domestically, and the three leads are doing a lot of the work.
After the buzz-building premiere on the January of ’99 Sundance Movie Competition, there have been months of the addictive official web site and dread-inducing trailer (which I will need to have downloaded not less than 20 occasions on Quicktime).
Surprisingly, “The Blair Witch Challenge” modified cinema as a lot as “The Matrix” (additionally ’99), because it proved enormously influential and a everlasting speaking level in popular culture. It additionally put the small potatoes Artisan Leisure on the map, made a big revenue and outgrossed mainstream summer time motion pictures like “Wild Wild West.”
As crude and divisive as “The Blair Witch Challenge” is, few up to date horror motion pictures deserve a Criterion Assortment launch greater than that is.