I have seen “The Blair Witch Project” quite a few times now, probably more than I cared to. While I did like this movie, I had some problems trying to figure if this was a documentary about the Blair Witch or just some video footage about a few lost campers.
They begin with talking to people in Burkitsville, formerly Blair, about the Blair witch, visiting the cemetery and talked a bit about how this small town started with 200 people, and even read a portion of the legend of the Blair Witch. I liked what they did with this. I think I did because it gave a feel for the townspeople and a bit of its history. It was good to see how legends just have an odd way of hanging around forever and a day and takes its own interesting little twists and turns, giving it the unique personality that only a legend can. I wish that they had gone a little farther into who the Blair Witch was and more of the gory details of what happened.
These 3 kids, especially this girl, Heather, had a certain amount of attitude going into this project. They film the shopping to get supplies for their trip and it seemed to consist mostly of Power Bars. They seem to want to film every single little thing, especially Heather. What can really be said here? They are young, relatively inexperienced, and feel pretty invincible, like most young people in their age range. A certain amount of ’naivete’ seems to go with the territory. This kind of ‘naivete’ usually equates with plain old-fashioned “STUPIDITY.”
These 3 college kids then drive up to the woods to go hiking to find the cabin and the area where the Blair witch lived (?) and where a few incidents happened where people either died or had sightings involved with the Blair Witch. These 3 kids made up a girl and 2 boys. They locate a rock known as Coffin Rock where something had happened; something like campers bodies being found or something.
These kids quickly get lost. But it seems to take them awhile to figure this out. They have a map, which they follow religiously. After spending a night or two out there, they start realizing that maybe they are lost. They look at the map. Heather keeps insisting that they are heading in the right direction and that they keep heading that way. Finally they set up their camp, and things keep getting even stranger. They hear things outside the tent like a person walking around outside. Heather and Josh go out to check things out but Michael won’t come out his tent. Why? Because he’s CHICKEN! Me, I figure if I’m hearing something outside my tent, you better believe I’ll at least be sticking my head out the effing tent to see if I have a bear or need to leave tent or something. Call me crazy but I won’t be hiding in a tent! Anyway they don’t see anything until the next when Heather finds three piles of rocks around the tent that weren’t there the day before. This goes on for three nights which after the third Josh disappears. The fourth night same thing happens. Only when Michael and Heather leave the tent, they hear Josh yelling in the distance. They can’t see him but they hear him. The next morning they find a bundle of twigs tied up with Josh’s flannel shirt. Heather opens it to find a bloody lump of flesh. I’m not sure if it’s a nose or a tongue or whatever. But it’s a bloody mess. Needless to say there is a whole lot of screaming and Heather ends up at the creek, splashing her hands in the water to clean the blood off. She’s an emotional wreck, definitely not the same arrogant person that she was at the beginning; she’s ready to go home. Michael and Heather finally come up on this cabin and frantically search for Josh but all they find is his ripped up shirt and bloody handprints. The scene shows Michael getting stuck in a corner and Heather screaming and dropping her video camera. That’s where this movie leaves us.
This held my interest but I think that they could have given picture of what might have happened to them. I felt like I was left hanging. I would have liked to know what was at least suspected in regards to what happened to these kids. Was it something to do with the legend or was someone somehow plotting against them?
But I did like this movie because it did make me wonder. I walked with a good case of the chills from this movie. It shook up my sense of security and reminded me how we can have a false sense of security, even in familiar surroundings. Anything can happen no matter where we are.