The Blair Witch Project refers to a documentary film
that was being made by three college students about the Blair Witch, a local
spooky legend in Burkittsville, Maryland. The Blair Witch was a young woman
named Elly Kedward, who was accused of witchcraft in the 1700s and banished to
the deep woods in the middle of a severe winter. Left tied to a tree, it was
assumed that Elly Kedward had succumbed to exposure. However, during the
following winter, all of Elly's accusers, along with half of the children in the
town of Blair, vanished without a trace. Fearing that the Blair Witch had cursed
the town, the surviving townspeople abandoned Blair the following spring, and it
stayed that way for forty years. Although Blair had been resettled and renamed
Burkittsville, the Blair Witch continued to haunt the town and take lives in
various incidents that stretched over two centuries. In October of 1994, Heather
Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams ventured into the deep woods of the
Black Hills area, which surrounds Burkittsville, to shoot footage of the various
places where the Blair Witch legend took place. They were never heard from again.
One year later, the film and video footage that they shot was discovered. The
footage was cut together into a film that showed the last few days in the lives
of these three students. It is a slow decent into terror that the students faced
once they became lost in the woods. As they set up camp at night, they hear
strange and creepy sounds, such as children laughing, and odd noises in the
distant dark that sound like eerie footsteps. These bizarre nighttime attacks,
which get worse each night they stay in the woods, start to wear the threesome
down both physically and psychologically. At first, the students think they are
being stalked by rednecks, a la Deliverance, but as they encounter strange stick
figures hanging in the trees and odd little pyramids made of stones on the ground,
Heather, Josh and Mike come to realize--too late--that they may have found the
Blair Witch after all. And the Blair Witch has found new victims to add to her
collection of lost souls that she has amassed over the years.
The marvelous thing about the Blair Witch Project is the time and effort that
the filmmakers had put into it. With its superb acting, and gritty, documentary
feel, The Blair Witch Project is one of the scariest horror films to be made in
recent years. The film's true power comes from the fact that the Blair Witch
herself is never seen. It is up to the viewer's fertile imagination to fill in
the blanks, and oftentimes the things that lurk within the shadows of our own
minds are ten times more frightening than anything that can be presented to us
on screen. After you see this scary film, make sure you watch the equally
chilling "documentary" called "Curse Of The Blair Witch". Originally shown on
the Sci-Fi Channel, the 45-minute "Curse" digs deeper into the overall Blair
Witch legend, as well as showing the aftermath of the disappearance of the
three students. It is the perfect companion to the film, and just as creepy in
its own right. The DVD also has "newly discovered footage"--which is scenes that
were cut from the film--in a separate section on the DVD. There is also a
commentary by the director and producer, and a mythology of the Blair Witch.
This is a perfect movie to watch on Halloween, or any time when you need a good
scare. Just don't watch it with the lights turned off, and stay out of the
woods--especially at night. --SF
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