The Blair Witch Project

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“Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.”

While I have previously noted that Cannibal Holocaust is a solid foundation to the found footage genre, it would be fair ot say that this movie shot the genre into the limelight.

Where Holocaust had to follow “professional” camera crew, the development of handheld cameras gave Blair Witch Project a modern tool to produce a movie with a minimal budget. That simplicity is a major key to any scares.

Word of mouth is a powerful thing and you have to wonder about the stories and where they come from. Each person “interviewed” in the beginning seems to have heard of or experienced this witch. Each of them spins a tale to be recorded in the ids of the characters as well as on film.

I feel like the beauty of this movie is that it doesn’t have to rely on special effects – or even seeing any actual monster!

SPOILERS FROM HERE

As their mental state deteriorates due to hunger and exhaustion, the eerie noises and strange formations of rocks and branches can pull into those tales they had been hearing from the townspeople.

Speaking of those tales, there was one thing that was mentioned in passing that doesn’t seem very important until the very end:

“What he did is he took the kids down into the basement by two’s and he made one face into the corner.”

When we see Mike in the basement, facing the corner and Heather screaming, it all comes back and makes sense.