You cannot help but crave to know just who or what is causing footsteps all around in the dark, where the just out of reach children’s giggling is coming from, and how could Josh be screaming and calling for his teammates after disappearing, seemingly into thin air. With no other background soundtrack, The Blair Witch Project combines off the camera sounds and the audience’s trepidation and interpretation of what’s happening to create a chilling effect. The use of sound in any horror film is crucial (try turning off the audio and watching a scene, you’ll know the difference). However, beyond the setting too, it is the characters’ own dwindling hopelessness, hunger, and fear that make The Blair Witch Project a stunning watch two decades later. The two-day shoot turns much longer than anticipated as they get lost cairns (human-made stone moulds used as burial monuments, among other things) start showing up outside their tent, and the trio stumble on creepier occult-like symbols made from twigs hanging from the trees in the clearing. The students have nothing but a map and a tent they pitch at nightfall to help them traverse the woods. The stage is set with the townspeople’s interviews about Robert Parr, a hermit, who in 1940s, kidnapped seven children to murder them in a house in the woods, supposedly on the witch’s orders.
The setting, of course, adds to it – Heather leading Josh (Joshua Lenonard) and Mike (Michael C Williams) into the forest in Burkittsville, Maryland, to document the legend of the Blair Witch. At no point does it show any sort of supernatural beings, any levitations, anything that’s happening just at the corner of the eye and therefore, the horror it creates is almost entirely a product of the viewer’s imagination. The Blair Witch Project utilises all of this, and then goes a step further. It focuses not on aesthetic filmmaking, but sometimes leaves the main event happening on screen just out of eye view, piquing imagination, curiosity, and fear in effective ways. A lot of horror plays with viewers’ imagination to induce the scares, however, found footage horror with its shaky filmmaking, focuses on taking the viewer on the journey with the characters. And fear, above all, is a raw, unfiltered emotion. Not only does it allow flexibility to makers in terms of budget and production, it also allows a viewer to see protagonists and characters at a much more personal level, that appears unscripted and raw. Two decades later, this found footage horror film directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, remains a trendsetter, and a classic in its genre – because it uses the viewer’s own imagination to deliver the most terrifying scares.įound footage horror has evolved and become quite popular in the last two decades or so and for good reason. Actor Heather Donahue, who plays her namesake, a student filmmaker making a film on the urban legend of the Blair Witch, says these chilling words towards the end of the film, shortly before the climax. A shot from this memorable scene from The Blair Witch Project is what features on the 1999 film’s poster too.
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