December 1999

The Blair Witch Project
Reviewed by Roger Kanno
DVD Format

Overall Enjoyment:
Picture Quality:
Sound Quality:
Packaged Extras:

Starring Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael Williams

Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez

Theatrical Release: 1999
DVD Release: 1990
Dolby Surround
Full Screen

The Blair Witch Project is premised on the fictional 1994 disappearance of three film students who were shooting a documentary about a legendary witch. The movie would have us believe that their raw footage was later found and supposedly pieced together to make this film. This unique movie was shot mostly with a Hi-8 camcorder, but also onto a 16mm black-and-white film stock. This filming technique gives The Blair Witch Project a very crude look and feel that adds to the raw tension of the film. Furthermore, it was shot by the actors themselves who were not straightforwardly instructed by the directors, but were rather given general directions in the form of notes left for them in the woods. To keep the film as "real" as possible, situations were secretly orchestrated and objects were left for them to stumble upon and to react to without the artifice of a script or rehearsal.

The story unfolds as the three students travel to the town of Burkittsville to research the secrets of the Blair Witch. After a few scenes in the town where some of the locals are interviewed for the documentary, the location shifts to the nearby forests. The remainder of the film follows the three as they aimlessly trek through the woods searching for evidence of the Blair Witch.

The main problem with The Blair Witch Project is that nothing really happens. Although it is very creepy, there are only a couple of plot twists. The students spend much of their time arguing about being lost as they hike and camp their way through the forest. Donahue, Leonard, and Williams perform their roles well, which is in itself quite an accomplishment considering what little direction they received, the film being mostly unscripted and unrehearsed. However, there is no character development and their abrasive personalities and constant arguing soon become tiresome.

The picture quality of this DVD is limited by the relatively poor quality of the original Hi-8 video source material. The hand-held camera work is very unsteady and can cause motion sickness, which forced many theaters to post warnings for their patrons. In all seriousness, I found the jerkiness of the picture to be disconcerting and was myself suffering from a mild headache by the end of it all. I wish that more of the film had been shot on 16mm and that the Hi-8 camcorder had been used more sparingly. A lot of the scenes are shot at night and are consequently poorly lit which obscures much of the detail and some scenes are shot in absolute darkness. Admittedly though, the scenes of total darkness accompanied by the screaming of the actors can be quite frightening.

The soundtrack, while recorded in Dolby Surround, is lacking in surround envelopment. This is not surprising considering that most of the audio was taken directly from the audio tracks of the Hi-8 videotapes and was not ADR reproduced. To its credit, the sound is, for the most part, relatively clean and the dialogue is easily intelligible.

This special edition DVD contains many extras such as director and producer commentary, production notes, cast and crew biographies, theatrical trailers, "newly discovered footage," a documentary-like feature explaining the history of the Blair Witch myth, and DVD-ROM content. The audio commentary track explains much of the technical aspects of the production, but offers little insight into the film. The newly discovered footage consists of one five-minute segment and leaves you wondering what happened to the other good scenes cut from the film that the producers often refer to in the commentary track.

So does the Blair Witch Project succeed? Well, yes and no. The extras included on this disc hardly qualify it as a "special edition." The technical quality of the film is lacking, and the story telling is straight forward and one dimensional, but this is still one scary movie. Mind you, nothing compares to seeing it in the theater; it suffers a little on the small screen. But if you can suspend belief and get scared by a walk in the woods then this just may be your ticket.

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