It fell somewhere between the two, but far from farcical.
The premise of the film was inspired; three film students set off to the Black
Hills Forest to make a documentary about The Blair Witch, they disappear, and
only a year later is their actual footage found. This film is that
footage, edited together to tell the story of what happened in the forest.
The creation of the hype surrounding the film was equally inspired. Long before
the film saw its first public screening, rumours about the film were appearing
on the internet. Foremost was the claim that this was a true case, brilliantly
supported by the release of an alleged editing script with the three lead
actors' names postfixed with Deceased.
Newsgroups sprang up to discuss the case and its reputation grew. As its
reputation grew, more traditional media started to comment upon it; was it
real ? Was it a hoax ? Was the internet interest self-generated ?
The marketing has worked well, it has to be the most talked about film of
the year and became nothing less than a must see.
So see it we did, in droves, and were we impressed ? Yes and no.
The plot was simple and effective, the acting superb, the dialogue, ad libbed
most of the time, worked well, the characters were strong and the interactions
within the group were credible and realistic.
The feeling of something about to happen was there but in the end it failed to
deliver on the truly frightening level.
It's hard to define what let it down. The handheld filming was less than,
perfect, but this is integral to the film, however, these were meant to be film
students who should have at least known how to point a camcorder; rule one,
take a tripod.
That said, the shaky vision experience was a lot less annoying than I
had expected it to be, most of the time, and didn't in itself detract from the
viewing of the film.
The deliberate placement of the, "We've got enough battery power to light a
state", get out for later was too obvious early on and, although the Joe
Public interviews were well constructed to lead into the story, the
interjection of Release Permissions, which would have been removed from
any edit, worked against the image of it being real documentary footage than
with it.
It was difficult to reconcile the alleged fact that anyone, scared s--tless,
would still be determined to film every step of their horrific struggle with
the reality a viewer in the same circumstances would imagine, despite in-film
conversations which attempted to explain this away.
When woken in the middle of the night, by something which is truly frightening,
one's first thought is not usually to turn on the DAT recorder and start two
cameras rolling, then tank off to see what it might be.
When you're lost in the middle of a forest, which you've proven you can't
find your way around, you don't go running off wildly in the darkness,
chasing something unknown but very scary, and then easily find your way back
to the tents.
When you finally decide that death may be looming, as soon as the sun drops, you
don't just nonchantly bimble off through the forest stopping for a fag or a
discussion on one's dire situation; no, you run like f--k. And you keep on
running.
And could Heather, Josh, and Mike be the only three people in America who don't
own a mobile phone between them ? Even if it didn't work, I'd have tried 911.
These are the things which took the edge off the film being real and
that's what damaged it the most.
If we could ignore these, reality damaging, aspects; the film could have been
excellent, but it still cried out for a Don't Look Now, hack and slay
ending.
The feeling that something was going to happen was there, not overly powerful,
but it was there, quietly gnawing at us under the surface, a sudden bolt of
violence at the end would have been a fine counterpoint to the subdued tension
slowly built up.
Such an ending may also have made us forget the, "This isn't really real",
feeling which over-shadowed the great efforts put in to convince us it was.
As it is, the film is a clash between, "Oooh, this is frightening", and,
"But it's not real".
Not a problem for most films where one throws off
the mantle of expecting reality as a necessity for entertainment, but, for a
film whose premise is that this is real, and it is frightening, the
resulting conflict seriously reduces its impact.
Even so, it's a good film to see. It could have been better but it is a fine
example of how to make films differently ( as with Pi this
is a Pathé release ). It was an original idea, with superb
acting and dialogue which far exceeded that in many, much better budgeted,
blockbusters.
It is also one of the few modern films you'll see which doesn't have any
incidental music; just what's on the soundtrack album, advertised during the
end credits, remains to be seen.
