The Blair Witch Project & Beyond: The Increasing Laziness of Found Footage Films.

The ‘Found Footage’ method of storytelling has been around for a good while now; dating back to, you guessed it the 19th century with novels such as Frankenstein and Dracula (there will come a day when I don’t mention Dracula in an essay on horror, but apparently today is not that day). These novels were often written in a diary format, or composed of letters that have been compiled by the author.

The Blair Witch Project is perhaps the most famous film in the medium, due to its being a cultural phenomenon back in 1999 when it was first released, and it was the first big success of a film of its nature. And is still notirous to this day, having a few of the most famous words in horror history:

Although many may think that it was the first of its kind, the found footage format of filmmaking has its roots in 1980 with the release of “one of the most controversial films ever made”, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust. The film follows an anthropologist on a rescue mission to find a film crew who venture into the Amazon to film indigenous tribes. Monroe, the anthropologist, finds the footage the dead crew shot, and it is presented as if we are watching it as Monroe is. Now, I will admit by description is rather vague as I did attempt to watch the film, but I honestly couldn’t make it through because there are scenes that are just too graphic for me.

The film has perhaps the most extensive disclaimer I have ever seen:

“The following motion picture contains intense scenes of extreme violence and cruelty. As distributors of this film, we wish to state with absolute sincerity that by no means do we condone the artistic decisions employed by the makers of this film. However, as firm believers in the constitutional right of free speech, we do not believe in censorship.

Therefore, we are presenting Cannibal Holocaust for the very first time in its uncut uncensored original form, with all sequences photographed by the filmmakers however offensive and repugnant, presented fully intact. What you will see will definitely shock and offend you. Nonetheless, it should be viewed as a disturbing historical document of a bygone era of extreme irresponsibility which no longer exists and hopefully with never exist again”

Initially the phrase ‘definitely shock and offend you’ did make me scoff, because I honestly thought that a horror film made in 1980 would be a walk in the park. Boy, was I wrong. Do yourself a favour and just don’t bother watching this film. I can handle pretty much anything, but this film contains scenes of violent rape and murder, and live killing of animals. It is honestly not worth it, as the reast of the film isn’t that great, the acting is pretty terrible.

Anyway, back to it. Cannibal Holocaust was such a controversial release at the time, because of the sheer explicitness of the film, and because everyone thought it was real. So real that the director was arrested on charges of obscenity and then murder, as the director told the actors to go into hiding a year after the film was released to create authenticity, as soon as the actors resurfaced to give testimony, the charges were dropped, but he was still fined for charges of animal cruelty.

Before The Blair Witch Project there were only eight films of its kind made, after it’s release in 1999, there have been around 150, that’s 150 in the space of nearly 20 years. What made The Blair Witch Project so successful that is inspired so many more filmmakers to create similar found footage films?

This notion of the authenticity of found footage films is perhaps its biggest draw and the most masterful example of creating an authentic narrative is The Blair Witch Project. The films genesis lies in 1993 when the directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick discovered that some paranormal investigative documentaries were often scarier than fictional horror films, and got to work on the film, initially creating the mythology that would be the basis for the ‘documentary’.

Set in Burkettsville, Maryland, formerly ‘Blair’ the mythology is based on a witch who was murdered by the townspeople, her spirit supposedly continues to haunt the woods surrounding the town, causing the deaths of numerous people from the town.

Heather, Josh and Mike, the three students featured in the film set out to the woods to film a documentary about the Blair Witch, after two days they get lost in the woods leading to them supposedly dying at the hands of the witch, however the ending is left purposefully ambiguous, showing no deaths on screen. However, the events that occur in the last 10 minutes suggest the death of the filmmakers, due to our knowledge of the mythology of the witch.

This mythology is fleshed out even more in the mockumentary that was made by Sánchez and Myrick, and subsequently premiered on the Sci-Fi channel before the film was due to be released. The mockumentary delves deep into the story of the witch, but also contains interviews with the missing student’s family and friends. If this wasn’t enough, there was also a website made providing all these details, with even more pictures of the evidence found with the footage shown in the film, therefore, “The Blair Witch Project does not begin and end with the theatre release; the film is a piece of a broader narrative” (Keller, 72). The website and documentary were so successful that an ex Maryland police officer offered to help in the search for the lost students. Which was only exemplified by the actors being listed as deceased on IMDB.

With the mythology set, the authenticity of the film does not stop there. The shoot in the woods lasted eight days, in which the three actors were pretty much left to their own devices. There was no script written for the film, just a guideline of the basic narrative. Each day the actors would leave the film rolls in a set location found of the GPS by the rest of the crew, and they would be left with food and very small amounts of direction.

Myrick the co-director describes the film as “not like a normal film: the actors would work the cameras, film each other all the time” they only intervened if they felt they needed to tone it down and when they needed to create the nighttime scenes in which they would shake the tent make creepy noises. Keller suggests that “within the semiotics of the film, the same unstrady images that reveal the presence of the camera also suggests ‘reality television’, a genre of film that lacks the polish of cinematic realism, but signifies the authenticity of the events depicted” (74).

The aftermath of all this hard work, left cinema viewers stunned by the film, and had them asking, was it all real? It must be there was so much evidence to suggest so, back in the day, if there were official websites on the internet, then it must be true. However nowadays we have learned our lesson and try not to believe everything we see online.

For me, I watched the film not really believing it was true, but it’s the notion that it might be legitimate that makes the experience so exciting when watching it for the first time. It’s all part of the experience and is a large factor in its success with audiences. Sadly, in 2018, when you do your research, it is very clear it was a fabrication; made all clearer by the sequel Blair Witch released in 2016…but we shall get back to that.

In the (nearly) 20 years since The Blair Witch Project, there have been a plethora of found footage movies, most are horror films, the odd one goes into the realms of science fiction, superhero films and even comedy. Arguably the most famous/successful are films such as Paranormal Activity, [REC] and Cloverfield.

Paranormal Activity kept the tradition of The Blair Witch Project alive by pushing the idea that the footage found features the deceased and could potentially be showing real life events. Cloverfield does suggest this, but the thing that draws the viewer away from the feeling of ‘real life events’ when a giant monster starts crashing through New York, which, we as viewers obviously know did not happen. I am not critiquing Cloverfield at all, as it is simply taking the genre further by exploring different narratives. Paranormal Activity however, I will nitpick (even though I love it).

Paranormal Activity begins like The Blair Witch Project with a disclaimer:

“Paramount pictures would like to thank the families of Micah Sloat and Katie Featherson and the San Diego Police Department”

From the beginning of the film, you expect a Blair Witch Project-esque film, which in some respects, it is, and does it relatively well. However, my issue lies with the lack of effort that is made to make the events seem as ‘real’ as possible. There is little background information relating to apparent events I mean, it would have been cool to list the actors as dead. But I guess the internet must be to blame for this, we are so god at squeezing out information that it would probably seem like a cheap marketing trick to attempt what Blair Witch Project The did.

But, I mean sometimes, they didn’t even try. Like it was common knowledge that there were multiple endings…which makes no sense if it was a ‘found footage’ film. How can they die in two different ways? It immediately takes you out of the ‘real’ world of the film.

Sequels are also a glaringly obvious issue with attempting to carry on the façade. A mere three years after the original film, Paranormal Activity 2 was released. Now, the illusion is broken well and truly, because we then question the chances of someone else connected to filming the events that are linked to the original film; and lemme tell you the far-fetched narratives that are in place so that they can have the excuse of calling it found footage. The first made sense, the second was a bit of a stretch, the third, a little bit more so apart from the fact that they had to change the VHS tapes every, like 8 hours or something silly, the fourth again, is a massive stretch. But, I mean they are still quite scary, one moment in the third one made me well up it creeped me out so much, so I guess they did the job there. I could write so much more about the Paranormal Activity films, that’s for another time, perhaps…

I mentioned the 2016 sequel to The Blair Witch Project, simply entitled Blair Witch earlier. Now, I was legitimately excited for this, I thought, hey, what could go wrong. They could perhaps learn from how great the first film was … but alas, it was not to be. Blair Witch follows Heather’s brother, 20 years after her disappearance. He heads off into the same woods to see if he can find her, because he is convinced that she is still alive in the house. He has a bigger camera crew and has two weirdo locals with him as well.

Now my first big gripe was that the camera continuation was completely off, but I now know that the crew have camera earpieces… which I didn’t even notice, but surely if it was on your ear, like your cheek would get massively in the way.

For me the film failed to capture the sense of desperation that flows through the original. It was down to complete laziness from the directors, to even make it seem the slightest bit authentic. The ear piece cameras and the GoPro are so unbelievably HD and graded, the script is just terrible, the actors are equally bad. You can tell that they had a film crew with them the whole time. Also…they didn’t even bother to shoot it in the same location as the original, it is glaringly obvious that the terrain is in a completely different country.

So we have this:

Versus this:

Another massive break from the original was that they showed the damn witch and added to the narrative of what happens to you when you encounter her. The mystery has totally ruined and feels a lot more fabricated because elements of the supernatural are shown on the footage.

…… ugh.

What annoys me most is that they had so much time to think it through and create something that, wasn’t exactly the same (because that would be pointless), but carried on the legacy rather than being tremendously lazy. I mean, the budget for Blair Witch was $5 million in comparison to the modest $60,000 that the original film had. You can see the budget all over the new film, it just looks far too flashy and is another in a long like of below par found footage movies, I mean, they even had a full on premier with all the actors, there was no effort to even let the audience pretend to believe it was real. And to be honest its link to the original just places the original further into fiction.

Most modern found footage films have gone down the route that Blair Witch did, films like As Above, So Below being one of them, which contains so much supernatural stuff that it is so unbeleivable. The biggest rule in this type of horror, for me is don’t show, dont even tell, just leave it to our imaginations, becuse often that is the scariest thing.

By Siobhan Eardley.

Works Cited:

Deodato, Ruggero. (Dir). Cannibal Holocaust (1980).[YouTube].

Hoad, Phil. “How We Made The Blair Witch Project.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 21 May 2018. Web.

Keller, James. “‘Nothing That Is Not There, and the Nothing That Is’: Language and The Blair Witch Phenomenon.” Studies in Popular Culture, vol. 22, no. 3, Apr. 2000. Web.

Peli, Oren. (Dir). Paranormal Activity (2007).[Netflix].

Rose, Steve. “Cannibal Holocaust: ‘Keep Filming! Kill More People!’.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 15 Sept. 2011, www.theguardian.com/film/2011/sep/15/cannibal-holocaust.

Sánchez, Eduardo and Daniel Myrick. (Director). Curse of the Blair Witch (1999). [DVD].

Sánchez, Eduardo and Daniel Myrick. (Dir). The Blair Witch Project (1999). [DVD].

Wingard, Adam. (Dir). Blair Witch (2016) [Netflx].