Blaired Vision

[Birchy]

Without wishing to appear totally dim ... what was the Blair Witch Project all about? I watched the video recently and lost the plot entirely. I didn't find it scary or tense, and was the final shot of a bloke urinating against a fence?...Or what?

[andy hughes]

The Blair Witch Project is an example of just what you can do with the Internet, and a little imagination. In advance of the film, a site was created purporting to tell the story of the film students who vanished, leaving no trace except their video cameras found a year later. The thrust of the tension is the way in which the cocky streetwise students have all their veneer of civilisation stripped away by events they can't control, or explain, or even see properly! Of course, the entire thing - site, story, and movie, were made up by students who played "themselves" in the film. You should have seen it in a cinema - horror works best when you can feed on the combined tension of a hundred other people - it scared me witless!

[Waterwolf]

I don't think the actors actually made up the story themselves. As I remember reading, they followed a plan given them by the directors of where to go for each scene, and what to do. They filmed themselves and reacted to events initiated by the directors. So some of what you see is the actors' genuine reaction to things. As to how scary it is, I think it depends on how much you put in yourself. Anyone who hadn't heard about it and thought it was real may well be scared witless. If you know it's a story but suspend your disbelief (as I did), you'll probably find it is genuinely creepy. But some people might just think, "Why don't they follow the river?" which then devalues the whole experience.

[rut]

With regards to the final scene, I remember that earlier in the film a story was told about someone having to turn their back while the "witch" did whatever she does, to his friend. The shot of the guy's back meant that the "witch" had got the other person, and would move on to the next one when he/she had finished dealing with them. The scary factor is in the unknown. It's what is suggested more than what is shown and your own imagination should come up with the scary details. I know the hirs stood up on the back of my neck at at least one part of the film