THE BLAIR WITCH EFFECT

By Graham Young on Nov 13, 09 04:58 PM

IT'S TEN years ago since The Blair Witch Project was released in Britain on October 22, 1999.

Today, British cinemagoers can see the nearest film to it in terms of costs to make and profit returned at the US box office.

Paranormal Activity (15) is showing at most cinemas across the region tonight, before disappearing and then returning on November 27.

Like Blair Witch, it's been called 'one of the most frightening films ever made'.

I've seen it and, having felt the hairs rise three times on the back of my neck, can confirm that it's a fabulous ride to the dark side of our brains.

Try to catch it tonight so that you see it fresh, otherwise people are going to be talking about it non-stop for the next two weeks and its impact might be diminished.

My review will appear in the Birmingham Mail on November 27.

Meanwhile, I thought it would be fun to look back at my original review of Blair Witch, too.

So click on the link below to read my thoughts on The Blair Witch Project, a film which beat the system - but didn't bring it down.

The following first appeared in the Birmingham Mail in October, 1999. Ten years later, on the day of the initial release of Paranormal Activity, it's just been found..!

BLAIR WITCH
It's the most profitable film ever made - but, in the week of the fifth anniversary of the 'disappearance' of its three young filmmakers, is The Blair Witch Project as frightening as it's made out to be? Mail Film Editor Graham Young reports.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (15) opens in Birmingham today for a week-long 'sneak preview'.

But if you go down to the woods tonight you won't get a big surprise - because this film is not in the least bit seriously frightening.

Take a long look at the certificate. Yes, the most 'frightening film ever made' in which 'everything you've heard is true' is rated a mere 15. Well, you can only have one four-letter word in a 12.

Cinemagoers have always enjoyed embracing real or imagined fear ever since the medium was invented - and if 68 per cent of Yanks apparently believe in angels imagine just how easy it is to scare 'em!

The trigger for success is timing - and knowing just when a new generation is ripe for the picking.

Typically, it's the younger audience which enjoys the challenge.

The dark side of many good vs evil Disney animations appeals to children, while 25 years ago a new breed of movies as genuinely frightening as The Exorcist began to put the shivers up adolescents already traumatised by their sexual awakening.

With movies like Scream having woken up the dormant horror market again - and at the same time leaving audiences once more jaded with their reworking of the old slasher movie format - The Blair Witch Project scores simply by attempting to invade your mind.

That it doesn't quite succeed is immaterial.

The mere buzz of anticipation which this film has created is enough to make a night out to see it worthwhile, even if the result is as anticlimactic as a recording of the Grand National when you know the winner.

We are immediately told the fledgling filmmakers disappeared five years ago this week on October 21, 1994, while investigating the Blair Witch legend in the Black Hills Forest.

Their footage was found a year later and this is the entire film which is then effectively told in the first person with no score.

The Blair Witch Project sets the scene with a string of documentary style interviews with local people talking about what they know of the legend - how the team behind Louis Theroux's Weird Weekends on TV must have wished they'd got there first!

Our brave trio then head off to the woods and keep filming even when they are lost for days - they just happen to have 'enough battery power to fuel a small country for a month'.

The longer it goes on, the more it seems like half the movie's running time is spent shakily looking at dead leaves on the floor which simply aren't frightening or remotely interesting.

But the characters' knowing dialogue keeps the film alive with lines like: 'Nobody knows we're out here'.... 'Yeah, but have you ever seen Deliverance?'

What is really good about Blair Witch are the performances of Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard and, in particular Heather Donahue, a typical energetic, determined, loud-mouthed American abroad who won't take 'No' for an answer.

Listen out for her first blood-curdling scream. That's more like it!

Having got her male colleagues into a fix means she is responsible for trying to get them out of it, but they never blame her for being a woman - 'are you going to write us a happy ending, Heather?' they ask - nor is there any sexual innuendo in a simple story where the characters are scared to close their eyes and equally scared to open them.

Perhaps it's inevitable that basic logic should fly out of the window at times of stress.

There's no mention of the team trying to use the position of the sun to find their way or even recognition of an aeroplane flying overhead (it was one of many because the crew had a real problem with planes constantly flying over the supposed wilderness).

Still, you do get Heather finding the time to make the reverse of the 'emotional appeal' that's typically made by the parents of murdered children for the benefit of TV news crews.

'I love you mum and dad. I'm so sorry,' she says to camera.

CUT!

RATING: ++++