6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.3 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.1 |
Three film students head into the woodlands of Maryland in search of the Blair Witch, a local legend that has haunted the town of Burkittsville for centuries, as part of a documentary project. They were never seen again. This footage is all that remains of that fateful excursion.
Starring: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams, Bob Griffin, Jim King (IV)Horror | 100% |
Thriller | 23% |
Mystery | 20% |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English, English SDH, Spanish
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
UV digital copy
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 2.5 | |
Audio | 2.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Were you caught up in the great film hype of 1999? If you were paying attention, and perhaps even if you weren’t, chances are you couldn’t easily escape the press mania surrounding The Blair Witch Project, an indie horror film clad as a faux unfinished documentary which was supposedly among the scariest films ever made. I read about the film for what seemed like months and months, but never was able to see it in theaters. Maybe that’s what made the difference for me, for I must confess going into this review I have never totally understood what all the fuss about this odd little film was about. Certainly regular readers of film reviews should know that sooner or later you’ll stumble across the idiot reviewer who fails to see the intrinsic quality of a supposed classic. While it’s highly unlikely anyone will ever seriously take Citizen Kane to task, for example, I have to struggle sometimes with my film fan friends to defend my completely nonplussed reaction to The Blair Witch Project. Even my own wife could barely stand to look at the television when I had the new Blu-ray of Blair playing, so frightened was she by the mere hint of something sinister happening. Maybe that’s the difference between lovers of this kind of film and the more jaded, curmudgeonly types of which I am definitely a member: the former is more prone to suggestion, able to craft things that go bump in the night out of pure imagination, while more literal types like yours truly want some kind of payoff for all the ostensibly spooky happenings. A lot of people insist The Blair Witch Project set a new standard for modern American horror. I’m not one of those people, so take the rest of this review with that caveat firmly in hand.
"Mom. . .Dad. . .I am SO sorry. . .I forgot to pack the Kleenex."
Was there ever a film less likely to benefit from a Blu-ray upgrade than The Blair Witch Project? I certainly can't think of one. This film obviously is "recreating" an amateur attempt at making a documentary, and so we're greeted with a variety of what looks to be at best 16mm footage, all with attendant grain, fuzziness and overall softness, and at times appallingly bad color. (Several black and white segments are also included in the film). The Blu-ray's AVC encoded 1080p image, in 1.33:1, certainly recreates the original look of the film spectacularly well, but if you've never seen Blair Witch, take a deep breath before getting your expectations too high. This film looks almost exactly like it did on SD-DVD. Colors may indeed be a tad better, but I found the Blu-ray's superior resolution to actually be a detriment to the film's image quality, with an almost pixellated look to a lot of this intentionally lo-fi video. Contrast is negligible, to the point where often far shots of one of the trio simply dissolve into a morass of muddiness, where the human can't be differentiated from the foliage. There's also some fairly egregious telecine wobble during the opening credits and textual elements of the film, as well as shimmer and some noticeable edge enhancement. The Blair Witch Project was frankly always an ugly looking film, something that added to its peculiar charms to a certain segment of the filmgoing public, and this Blu-ray unfortunately can't do much with that less than glamorous source material.
Similarly, there's very little if any "high def" audio presentation here, despite a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix. This is a film with the bulk of the audio supposedly coming from the built in microphones on the handheld cameras the trio brings with them on their mystical trek, and so an overly compressed soundfield has been part and parcel of the Blair Witch experience from the beginning. Dialogue is for the most part very clear, and there are some very inventive sound effects well mixed into the proceedings. In fact I would argue rather vociferously that a good deal of the terror felt by audiences in the film's closing moments is due to the expertly placed shrieks which fill the admittedly narrow soundfield, more than any imagery we see during the denouement. While there's nothing extraordinary here, it's a nuts and bolts soundtrack that sports decent enough fidelity to get the job done, with a few dashes of overt theatricality mixed in for good measure.
All of the extras from the previously released SD-DVD have been ported over to this Blu-ray release. They include:
If you're a fan of The Blair Witch Project, you'll probably want to pick up this bargain priced Blu-ray no matter what some dunderheaded reviewer might say. If you've never seen the film, you'll probably fall into one of two camps if you choose to check out this newest iteration of it. Either you'll be enthralled and terrified by the mere hint of horror, which really is after all the gist of what this film provides. Or, like certain curmudgeons, you'll wonder what all the fuss and hype was about.
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