Gen X Ruminations: The Blair Witch Projectile
(Note: This is the final piece in my Gen X Ruminations series as it concludes the 1990s. With the new millennium, I found myself a fully fledged adult with a live-in girlfriend, a mortgage and the ultimate symbol of domestic maturity: a dog. I encourage others to pick up the torch and share their experiences from subsequent decades.)
Reality is terrifying. The fact of the matter is, even the most frightening horror films are undermined by their reliance on a fantastic premise. Alien, released in 1979, presented the most realistic depiction of both space travel and a horrifying concept of alien life, EVER. It still holds up against any sci-fi films that came afterwards (many of which borrowed from it shamelessly) but ultimately it was set in a future we might never know. Likewise, while the Shining was packed with heart-pounding terror and a place that certainly seemed real, a moment of rational thought would remind you that if any hotel had a century-old history of caretakers going insane and slaughtering people, we’d probably would have heard of that by now. At the very least, it would have been closed. (Though as I write this, I am reminded that the infamous Hotel Cecil is still alive and well and currently attempting a rebrand.)
But, Jaws? Jaws took terror to a whole new level and, “Why?” you might ask. Well, it’s quite simple: sharks are real. In the decades since it was released, most reasonable people have awoken to the fact that sharks really aren’t to be feared and are simply doing their job like any other apex predator. We pay good money to swim with them and (rightfully) lament the terrible treatment they suffer at the hands of Earth’s most evil inhabitants: us. But
In 1975, the big screen image of those teeth rising from the murky depths accompanied by John Williams’ haunting soundtrack was enough to make a traumatized seven-year-old living in central Illinois afraid to take a bath. Like I said, sharks are real and reality is terrifying.
In the 90s, reality as reflected in pop culture took a slightly different turn. MTV realized the marketing limitations of playing music 24-hours a day and shifted to offer actual programs in an effort to secure a predictable and identifiable audience. One of these programs was The Real World, which premiered in 1992 and professed to document the lives of a diverse group of young people struggling to build careers, manage relationships and navigate “real life”. There’s no question that there was a degree of reality to the show. One character, for example, was an AIDS activist who was also HIV-positive and who ultimately succumbed to the virus while still a member of the show’s cast. That was real. But there were also allegations that some scenes were scripted or, at the very least, some situations were engineered by producers to manufacture greater drama than might have existed otherwise. I will confess, any show that attempted to accurately present my life on a weekly basis would have its share of laundry days and lawn mowing and that really wouldn’t make for compelling TV.
My point is that, sometime in the 90s, “reality” became a hybrid but so long as the final product was entertaining it really didn’t seem to matter. This brings us back to terror, and the end of the 90s. In 1999, a low-budget independent film began to attract global attention. It was called The Blair Witch Project. The initial concept was the brainchild of two film students, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who were inspired by actual documentaries to create a horror film that appeared to depict real events. In truth, it was genius. The film was shot using inexpensive video and film cameras operated by the three main characters who sought to investigate folklore dating back to the 18th century. Visiting a forest in Maryland, they wanted to pursue The Blair Witch, a mythical figure that was said to haunt the local area and was said to be somehow connected to gruesome criminal acts that had occurred over many decades. In some ways, the concept was reminiscent of the TV series In Search Of… which focused on topics like Bigfoot, UFOs and the Loch Ness Monster but, notably, never found any of them. (I can hear the producers now, “Hey! It’s called In Search Of, not We Found It!”)
The thing is, The Blair Witch and it’s “Project” were fiction. The myth, storyline and characters were deviously crafted by the film’s creators, who went so far as to invent aged newspaper clippings of previous murders, tight-lipped interviews with townsfolk and even reported that the three documentarians featured in the film were “missing and presumed dead” — they weren’t. The producers claimed the film was the result of “found footage” from the missing trio — it wasn’t. In truth, it was a film initially produced on a budget of about $65K with a 35-page script that depended heavily on improvisation. (This only enhanced the “real feel”.) Later it would win hundreds of thousands in additional investment to beef up post-production and after its inclusion in the Sundance Film Festival, it was picked up for wider distribution by Artisan Entertainment.
This is where I come in. On a fateful day in the summer of 1999, a good friend contacted me at work and asked me to meet him at the Tivoli Theater, located in the Delmar Loop area of St. Louis. It’s a beautiful theater originally built in 1924 that, at the time of this piece, remains in operation and is known for showing independent/experimental films. Thus, it was hosting the local debut of The Blair Witch Project. I agreed to attend, but informed my buddy that the timing would be tight so I might not arrive until just before the film starts. I was right. I rushed into the crowded lobby just before the curtain rose, and hastily purchased a hot dog and coke. I was starving and simply couldn’t wait. With my dinner in hand, my buddy and I entered the theater to find only two seats available in the very first row. The place was truly packed. But, things were looking up as a group of attractive women happened to be sitting just to the right of us. Charming as always, I sat down and began to demolish my hot dog when I thought I’d break the ice. I leaned over to the gals and said, “Now, I don’t wanna hear to no screamin’ or cryin’!”
It was a joke but the response was less than encouraging. They looked back at me in disdain and I turned my attention back to the dog. I finished just as the film began. Those of you who have seen the film will know what results. Every scene is shot with handheld cameras, so the entire work is one long shaky scene after another. At times, they are running through the forest terrorized by unexplained noises, voices and bizarre, roughly-hewn figures made from sticks. With every eerie moment, you’re left with the question of whether or not you’re witnessing something supernatural, or simply three lost people suffering from hunger, fear and their own delusions. This wasn’t a Spielberg ghost story. In fact, you really don’t see any ghosts or witches at all. That doesn’t diminish the suspense and the tension continues to build until the remaining characters seek shelter in an abandoned house and the film, and protagonists, seemingly meet a brutally abrupt end. “Was that real?” I asked myself. “What the hell just happened?”
The lights went up and my friend, Chris, jumped up from his seat to leave. I couldn’t move…but it wasn’t terror. “Oh,” Chris speculated, “did your leg fall asleep?” Nope, that wasn’t it. It was the shaky camera work…and that damn movie theater hot dog. I struggled. I fought for internal control. I lost. As the women, who I warned against “screamin’ and cryin’” were stirring from their seats, I lunged forward and regurgitate what appeared to be three days of food on the historic theater’s floor. I knew I was suffering motion sickness but, to the film’s credit, I just couldn’t look away. I’ve also got to credit the women I harassed. They would have been perfectly justified in laughing at my distress, but they chose simply to flee the scene. Many critics noted at the time that The Blair Witch Project redefined the horror genre in film and represented the next step in the ongoing blurring of entertainment and reality. It also made me barf uncontrollably but that shouldn’t take anything away from it. Over the next decade, numerous big-budget films would follow in “The Project’s” footsteps and remind us all that the scariest possibilities in life are those that could unfold right in front of our own iPhones.
Postscript: For anyone who doubted the claim I made in an earlier piece (My Sitcom, My Life) that Seinfeld captured nearly every moment of my experience as a young, working professional, please watch the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nwd6gztJTd8
