The Blair Witch Project and The Haunting: Giving up the Gothic Ghost
Written August 14, 1999. Edited with afterword August, 2002
By Jeb J. Card
Several of my friends consider me to be an avocational authority on strange and unusual folklore, and all things Fortean. While I don't usually agree with that assertion, I kind of get a kick out of it, and feel no need to correct them. So, in recent days, I have had to field several questions concerning the veracity of the movie The Blair Witch Project.
"Yes, Burkittsville is a real town, it is outside Franklin." (Photo below Copyright Joseph Card, 2003)
"No, the Blair Witch is not a real story. But is based on the Bell Witch of early 19th century Tennessee."
"It would be very difficult to place a modern object in sterile soil without leaving some trace such as a soil discoloration or change in texture."
I had first heard of The Blair Witch Project back in February on alt.horror.cthulhu, a newsgroup dedicated to the fiction and legacy of horror writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft. Lovecraft was the author of numerous short stories and novellas between 1917 and 1937. His work attracted many imitators, who tried to fill in a little piece of what August Derleth called "The Cthulhu Mythos", a series of related stories and concepts that H.P.L. and later others wrote concerning alien gods that shambled across the Earth long before Australopithecus africanus was being terrorized by hungry leopards, and the crazed men who worshipped these utterly alien beings. In addition to containing racial slurs, very few women, and generally cumbersome prose, these stories boasted two praisable characteristics: atmosphere and veracity.
In many a Lovecraft tale, very little happens. A highly educated narrator slowly unspools hints and clues as to the true nature of the events that will inevitably engulf him. Yet, the narrator rarely puts these pieces together until it is too late, or upon realizing what the reader suspects is the horrific truth, scoffs and chalks up his suppositions to nerves or lack of mental discipline. In doing so, Lovecraft's protagonists stumble into a situation, with all the tools required to escape if nothing else, but cannot due to their psychological stumbling blocks. But the reader can see at least part of what will happen, and is dragged along, knowing something horrible will happen, but without the power to stop it. This atmosphere of inevitability and helplessness despite the narrator's wealth of knowledge and civilization backs up pervasive themes of the minuscule nature of humanity in an uncaring, random universe.
The reader is swept in further by the nature of the hints and clues that the narrator ignores or misinterprets. In "The Call of Cthulhu" the entire story is a manuscript "Found among the papers of the late Francis Wayland Thurston, of Boston". The manuscript relates the discovery of a an ancient cult and their hideous alien god by the late author, who in turn made his discoveries while perusing the contents of a box found in the attic of the author's late granduncle. These contents include an odd carving, notes, newspaper clippings, and journal entries. Although "The Call of Cthulhu" is the best example, many of H.P.L.'s stories quote the contents of letters, journals, newspaper articles, radio transmissions, and the like. All of this leads to a high level of veracity: we are not being told a tale around a campfire, or watching from the perspective of the all-knowing Third Person. We are simply privy to evidence of that which we do not want to explain.
Over the decades, Lovecraft's work has grown more and more popular, although never really breaking out of the cult status. But his mix of nihilism and a paranoid fear of secret history and influences that rule us all hits a chord at the end of the 20th century. In the aftermath of the events described in "The Shadow over Innsmouth", written during the 1920's, an entire town is investigated in secret by the Federal Government. A veritable army of Feds descends on the town and secretly imprisons many of the inhabitants without trial or even indictments. Liberal organizations and the media protest, but after vague rumors of disease and tours of military prisons and concentration camps where the townspeople have been incarcerated, they cooperate in a cover-up. Only a single tabloid prints the wild claim that a US Navy submarine torpedoed a reef off the coast of the town in conjunction with the raid. "Scully, I hope you like clam chowder, cause we're heading to Innsmouth."
I hope the reader forgives my lengthy side journey, but it helps me to explain the appeal of The Blair Witch Project and place it in the context of 20th century horror. Blair is the edited version of a set of films and tapes found in 1995 in rural Maryland. A year before, three student filmmakers had disappeared in the area while filming a documentary about the Blair Witch, a local legend. I won't go into the details of the plot, nor the ending (which is very effective), but I do want to say a little about the nature of the movie. It is a strange novelty. In a time where everything must happen in 15 second soundbites, and elaborate CGI sequences are required, Blair could be a real snoozer to the Extreme crowd. There are no special effects. The first hour of the film moves slowly, and no one displays any martial arts prowess. But that time is necessary for atmosphere. The fact that Heather, Josh, and Mike are lost is not communicated in a three-minute set of dialogue and a visual of an upside down map. We are shown that they are lost time and time again. The characters talk about being lost over and over. But it is real. Have you ever been lost? If so, you'll recognize this behavior. It is in this atmosphere of despair and dissension (every lost group must inevitably spend a significant amount of time figuring out who got them lost) that a simple thing out of place, a pile of rocks, or a strange noise, hits everyone like a ton of bricks. The viewer is sucked in, knowing that these people are doomed. Heather sees the evidence of weird things that you see, it's all on her tape. Why doesn't she get out? That inevitability steps in.
Into the real, the unreal intrudes
When this occurs, we see the other side of horror in the late 20th century, the abandonment of the Gothic for the suburban. The horrors of Stephen King don't take place in a ruined castle or an ancestral manor, unless of course the place has been turned into a tourist trap by the Disney Corporation. They turn up in common places, involving common people and common things. Into the everyday world of Brand Name America completely random terror manifests, often for no good reason. Heather, Josh, and Mike might be terrified of a witch in the woods, but earlier that morning they had been clowning around in an A&P only a few miles outside of Baltimore. The thick description and characterization in Blair pay off when Heather's plans start to go awry.
The same cannot be said for the plans of Liam Neeson's character in The Haunting. I have neither read Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House nor the 1963 movie based on that work which were the "inspiration" for The Haunting, so I will not comment on the current movie's status as a remake, although I can't believe that the originals could have been worse and allowed to stay on library and rental shelves. In The Haunting, Liam Neeson plays a psychologist conducting an unethical study on fear. The main character of the piece, played by Lili Taylor (you may know her from a fifth season X-File about a blind woman who sees through the eyes of a killer) is a put upon old maid who signs up for Neeson's experiment. Also looking for a quick psych study buck is Catherine Zeta-Jones as a bisexual clothes horse and Owen Wilson as a prototype of what Shaggy might have been like if you replaced his dope habit with a Mountain Dew fixation. WARNING: I am going to guess that some of you will want to see The Haunting due to the presence of Catherine Zeta-Jones. Don't bother, you will be disappointed by her level of attire.
The good doctor has chosen a spooky old house as the perfect place to scare his subjects. The house is the true star of the movie, filled with funhouse rooms and hundreds of sculptures of cherubs. Once the experiment has begun, unplanned spooky occurrences begin to plague the little group. But the problem is, it is all so hokey, it can't be scary. Almost immediately, obvious CGI is used to show us everything. Eschewing the power of suggestion so masterfully used in Blair, the demons of The Haunting don't hold up well to the light of observation, and look like something out of a bad CD-ROM. At one point, Lili Taylor's character has stumbled into a secret library with skulls and other Gothic trappings. She flips through several books which instantly give her the secrets of the house, even involving a cheesy CGI effect. I was almost expecting her hand to turn into a magnifying glass when she held it over the books, but unlike in a game, I couldn't click though the cheesy live action sequence.
And that is the inherent flaw of The Haunting. Forget the bad acting. Forget the terrible directing, the atrocious story (at times the story ignores obvious devices which would improve it. Early on, one of Neeson's graduate students is horribly scarred while having a nervous breakdown about the evil that resides in the house. We presume that the accident and the very fake looking wound has been planned by Neeson, to ratchet up the terror in his subjects. But no, it is simply a terribly fake looking wound, that serves no point and is not scary). Forget the crappy special effects. The problem remains: Gothic isn't scary anymore. An old mansion is not a place of terror, it is a place of play. Skulls and ravens are cool Halloween props, but they don't freak anyone out over the age of five.
Cemetary in Burkittsville, Maryland, Summer 2003. Featured in The Blair Witch Project. Copyright Jeb J. Card, 2003
Simply put, our culture has grown up a little. We are no longer scared of the dark, we are scared of what might be in the dark. The Haunting failed to learn the lessons that are played up so well in Blair: create a believable environment, and then subtly change the rules. Instead, the director obviously knew that the film wasn't scary once they had started shooting, and tried to convert it into a PG action flick to grab the youth audience. But I've already played this video game, and it was boring the first time around.
In sum, Blair succeeds brilliantly by playing to the simulation-cravers of the 90's, who don't want to know if it is live or if it is Memorex. Go along with it, check out the mythology on the website, slowly let it sink in as a series of loosely connected events.
The Haunting fails miserably by being a mess of a movie set in a fantasyland of ghostly trappings that amount to nothing. It's about as creepy and atmospheric as an old Scooby Doo episode, but without the camp or nostalgia appeal. I think it was put best by an audience member who sat behind me (much of the crowd had taken to heckling by the second hour) in response to a pointless ending "That's Bullshit."
Since I wrote this review, I have been proven wrong about the appeal of Blair to the "Extreme" Crowd. Perhaps because of jealousy at the ease with which a simple yet almost original idea was turned unto a multi-hundred-million dollar franchise, Blair has been copied and parodied ad nauseum. A sentiment I have a harder time understanding is that many viewers felt they had been taken in by paying to see a simple "I could make that" movie by a massive hype campaign. Personally, I see the movie as simply the most high-profile part of a multimedia storytelling experiment. I still stand by my recommendation of The Blair Witch Project, but would equally recommend Curse of the Blair Witch, a very interesting and entertaining companion to the primary film. This hour-long "documentary" nearly flawlessly mimics the scores of "educational" shows about the Bermuda Triangle or Spontaneous Human Combustion that appear on the Discovery Channel.
As for "nearly original", The Blair Witch Project was inspired by The Last Broadcast. In Broadcast, three college students use the Web to host their search for the Jersey Devil. Something goes wrong, and the sole survivor is put on trial for the murder of his two colleagues. An independent investigator slowly unravels and interprets the footage left over from the expedition, trying to find out what really happened. Blair takes that conceit, expands it to an entire movie, and takes the additional step of keeping the actors out of the loop for improved reactions, but nonetheless owes a debt to The Last Broadcast.
I also stand firmly behind my review of The Haunting. It flat out stinks. Star Liam Neeson famously commented that the CGI in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace nearly drove him from acting in movies. Yet, I have to wonder if some of that loathing stems from his association with The Haunting, released later that same year. At least I can hope that it did.
I would also like to add that this review originally appeared in Daniel Hui's irregularly produced newsletter
Links
Obviously, I like the style of weaving hyperlinks into regular prose (everything on this page). But for those who don't, I'll repeat the interesting links down here
The Fortean Times: The best center for daily updates on strange and unsettling events. Some of the stories fall into the "News of the Weird" category, but most are stories involving cutting edge science or fringe beliefs (cryptozoology, ufology, cerealogy).
The "Witches" of Burkittsville: An interesting take on the Blair Witch phenomenon from the real center of the fictional events. The conspiracy emails are particularly fun.
The Bell Witch: Preumably an inspiration for the film, this is one of the most famous hauntings in American history. Parapsychology types would probably classify it as a poltergeist, but we all know that's not real, right?
The Collected Works of H. P. Lovecraft: The webmasters at one point had an explanation of why they aren't violating copyright.
August Derleth: Partly responsible for ensuring that Lovecraft's works would continue to be published. Also coined the term "Cthulhu Mythos"
The Literary Gothic: I haven't explored this site fully, but it looks to be a useful resource
The Winchester Mystery House: Located in Southern California, the Winchester House is a physical artifact of eccentric obsession. During her life, the widow of the famous firearm manufacturer kept the house under constant construction, in order to confuse the vengeful spirits of those killed by her husband's products. The result was a sprawling edifice with stairs that lead to nowhere and other bizarre architectural elements. The Winchester House is not associated with The Haunting, but is reminiscent of the bizarre history and eccentric nature of the real thing.
The Gothic Martha Stewart: I don't know if the advice is actually useful or in good decorating taste, but I love the concept