Curse of the Blair Witch

Released to TV in the summer of 1999 three weeks before the premiere of the found-footage film "The Blair Witch Project," "Curse of the Blair Witch" is a mockumentary (fake documentary) that goes over the mythology of the Blair witch and interviews people who knew the three amateur filmmakers who supposedly went missing in 1994.

How do you review a documentary that's phony? I suppose by how real it makes its topic appear. As far as that goes, this is a quality mockumentary that inspires interest in the non-subject. I say "non-subject" because there never was a Blair witch; there wasn't even a town of Blair; nor are any of the people in the film real. It's all fake. But "Curse of the Blair Witch" was an ingenious set-up to fool people into believing (or, at least, MAYBE believing) the found-footage of "The Blair Witch Project." With the hysteria of that movie far behind us "Curse of the Blair Witch" is still entertaining for what it is and you can't help but respect its cleverness.

I helps that the "documentary" only runs 44 minutes.

GRADE: B

I only saw the film that this mockumentary is about today (see the comments in the comments page of the actual film).

I believe I watched this on our Canadian equivalent of the Sci Fi channel, called Space... in the summer. I was tired that day so I fell asleep during some of it.

At that point in the hype of the film, I was trying to find out if it was indeed fact or fiction, and I wasn't certain yet, so it did disturb me somewhat while I watched it, thinking, my God, what if this was real? I quickly learned after the credits rolled that there was no disclaimer to say that it was fact or fiction.

The only thing I had to comfort me is that I don't live anywhere near there, so it couldn't happen to me. Although... we do have lots of woods here so it did bother me slightly.

Later, I learned that the whole movie and mockumentary was untrue, so it set my mind at ease.

Once I found out there was minimal gore, I decided I might give it a shot when it came out on VHS, but only during the day on a smaller screen, so as to lose that "thrust into it/real feeling"... though I chickened out the first time when I went to rent the last one at Blockbuster... I despise horror films... but someone bought it and decided to show it to some friends and I, so I thought, what the hell. (See my comments in the comments section of the film for more.)

I can't tell you in which order to watch the film and this. You have to decide for yourself. Maybe you should see this first for a background story.

After watching the film, I am still left with questions. I guess I wasn't paying as much attention to this, or the beginning of the film, as I should have.

However I wouldn't recommend finding out exactly how either this or the film was made or it could somewhat spoil it for you.

Just be glad that it isn't true and watch these, and enjoy them... if you can.

I haven't seen the blair witch project yet.At first I thought it was real but later found out it wasn't.When I watched this special I began to forget this.It was very well staged and almost appeared real.It was almost like a mini movie accompanying the film.I know have a better understanding of this fictional myth.So when I see the movie I might better understand it.

Originally airing on the Sci-Fi Channel the week before the release of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), this fascinating look at the supposedly "true" legends of the Blair Witch, from the banishment of Elle Kedward, the drowning of little Eileen Treacle, and the massacre at Coffin Rock, to the 1941 murders committed by Rustin Parr, right up to the 1994 disappearances of Heather, Mike, and Josh, cleverly reels in viewers to this fictional mythology. Many who watched this later swore it was on The Learning Channel or Discovery, not Sci-Fi! In many respects, this short piece is far better than the actual feature film it was meant to promote.

It is a favourite sport among 'sophisticated' Europeans to laugh at gullible Americans, and it is a pastime, I'm ashamed to admit, I've indulged in myself. Ho ho! we chortle when we read about audiences feeling sick at such a tame film as THE EXORCIST. Hee hee! we titter as reports come of spectators needing psychiatrists after THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. But I for one envy American faith. Sometimes cynicism can be so tiring, and I'm really jealous of Americans who were genuinely scared watching BLAIR.

Apparently this mockumentary played a large part in the film's mythology - I don't know how true this is. As I mentioned in my review, I was scared witless by BLAIR, and felt great anguish for some time after it. Watching CURSE was of great therepeutic value - shorn of the big screen and the mechanics of the horror film, I was able to dominate the material, to emasculate its very real hold on me.

I think this mockumentary both weakens and strengthens the film. Without having seen it, the film is extraordinarily rich and suggestive, playing havoc with the viewer who carries no preconceptions (like myself). Being not quite sure what to expect only increases the tension and the terror. If I'd seen this mockumentary, I don't think I'd have been as scared. I'd have known too much, many things would have been explained (or at least graspable), overarching theories would have been more easily explicable.

Not knowing too profoundly about the legend helps the film. However, it is also chilling in that the students therefore move from one set of bearings (map, compass), to another (the forest's enchanted circle, the signifiers of the Blair Witch myth). The mockumentary strengthens the film by showing us the outside world of the events, the context and apparatus from which the students disappeared, making their trauma less abstract, more real. It is so rational and comforting, filled with family, friends, and experts, that it makes the disappearance all the more bewildering and shocking.

It is alleged that this mockumentary was shown for real on a factual US television station. While I find this hard to believe, I've been asking myself how I'd have dealt with it in those conditions. I'm not surprised people were taken in - it's brilliantly made and acted, a spot-on recreation of a certain kind of programme-making, right down to the amusingly portentous music, used like double spacing after a paragraph. The only false note is the 1940s footage of the killer, which clearly looks like it was filmed recently.

If I'd seen this mockumentary - and I generally avoid UNSOLVED MYSTERIES-type TV - I don't think I'd have been as moved as I was at the film. The story itself is very compelling, and I love the whole creation of a myth to the extent that I can't believe now that the Blair Witch never existed.

But only fiction can created the character and empathy needed for true horror to succeed; the film reclaims the personal absent (necessarily) from this 'documentary'. CURSE has other points to make - the idea of both history and documentary (the recording of that history) as fabrication; the persistant cultural fear of independent women; the tensions and perversions of small town life; the Gothic strangeness, regardless of the supernatural, or life on the US margins; the deep failure of American masculinity, from Heather's film school teacher to the Sherrif. A lovely document, vastly preferable to THE X-FILES.