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The Blair Witch Project Essay

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A Critical Reflection of The Blair Witch Project

Perhaps one of the most influential modern horror films, The Blair Witch Project pioneered an entirely new subgenre of horror films in 1999- the found footage film. The Blair Witch Project uses simple yet effective set design and dream like sound editing to highlight the gradual mental decay of main character, Heather Donahue over the course of the story to illustrate a dramatic shift in the orientation. This, along with the first hand experience offered by point of view camera positioning allows the audience to experience the terror associated with horror and the demonic alongside the main characters as the film progresses As the main characters- Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, and Mike Williams …show more content…

Most of the scenes rely on the setting rather than any type of design or manipulation, allowing the naturally frightening location of the secluded forest to contribute to the terror felt by both the characters and the audience. When scene design is heavily incorporated, such as in the final scene in the witch’s house, the design is expressed through subtleties that have been established earlier in the film. Symbols and children’s handprints on the walls of the decaying house imply that the house that Mike and Heather find themselves in during the last scene is in fact the house that the children from the townspeople’s stories were killed in.
The first person point of view camera angle also allows the audience to experience the strange and terrifying events that take place within the film by allowing them to adopt the perspective of the characters in a way that cannot be accomplished with traditional film making techniques. This adoption of perspective allows the audience to identify with the characters on a personal level, making them open to the notions of orientations and ideas that seem ridiculous, such as continuing to film regardless of the terrifying events that take

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