The Blair Witch Project (Magna Home Ent) (1998)

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General		Extras
Category	Horror	Menu Animation & Audio Featurette-Curse Of The Blair Witch Featurette-Newly Discovered Footage-Theories Of The Blair Witch Notes-The Blair Witch Legacy Biographies-Cast & Crew Production Notes Theatrical Trailer-1.78:1 (Non 16x9), Dolby Digital 2.0 surround Teaser Trailer-2, both non-16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0 surround Audio Commentary-Directors & Producers
Rating
Year Of Production	1998
Running Time	77:37 (Case: 90)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (74:17)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Daniel Myrick Eduardo Sanchez
Studio Distributor	Magna Home Entertainment	Starring	Heather Donahue Michael Williams Joshua Leonard
Case	Brackley-Trans-No Lip
RPI	$34.95	Music	Antonio Cora

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    "You've got to be *&@!ing joking!"

    There are some films that offend me so greatly with their portrayal of a minority or similar group in a distorted manner that I just can't let go of my personal anger towards its makers. The 6th Day is one, for its portrayal of a technology that threatens to make cancer, diabetes, and AIDS things of the past as the ultimate evil, then there's Memento for its portrayal of people with diabetes as weak and helpless, needing the constant supervision of a spouse for survival. Being one of the millions of people in this world with diabetes, as well as mentally afflicted to such a degree that people who so much as contemplate coming near me with a syringe get a thorough butt-kicking, both of these films make me want to do obscene and cruel things to their writers.

    However, neither of these films commit what I consider to be the cardinal sin: telling lies about a religion or race that has already suffered enough persecution over the centuries. When I went to see The Blair Witch Project in the Parramatta 8 complex at the behest of a friend who edited a local independent magazine at the time, I was displeased to report it commits this cardinal sin within one reel. From then on, not only did I want Heather Donahue and her cast-mates dead, I would have paid ten times the admission price for the privilege of doing the job myself.

    Still, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez have to be commended for their ability to pull the wool over people's eyes, because not only did enough people see this film for it to gross hundreds of millions of dollars, but some even regard it as a cinematic classic. Even people I thought to have more sense than this, such as members of Type O Negative, had a day in the media praising it for originality or style that just wasn't there. Cannibal Holocaust's style of psuedomentary where the filmmakers upset the natives (as opposed to a bunch of twigs) is much easier to stomach, although you still feel the film crew had it coming in spite of how much more entertaining it is when it comes. By the time this film was finished, I honestly wanted to nail the cast members to a tree myself, I had that little sympathy for them and their situation.

    I hardly think anything more needs to be said about this highly offensive load of pig swill, except maybe what former Burkittsville councilman had to say about the makers' request for permission to film a sequel there: "We've already been raped. Now they want us to be prostitutes."

Video

    This transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, and it is not 16x9 Enhanced. Those who saw the film in theatres will probably have noted that the film was originally presented in varying aspect ratios. The video-sourced footage was presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, while the footage that was captured on film was presented in an aspect ratio of 1.66:1, or something very close to it. This latter type of footage has been cropped in order to achieve the 1.33:1 ratio.

    The sharpness of the overall film was non-existent to begin with, and the transfer captures that without so much as a hiccup. The video-sourced footage simply looks like something filmed in one's backyard with a 1980s-generation camcorder, while the film-source footage looks grainy and blurred. The shadow detail is virtually non-existent, partly due to the film stocks used in principal photography, but mostly due to the ad hoc nature of the filming. There is no low-level noise.

    The colours in the transfer are generally dull and washed out, with everything taking on the appearance of having been filmed with a camcorder using cassettes that had been recorded over a few times previously. This is generally a reflection of the theatrical exhibition, where the colours simply looked so flat and lifeless that I felt as if I was paying to see a home video.

    MPEG artefacts are not apparent in this transfer, although there are moments when they seem to be on the verge of breaking out due to the nature of the source materials. Film-to-video artefacts were not apparent during the film-sourced footage, mostly due to the very limited resolution, but wobble of every kind you care to mention is severely problematic. Much of this film was shot with people running around, screaming like they were stoned out of their gourds, with the cameras simply strapped to their shoulders, and the final result is enough to give any viewer a headache. The video camera used to film these parts of the feature suffers from an interlacing effect during these parts of the film, too, but this is to be expected. Film artefacts were mildly present during the film-sourced footage.

    This disc is an RSDL disc. with the layer change taking place during the ending credits at 74:17.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on this DVD: the original English dialogue in Dolby Digital 2.0 with surround-encoding and a bitrate of 192 kilobits per second, plus an English Audio Commentary soundtrack in Dolby Digital 2.0 mono with a bitrate of 224 kilobits per second. It is somewhat perplexing that a commentary track which is basically monaural would receive a higher bitrate than the original dialogue soundtrack.

    The dialogue is variably rendered, being often muffled to the point where it is barely audible, and it doesn't help matters much when it is screamed, either, as the limitations of the methods that were used to record the soundtrack come to the fore. The dialogue was clear and easy to understand during the times when Heather Donahue all but declared her allegiance to the Hitler Youth, and other such dialogue-intensive moments. It soon becomes an annoying mess, however, during the argument sequences that were put in to flesh out the film. Occasionally, a member of the group would mumble something off-camera and Heather would repeat it for our benefit, but the standard response from the audience by the time this started taking place was "we don't care". Audio sync doesn't seem to be much of a problem, although it is hard to tell a lot of the time.

    There is no music in this film except for a short blast of a record company's pick of the moment in Josh's car. This makes it all the more puzzling that a record company has been trying to sell a soundtrack to this film.

    The surround channels were hardly used at all in order to support the sounds of the forest, with the occasional flutter of leaves and running water just barely making it to the surrounds. Most of the action is focused upon the front soundstage, with all of the shouting and screaming taking place in the main front channels. The subwoofer was not specifically used by this soundtrack, and would have had very little to do even if it were specifically encoded into the mix.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    The menu is themed around the film and features some of the most annoying animation I have ever seen on a DVD-Video menu. It is not 16x9 Enhanced. The animated text is all but unreadable, making navigation into an annoying guessing game.

Theatrical Trailer (0:59)

    Fifty-nine seconds too long.

Teaser Trailer #1 (1:00)

    Exactly one minute too long.

Teaser Trailer #2 (1:15)

    Seventy-five seconds too long.

Audio Commentary - Robbie Cowie (producer), Daniel Myrick (co-writer and director), Eduardo Sanchez (II) (co-writer and co-director), Gregg Hale (producer) and Michael Monello (co-producer)

    What can you say about a commentary that is about a film with an even bigger deficit between hype and reality than The Matrix?

Featurette - The Curse Of The Blair Witch (43:52)

    Apart from the fact that this featurette is chaptered (something I wish all featurettes over ten minutes would incorporate), there is very little I can say about it that would vaguely qualify as being nice.

Featurette - Newly Discovered Footage (Theories Of The Blair Witch) (5:04)

    This is a scene that didn't make it into the final cut of the film. Surprisingly, it is much better than the rest of the film in spite of not being particularly special.

Notes - The Blair Witch Legacy

    Again, an extra that demonstrates an over-inflated idea of the film's artistic merit.

Biographies - Cast & Crew

    Extensive bios of most of the people involved in the production (if you can call it that). They try very hard. I think they've just worked out how to use that little dial called the focus.

Production Notes

    "Give me a buck and I'll make a better film in my backyard," said one amateur critic, which I feel sums up the production of this film quite well. This is worth a read if you can get past that.

The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• DVD-ROM extras

    The Blair Witch Project is a sterling example of hype over substance, presented on a DVD that I just cannot recommend even now.

    The video transfer is an accurate reflection of exceptionally annoying filming methods.

    The audio transfer tries very hard, but the original production doesn't give it a lot to work with.

    The extras are just plain annoying.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall