Unseen Horrors: The Blair Witch Project (1999)

The Blair Witch Project remains one of the most successful examples of the Val Lewton approach to the horror film: that is, creating scares out of what we don't see. Every time I re-visit the film, I am struck by just how really effective it is in its use of "found footage", a technique that has become utterly overused in the past 15 years, though it is no more fair to blame the unprecedented success of Blair Witch for inspiring such countless cheap knock-offs and imitations than it would be to blame The Texas Chain Saw Massacre for the plethora of mindless slasher flicks that followed in its wake. For like that highly influential horror film, The Blair Witch Project was a game-changer to be sure, by tapping into our deepest fears.

The "found footage" approach here allows directors Dan Myrick and Ed Sanchez the freedom to conjure up whole unseen horrors -- the kind that we find ourselves fearing are lurking in the dark. As the three documentary filmmakers panic and lose their way, venturing further and further into the bowels of the forest, they are menaced by unseen sounds and sensations that disorient them and confuse them, until they lose all sense of their surroundings. Even with the passing of several days, time seems to stand still for them in the middle of the woods, as they slowly lose their perception of reality. This descent is captured so viscerally through the increasingly chaotic and disorienting movements of the camera, which manages to create some of the most unsettling and truly terrifying effects when simply pointed into the vast, black void of the nocturnal forest.

The idea of getting "lost in the woods" touches on some of our deepest mythologies and fears about the forest and the potential evil that dwells within in it, a black vastness that can swallow up those who dare to enter. At one point in the film, one of the characters reassures her companions that it is impossible to truly get lost in the woods in America in this day and age, since man has done such a thorough job of de-foresting our natural landscapes. But as they discover, nature is an unstoppable, merciless force. In the end, it is not the Blair Witch that ultimately proves to be their undoing, but rather, their helplessness in the face of the forces of nature.

A Werewolf Triple Feature

With Halloween right around the corner, I recently had the opportunity to attend a triple feature screening of "Werewolf" movies at the historic Loew's Jersey theater in Jersey City. For any film enthusiast who has not had the pleasure of seeing a movie in this gorgeous 1929 movie palace, you owe it to yourself to check it out if you're ever in the New York City area. Each Halloween, the Loew's puts on a great program of classic horror films (in years past I've seen such favorites as Nosferatu, The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein there).

This year's program included a trio of "werewolf" movies that provide a neat evolution of the genre:

Werewolf of London (1935)
Universal's first attempt at creating a "werewolf" franchise as part of its horror cycle, it's clear why this film failed to take off with audiences in the way the studio's earlier efforts had. The single biggest problem is the rather unremarkable performance of stage actor Henry Hull in the title role. Hull lacked the larger-than-life presence and charisma that had made the performances of Lugosi and Karloff instantly iconic. Apparently, Hull objected to makeup man Jack Pierce's proposed makeup design, as he felt it obscured too much of his face, an attitude which exemplifies the problems with Hull's performance here. Additionally, director Stuart Walker was not a visual stylist on the level of Tod Browning or James Whale, and as a result, the film's look is flat and uninspired. Perhaps the best way to describe the film is "forgettable". It's not bad; it just fails to make much of an impact at all.

The Wolfman (1941)
Everything the studio got wrong in Werewolf of London, it got right in The Wolfman, starting with the inspired casting of Lon Chaney Jr. in the title role. He manages to create a great deal of sympathy in his portrayal of a good-natured everyman who becomes tortured by guilt after committing acts of killing that he cannot control. Director George Waggner was a reliable craftsman who made full use of the studio's resources to create the highly evocative atmosphere that the earlier film lacked. Makeup man Jack Pierce was also allowed to use his original makeup design for the Wolfman, which is far more effective than the compromised look he was forced to settle on before. I had forgotten what a really great supporting cast the film has, too, including Claude Rains, Ralph Bellamy, Warren William, Maria Ouspenskaya, and even Bela Lugosi in a brief but memorable appearance, plus the usual array of great character types who populated the world of the Universal horror film. If the Universal horror cycle was beginning to run out of steam by the early '40s, this film proves that the studio was still capable of turning out a really first-rate, genre-defining classic.

An American Werewolf in London (1981)
John Landis remains one of the most critically-neglected American filmmakers of the post-'70s/New Hollywood era. Perhaps that's because he works in highly commercial genres and directs hit crowd-pleasers, such as Animal House and The Blues Brothers, which -- like the work of his contemporary Steven Spielberg -- can be easy to take for granted. But as a filmmaker, he has a distinct and unique sensibility that provides him with the quite rare gift of being able to make a film that spans the genres of comedy and horror without ever compromising either the laughs or the scares (most recently evidenced by his very funny, and grossly underrated, Burke and Hare). An American Werewolf in London is perhaps his best film, filled with self-aware irony and humor while simultaneously creating a modern "werewolf" classic for a new generation.

I Walked With a Zombie (1943)

A lyrical, dreamlike Gothic horror classic, exquisitely directed by Jacques Tourneur and produced with real imagination by Val Lewton. A nurse comes to the island of St. Sebastian in the West Indies, to care for the catatonic wife of a wealthy plantation owner, but it soon becomes apparent that the situation between the owner, his wife, and his young half-brother is far more complicated than it first appears. As the nurse learns more about both the family's history, and the islanders' belief in zombies and voodoo practices, she comes to believe that such a ritual may be the only hope to rescue the wife from her state of living death.

Val Lewton's B-horror films, produced for RKO in the '40s, are famous for their minimalism and their ability to conjure up real horror and suspense using the barest of elements in highly creative fashion. This may be the most effective film of the group, both for its literate screenplay (loosely based on the premise of "Jane Eyre") and for its poetic, ethereal style, evoking a dream experience that moves lucidly and mysteriously. The sequence in which the nurse and the owner's wife make the trek across the island to attend a voodoo ritual is an especially masterful exercise in atmospheric horror, with the symbols of the skulls, hollow gourd and hanging goat, the sound of the wailing wind and rustling leaves, and the contrast between light and darkness creating an unshakable sense of dread.

Seven Footprints to Satan (1929)

Delirious, terrifying late-silent American horror film, directed by Danish filmmaker Benjamin Christensen (HAXAN). A timid, wealthy young idler (Creighton Hale) dreams of going on big adventures to Africa, but on the night of a society ball, he and his financee (Thelma Todd) are kidnapped and taken to the lair of a group of Satanists, who enslave and torture victims through various means. The young couple encounter one gruesome, uncanny character after another in their attempts to escape before they are called for a meeting with Satan himself to determine their fate.

Christensen pulls out all the stops, employing the kind of highly-stylized lighting effects and grotesque imagery that he used so effectively in HAXAN, and putting it to the service of an "old dark house" thriller. He finds a magnificent use for some of Hollywood's most unusual character actors, with the likes of Sheldon Lewis, William V. Mong, Sojin, Nora Cecil, and Angelo Rossitto among the bizarre residents in the Satanists' den. Christensen's penchant for perverse imagery includes such moments as a young girl (Loretta Young, in one of her earliest roles) being stripped, bound and lashed as her feet are pawed by a gorilla (played by, who else, Charles Gemora).

The basic set-up is the stuff of countless "old dark house" movies, so popular around this time with films like THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927), THE CAT CREEPS and THE BAT WHISPERS (both 1930), and it's even possible to imagine it being played for "fright" comedy by someone like Bob Hope or Lou Costello. But in Christensen's hands, this familiar premise turns dark, taking a genuinely sinister turn, and becomes the stuff of nightmares. Indeed, the film has the emotionally-draining effect of a bad dream. It's exhausting, frustrating, terrifying, and even the light tone of its last-minute, twist ending does not alleviate the horror that has been built up over the previous hour, instead ringing as ironically false as Murnau's happy ending to THE LAST LAUGH. By that point, Christensen has already done his work in scaring us.