Examining The Blair Witch Project as a Lovecraftian Film

BLOT: (26 Jun 2014 - 01:55:44 PM)

Examining The Blair Witch Project as a Lovecraftian Film

In a recent Reddit (specifically r/horrorlit) Ask-Me-Anything, Ramsey Campbell wrote, "I still think The Blair Witch Project is the most Lovecraftian of movies." An interesting statement. A statement that I almost overlooked until David Kidd mentioned it on Twitter, and that got me thinking. I mean, had there been one mention of a Black Man of the Woods, or strange cult rituals dedicated to the witch, or a pattern of lights seen on Potter's Hill every Walpurgis Night, then it would be fairly non-controversial, so why is it kind of weird to hear it? I'm not sure. Maybe we take the ghost of the Witch (and/or the Witch herself) as being much as what is named [if not actually described]. I don't know much about the sequel, or the videogames, or the books, or any of that—I have a feeling that they swing the movie back away from Lovecraftian—but just examining the first movie brings up some amazing parallels to Lovecraft's fiction (and to other weird fiction stories). Ready to see some of them?

The setting is rural, and deals with old history in a small town.

In the tradition of "The Call of Cthulhu" and "From Beyond", there is a notion that once they have crossed a certain threshold of finding out the truth, there is no way for them to come out unscathed.

The Witch is described twice. Once as an old woman floating above the ground in the woods. Once as a woman wearing a shawl, covered in dark fur. While neither of those are exactly Lovecraftian, it could mean the Witch is inherently indescribable.

One of the old fishermen also describes seeing a strange fog/mist—holding a shape—come out of the water and head off into the woods.

The one time the Witch potentially shows up in the film is during a night scene in which the campers run from something. "What the hell is that?!" is screamed as the camera fails to focus quickly enough on something in the darkness of the woods. This is highly reminiscent of the swamp scene in "The Call of Cthulhu" (with the shape in the woods), or just in general with the notion of an inhuman forest thing not easily recognized as human.

This event occurs after a couple of nights of hearing strange noises surround them in the woods and eventually having their equipment being messed with. Suggestive of Blackwood's "The Willows". In general, people separated from society and forced against the brutality of Nature fits in with "The Willows" and "The Wendigo".

The physical presence of The Witch results in a blue slime left behind. Possibly meant to be an ectoplasmic reference, mind, but also again hinting at something even more inhuman than originally assumed. [addendum: As an exciting note, and something I had overlooked originally, the Hounds of Tindalos are said to leave behind a bluish pus or ichor! (as spotted here: Tales of the Blair Witch Mythos, see update below)]

The Witch has three calling cards: piles of stones (earth magic), stick figures (wood magic, but also a potential referenced to Karl Edward Wagner's "Sticks" in which similar figures are found out in the woods due to an old lich), and strange symbols and writings left on some victims [and in the old house, glimpsed briefly on the walls on the end].

Parr, the man who killed seven children, did so because he was being harassed by the Witch, something fairly reminiscent of Nyarlathotep. [Kind of a stretch, sure, but you see a pattern of entities inspiring questionable behavior in Lovecraftian fiction, though maybe more so the expanded bit...]

The dead men on Coffin Rock were tied hand to foot in a chain, and had their intestines spread about: a violent and ritualistic death. In just a couple of hours, the bodies were gone, hinting at something inhuman or a group of people working together.

While it is possibly that three untrained young adults could simply have lost themselves in the woods, it is implied that something is warping either their perceptions or the geometry of the woods, leading to them being lost for days on a trail that should have taken hours.

Though undiscussed in the film, there is a line about young people never learning. Have there been other, more recent groups, lost in the woods? Is the town covering it up, or is the town unable to remember the events?

The camera often captures darkness, a certain irony that feels very much in line with post-Lovecraft weird fiction.

This, combined with the general notion of three young people being "devoured" by the woods and/or by an unseen and unknowable assailant (who might just be locals having dangerous fun), definitely feels as though the film is trying to tap into lingering, cosmic dread. Perhaps its most brilliant stroke is that it never truly gives into the need to explain. By the end, there are perhaps more questions than at the beginning. I mean, yes, it could just be a serial killer in the woods. It could also be the ghost of an old witch, a lich, Nyarlathotep, or a hoax by the students. While the movie suffers from a being occasionally over-the-top, it really is a great example of how not to show a whole lot but to get everything you need accomplished [even leaving in mistakes, as a mostly unedited movie would have]. I need to go back and watch the "documentary" attached to it, and maybe try out the games. I'm sure they will spoil it, but the film itself has some neat tricks. Perhaps the best is that it is one of the few found-footage films that tries really hard to explain why they keep filming: because they cannot deal with what is happening to them, so the camera enables them to see themselves as just part of a project. Fascinating.

To end, I will quote from Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature", as yet another way to think of this movie as Lovecraftian. While they never quite say aloud that they feel that natural law is being broken down, there are hints that they are mostly not saying it because admitting it would be to admit immediate death.

The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain—a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.

UPDATE (27 Jun 2014): when I wrote this, I purposefully avoided searching for the topic online (or looking into the expanded universe) so that I could focus on elements of the film, and my own impressions. Since then, I've done a little bit of searching and have found others that have shared my sentiments. The best one I have found so far as has been Michael D. Winkle's "Tales of the Blair Witch Mythos". He goes into detail about how the basement fits in, about masses of people/things moving in the woods, and so on. He's where the Tindalos connection was spotted. Well worth a read. Mine has some different points to his, so trust me when I say that not everything is spoiled.

UPDATE 2 (27 Jun 2014): Note, this was a mostly an exercise to find elements to back up Ramsey Campbell's claim but based on a few comments I have received, I wanted to play my own sort of Devil's Advocate briefly and to expand upon one general flavor of criticism [though constructively given, mind] that I have received. First, how is The Blair Witch Project not Lovecraftian (by at least certain definitions of the word)?: (a) It names no specific mythos entity, (b) it names no specific mythos tome, (c) it does not inherently suggest an extraterrestrial degree of cosmic dread*, and (d) the sounds in the wood are not, as it were, in the Dutch language. I do not personally think those things are necessary—"Colour Out of Space" would mostly fail based on that test, as would "The Music of Eric Zahn", "From Beyond", "Rats in the Wall", "The Picture in the House", and many other well-known Lovecraft stories—but I see how they are considered important as a marker. Secondly, to the critique that you can cherry-pick any story to make it "Lovecraftian", I'd like to point out that up until a writer/directory commentary (which may already exist) shows up saying that the movie is or is distinctly not Lovecraftian, I feel that the pattern of elements are strong enough in this case. If it hadn't involved a long history going back to near colonial times, and if it hadn't involved a rural/small-town setting, and if it hadn't involved indescribable things, and if it hadn't involved ritualistic killing, and if it hadn't involved strange sticks in the woods, and if it hadn't involved weird writing on the faces of the victims and the walls, and if it hadn't involved warping of time/space...then I wouldn't be quite so prone to take it as Lovecraftian. This does come down to what definition you want to use as "Lovecraftian" (or "Machenian" or "Blackwoodian", etc).

Lovecraftian Miscellany

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