| Film Review: The Haunting and The Blair Witch Project | |
The problem with digital special effects in some movies today is that filmmakers feel compelled to use them, even when it doesn’t benefit the film. The use of computer-generated special effects and the absence of their use are contrasted in two current films that deal the with paranormal: The Haunting and The Blair Witch Project. The Haunting relies heavily on the latest computer gimmickry, while The Blair Witch Project uses none, yet Blair Witch is more effective in creating tension and suspense.
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© 1998 Dreamworks LLC & Amblin Entertainment, Inc. |
Scary movies are successful only in so much as they allow your suspension of disbelief. And they work best not when they just startle you by having images unexpectedly jump into the frame of the film (a technique used endlessly in such “slasher” films as Halloween and, more recently, Scream), but when they affect us on a psychological level – when they tap into our primal fears. Used effectively, special effects can often help a film reach deep into our psyche, but used haphazardly, they just get in the way.
The Haunting is a remake of the 1963 film of the same title, both of which were based on the book The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. As part of a psychological experiment, a psychologist gathers several people at an old, gothic mansion with an eerie past. Unknown to all of them, and what they find out rather quickly, is that the house is seriously haunted by malevolent spirits. The main focus of the haunting is Eleanor (Julie Harris in the original and Lili Taylor in the remake), a rather disturbed young woman who, because of her own need for a sense of belonging and purpose, begins to feel a strong attachment to the house, despite (or perhaps because of) the strange goings on. The house reciprocates her feelings.
The original film, directed by Robert Wise, used film effects only minimally. No ghosts are ever seen, no blood is shed, no gruesome corpses ever pop into our faces. Instead, Wise uses sound, unusual camera angles and, most importantly, suggestion to create some truly chilling moments that stick with you, especially when you’re alone in bed at night.
By contrast, the new version of The Haunting, directed by Jan De Bont, often shoves its scares into viewers’ faces. It does have its frightening moments, but sometimes loses effectiveness when it turns to digital effects to bring parts of the house alive. Used subtly, this might have worked better, but the filmmakers go over the top, epitomized most absurdly by a statue of a large bird that comes to life, only to be beaten back into statuehood by the heroine with a broom handle.
The De Bont version explains the haunting in more logical detail than the original, but the ’63 version ties the paranormal activities more closely to Eleanor’s psychological state. While the ’99 version leaves no room for doubt that the house is indeed possessed (we can’t ignore the animated statuary and a completely gratuitous decapitation), the original leaves us wondering just how much of the haunting could have been caused by the mind of the highly neurotic Eleanor.
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Artisan Entertainment |
The Blair Witch Project also elicits its scares through suggestion rather than optical effects. The film, shot on a shoestring budget, uses the clever premise of three young filmmakers who venture into the Maryland woods to shoot a documentary about the local (mythical) “Blair Witch” legend. The film itself is the 16mm and video footage they shot in the woods, documenting their own encounter with unknown forces. To create the film’s unnerving atmosphere, the filmmakers use darkness, silence, and enigmatic sounds in combination with some fairly good, naturalistic acting by the cast. And, as the house is as much of a character as the actors are in The Haunting, the woods plays a sinister role in Blair Witch.
What works for Blair Witch and the ’63 version of The Haunting – and what the newer version fails to do – is that they take the viewer into a plausible situation and then slowly introduce the unusual, but subtle elements that work their way into our heads and get us to the point that we scare ourselves. The overt special effects of the new The Haunting get in the way of this plausibility. Viewers are unlikely to fear a wooden vulture in an old mansion, but I’ll bet they won’t be able to camp completely restfully in the middle of the woods after seeing Blair Witch.
It seems to me that the
best scary films are successful in the same way that “real” paranormal events
affect experiencers. They play on our imaginations and our psychology. How much of it is
real, and how much are we just scaring ourselves? How real are those unexplained thumps in
the night, the footsteps on the stairway, and the fleeting shadows caught out of the
corner of our eyes, and how much is due to fatigue, nervousness, loneliness, or some other
upsetting psychological state? Are paranormal events purely imaginary, fooling us through
suggestion? Or are they physical manifestations created by the special effects department
of the universe... or by the energy of our own brains? Or is the paranormal all of these
things? 
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