Formal Film Study: The Shining, The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project

For my formal film study, I wanted to make sure that I chose a topic and 3 movies that would push the envelope for me.  I wanted to watch movies that I never would have watched if I had not taken this class.  In other words, I wanted to watch films that would "mind blow" me.  As a movie watcher, I have pretty much seen every single type of genre of film besides one genre in particular.  I have never seen any horror movies.  To be honest, I have avoided horror movies like the plague.  I am that girl that is easily startled by someone sneezing in class and the girl that gets creeped out by stupid ghost stories told at campfires.  So what better way to push the envelope than by watching exactly the opposite of what I thought I would like?

Since I had never really seen horror movies before, I wanted to make sure I chose carefully which ones I would watch.  I wanted to see three classic horror films to give me the idea of what the horror genre is based on.  Off the top of my head I came up with the most well-known horror films.  These included The Shining, The Exorcist and The Blair Witch Project.

The first movie on my list to watch was The Shining.  From what I have heard, this is the most infamous horror movie of all time.  Even though I had never seen this movie prior to this project, I still had seen the bathroom scene somewhere on the internet before.  For anyone reading, The Shining is a 1980, "psychological film".  Jack Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson is a father and husband who gets the job to watch over this massive hotel in the mountains during the whole winter.  Torrance takes his wife, Shelley Duvall and his son, Danny Lloyd to the hotel with him for this job.  This family is all alone in this haunted hotel for a whole three months.  Basically, Jack starts to go crazy with all of the alone time in the hotel, and ends up becoming violent and dangerous towards the end of the movie.

The second movie that I watched for this project was The Blair Witch Project.  Made in 1999, this movie was known to be the first of the "personal documentary" style horror movies.  The film is meant to give the viewer the idea that the characters are actually filming their real experiences for you to see.  Heather Donahue's character and a couple of her friends go into a forbidden part of the woods in seek of finding out more information about "the blair witch".  Of course, something goes wrong and the group ends up in serious danger and complete fear for their lives.

The third and final movie I watched was the original version of The Exorcist.  The Exorcist was made in 1973 and is still one of the creepiest horror movies out there... or at least so I have been told.  Ellen Burstyn plays a single mother of her daughter Reagan, played by Linda Blair.  Reagan begins to show symptoms of being possessed after she played with a Ouija board that she found in the back of the closet.  Eventually, Reagan is in desperate need of an exorcism.

All three of these films have much in common, but also differ very much in a lot of different ways.  In order to compare and contrast the three films, I have decided to analyze everything about these movies and put them into five categories: style, industry, technology, culture, and politics/history.

The style of a film is very crucial to the film's identity.  I believe that all three films have the same sort of style for the most part.  One of the biggest elements in these horror movies is the element of suspense.  Every single one of these films have at least five moments in them where I noticed myself putting the blanket I was using up to my face because I knew something was going to pop out at me or something would be scary on the screen.  I did expect this style element of course.  Suspense is the biggest objective that horror movie directors strive for.  All of these films achieve that objective.  The Blair Witch Project had more suspense in it than the other two movies.  I think the Directors of The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez obviously intended this to be a suspenseful movie because it did not have the psychological aspect that The Shining and The Exorcist did.  It was more of a movie where things popped out at the viewer to startle them and keep them on their toes the whole time.  All of the movies did not emphasize color or scripting much.  The Shining had some very memorable and impacting lines like during that bathroom scene where Jack says, "Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in. Not by the hair of your chiny-chin-chin? Well then I'll huff and I'll puff, and I'll blow your house in" (Nicholson 1980, The Shining) but none of the movies had tons of dialogue in them.  As far as the look of each movie, The Shining and The Exorcist looked the most alike.  The Blair Witch project was made quite some time after both of those movies, and it was a documentary styled film.

The type of industry for each of these films are very interesting and actually very similar.  All of these movies were groundbreaking for their time periods.  Every single one of these movies were the first of their kind.  The Shining was the first, big, psychological blockbuster, The Exorcist is known for being very explicit and known for using special affects/makeup for the characters, and The Blair Witch Project is known for its documentary styled look.  Even though these movies are very different on the horror movie spectrum, they are similar in the way that they opened up new avenues for the genre.  When it comes to production companies, Warner Brothers distributed The Exorcist and The Shining.  Haxon Films produced The Blair Witch Project.

These three films say a ton about the culture and time periods of each of these movies.  Each movie was from a different decade.  Based on the type of horror movies these represent, we can see what style popular culture was interested in during that time period.  For example, the 80's had to have been a time for psychological horror movies.  Based on how well The Shining did, people were very afraid of this type of movie.  It wasn't your typical scary movie.  The Shining brought the concept of "you cannot trust anyone" to surface and that really shocked people to the core.  The 90's were when the trend of startling and special effects.  Horror movies became more of a visual entertainment than cognitive entertainment.  Obviously, this is a similar to how The Blair Witch Project is filmed.  The 70's were a time where any movie that had anything that broke social code would be successful.  If you watch The Exorcist, you will recognize the several things in that movie that were considered shocking.  Excessive swearing and disgusting gore are just two examples.

No matter how far you go back in time, people have always gotten a kick out of being scared.  There is something about that uneasy feeling of suspense or the thrill of not knowing what is going to happen next that draws millions of people to the theaters.  Most of the time, horror movies are strictly to entertain.  They aren't generally used to inform or to get a political point across.  Horror films aren't meant to be movies that give a message at the end.  If I had to say one message that these films display, it would be the notion that you cannot trust anyone like I had perviously mentioned.  I do not believe that these films were made to say something about the current events of those times.

Each one of these films are slightly different in how they were filmed (camera angles, use of lighting ect...) and what each director tried to highlight in each shot.  The Shining and The Exorcist were very similar in how they were filmed.  Most of the time with these two movies, there were extensive uses of a close up shot.  Going back to that famous bathroom scene in The Shining, Shelley Duvall has several close ups of her screaming and moving about the bathroom.  This type of shot in this case is supposed to highlight the true fear going on in that characters face.  Jack Nicholson has countless close ups in this movie as well to show the viewer the insanity that he is experiencing.  This same technique is used in The Exorcist (as well as many horror movies) to give the same affect.  Much like the classic movie, Citizen Kane, The Exorcist used a foreground, middle-ground, background type of shots.  For example,  there are many times where Reagan is closest to the camera in the foreground, the priests are in the middle-ground, and Reagan's mother is is the background.  This is used to portray the balance of power in that scene.  Reagan is possessed and has therefore obtained super strength and is telepathically moving objects around the room.  She is considered the most powerful character in this scene, so she is put first in the shot.  The priests are shown in the middle-ground because they do have power when they are giving Reagan the exorcism.  Reagan's mother is stuck in the background because she is completely powerless.  She has no control over the situation and feels helpless.  The Exorcist and The Shining are also filmed similarly because of the Directors' use of camera panning.  Constantly the camera is on a track and is using the Dolly technique.  The camera is always panning to show the whole scene and what is going on.  Also, the camera is steadily zooming in and out in The Shining and The Exorcist as transitions.  During the Exorcist, I noticed there would be this zooming in and out when the infamous Exorcist song is playing.  Neither of these two movies seemed to put any emphasis on lighting or shooting with different types of lighting.  The Blair Witch Project is a completely different story.  This movie was completely shot by handheld shaky cams by the actors themselves or camera men that made it appear the actors were filming themselves.  The whole point of the movie is that the film itself consists of found footage that these investigators made themselves of their experiences.  The movie never uses a steady cam or anything to give a smooth shot.  This is obviously very different from The Shining and The Exorcist.  I believe that Myrick and Sanchez wanted this different type of documentary-like technique to set this movie apart from anything else that has been done.  Even though The Blair Witch Project is very different from the other two movies, the directors have said that they were inspired by The Shining and took its inspiration in a new direction for their film.  You can see The Shining's influence in this movie through its couple close up shots.  Lastly, The Blair Witch Project uses lighting to convey different feelings in the viewer because of its documentary style.  A lot of times there are random shots in the dark where the viewer is waiting for something to pop out or scare them.  Aside from that, there are moments where particular objects or people aren't shown in full darkness or light to create more suspense.

 This is just an example of a great close up shot from The Blair Witch Project

As I have mentioned several times, there is an overlapping theme within these three movies.  It is the theme of trust.  If these movies can drill any idea into a viewers mind, it is that you cannot trust anyone in this world.  For example, in the Shining Jack becomes insane and tries to murder his wife and child.  A dad and husband is supposed to be one of the most trust-worthy people in a families' life.  In The Exorcist, Ellen Burstyn's character has a daughter that is possessed.  Being a single mother, she only has one person to trust in her family and that is her daughter.  In The Blair Witch Project, each one of those characters trusted themselves to not fall to the Blair Witch, however at the end of the movie, they all do.  This is just how horror movies work.  Humans depend on trust to get through their daily lives.  The lack of trust is something that is scary to all of us, which is why it is such a prevalent theme in horror movies.

After seeing these films, I have confirmed my preconception that I wouldn't like horror movies.  I do not plan on watching any more of them anytime soon, considering I did may or may not have had a hard time sleeping the nights after watching these movies.