Daniel Myrick makes convincing horror from people losing confidence in what they know. The Blair Witch Project earns our recommendation for its performances and dread, though its repeated panic shows the limits of that approach.
Fi1m perspective
The footage in The Blair Witch Project (1999) is awkward, and the people making it have more pressing concerns than getting a usable shot. Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez keep us with three student filmmakers in the woods as their confidence fails. We found their helplessness frightening because recording what happens does nothing to make them understand it. Myrick is good at letting behaviour supply the horror: the people holding the camera can no longer reassure themselves, let alone us.
Sánchez deserves equal credit: the pair wrote, directed and edited the film together. Their cuts leave the material untidy enough to seem recorded under pressure, preserving the sense that nobody is arranging events for our benefit. Myrick's use of outlines that let actors improvise dialogue helps explain why behaviour matters so much in his work. The difficulty is knowing when that behaviour has told us enough. Even at 81 minutes, The Blair Witch Project repeats its panic until we are ready to move on, a fault in a film otherwise so good at keeping us uneasy.
Myrick had made short films with Sánchez and Gregg Hale before The Blair Witch Project brought international attention. His subsequent features kept him in horror and science fiction. Solstice (2008) was shot in the Louisiana bayous; The Objective (2008), filmed in Morocco, mixes documentary and narrative methods in military horror. He keeps returning to people trying to make sense of the unexplained.
Skyman (2019), a documentary-style study of a UFO experiencer, takes him back towards the mockumentary form. That emphasis on a person living with an extraordinary belief is a promising direction for a director whose horror depends so much on credible behaviour. We want him to stay interested in the believer even when there is no immediate fright to deliver. Start with The Blair Witch Project, and do not expect the camera to offer reassurance.
Biography
Daniel Myrick is an American film director, writer, producer and editor. He is best known for co-directing, co-writing and co-editing the 1999 found-footage horror film The Blair Witch Project with Eduardo Sánchez.
Myrick graduated from the University of Central Florida School of Film in 1994. He previously worked as an editor and cinematographer on Florida-based music videos and commercials. His later feature directing credits include Solstice (2007), Believers (2007), The Objective (2008) and Skyman (2019).
