Out Of Nowhere And Into Blair

By Jeffrey Ressner

Some horrifying images stick in your mind forever. That shower attack at the Bates Motel. Zombies storming a farmhouse in Night of the Living Dead. Leathermask's rampage in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Add to the list: the final confession in The Blair Witch Project, in which a petrified young filmmaker delivers her last will and testament on video while awaiting imminent doom. Improvised by newcomer Heather Donahue, the spine-tingling scene is guaranteed to provide nightmares for years to come.

A Philadelphia native whose only previous high-profile role was in a TV spot for Psychic Friends Network ("Ten minutes free! We're totally stoked!"), Donahue, 24, tried out for Blair Witch after answering an ad in the trade paper Backstage. She filmed the mock-documentary with her male co-stars while the real movie's directors stayed out of camera range and passed along notes to the cast. "It was an actor's dream," sighs Donahue.

With the film's sensational response at this year's Sundance Film Festival, the actress changed her look from frumpy slacker to sleek ingenue and has been on a whirlwind of studio meetings. Strangers have stopped her to say they've seen bootlegged Blair Witch tapes or downloaded the entire film from the Internet. Still, Donahue is no rich witch. Her star may be rising, but she has a $1,000 car, lives in a seedy Hollywood neighborhood and is reluctant to accept just any new acting job: "I'm definitely not looking to do another horror film."

--By Jeffrey Ressner