Through well timed character development in The Blair Witch Project, we are able to strongly identify with Heather, Mike and Josh.  We learn of their personalities, we become familiar with their individual behavior, idiosyncrasies, their reactions, their responses, their fears, their joy.  That “fourth wall” is broken down, and as a result we became the fourth camper.  We share their fears, we become empathic, we become fatigued, confused, frightened, then terrified.  Not just with them, but for them.  Then for ourselves.

With the incredible acting skills of Heather, Mike and Josh and with the incredible and most unique way of Dan and Ed’s direction, there is also parallel throughout the film, a parallel between who the actors are as their own person and how they interpret their characters in the film.   We have heard time and again how actors bring their own personal essence into the characters they portray, which can be rather vague at times, or at the very least not revealed, there is no doubt that fact is revealed in Blair Witch, and as such the acting is ironically not simpler, but actually more-so an arduous challenge.

But of their characters, of whom we spend 81 minutes with all the while, there is a woman near the beginning of the film of whom we spend a mere 1 minute and 20 seconds with: Mary Brown.

It is Mary who initially sets the tone of the Blair Witch, in that she’s the only one who claims, when as a young girl, to actually have seen the witch.  The character of Mary Brown is nothing short of bizarre, eccentric and borderline surreal; from her mobile home, to her style of dress, to her copious makeup, posture, mannerisms and more. In her one short scene in the film, Mary Brown is considered the most intriguing of all the characters, yet that scene is only 1.5% of the film’s total time.

The character of Mary Brown was played by Patricia DeCou, who initially became a part of Blair Witch as the art technician. When there was no favorable audition for that role, Patricia stepped in and offered to audition.  The result of that is history.

Similar to Heather, Mike and Joshua’s parallel ability to create their characters, had Patricia DeCou done the same? And if so, more-so?

“Ahh Mary, we hardly knew ya…” is not an annotation of the Mary Brown character, nor is it of the portrayal of her as performed by DeCou.  It is about Patricia DeCou herself, a woman who in her own right led a life of extraordinary eccentricity in her 73 years before her passing, far more than the 1.5% screen time in The Blair Witch Project, of a tragic life diffused with elements of a normal, ordinary life.

But that “normal, ordinary” life was itself a small percentage of those 73 years, in which she was a young girl, grew up, married, bore children, lived abroad, yet all that time suffered and endured extreme unimaginable abuse, struggled with paranoid schizophrenia and other significant behavioral and mental health disabilities.  She  would disappear for years on end, then resurface as though she had never been gone.

She was, for all intents and purposes, “crazy,” but only to those who did not know her personally.  To those, and for those she did know personally, those she loved and embraced, those who embraced and loved her in return – she was a woman of conviction, a woman of passion, a woman who never let her curiosities remain dormant, be them tangible, or be them fantasy.  She was fiercely protective of her children, who also suffered extraordinary abuse, to a point Patty kidnapped them in order to not only protect them but to save them.

To fans of The Blair Witch Project, Mary Brown was without doubt, an intriguing character, and in real life, Patricia DeCou was herself an intriguing person.

And that life has a story to tell that makes “Mary Brown” seem as “Mary Poppins” in contrast.

We think we knew “Mary Brown.”  We actually knew little, if anything at all.

“Ahh Mary, we hardly knew ya…”  tells the true story of Patricia DeCou through the words of her family, friends, neighbors and more. One that has long been deserved.

Currently in development.