Joshua Leonard, Heather Donahue, Michael Williams
This movie is filmed totally on a handi-cam. After an hour and a half of it, you can't HELP but be scared of it, cause you can't really see-straight and you feel slightly nauseous. For once it wasn't the extra-butter on that popcorn that did it, either.
I had heard various things about this movie, comments ranged from 'stupid' to 'kickass' which shows you that I read the daily one-word review from those idiots who pick the Oscars. The one review I trust, however, besides my own, promised that the last five minutes would scare me shitless.
Sure.
I'm not so easily scared as all that!
Of course, it wasn't the last five minutes, it was the last half-hour that scared me crapless. I'm never going camping with two idiot friends ever again. I'm never going into woods thicker than that line of shrubs on the shoulder of the main highway. The Blair Witch is damned scary and that bouncy filmmaking is not the only reason.
The reason this film works so well, is because it doesn't nothing that other horror films do. We're numbed to people dying by the gazillions by Jason or Freddy or the love children of Freddy and Jason known as 'Children of the Corn'. We don't care about blood and guts and shower scenes! But this independent Cannes Film festival winner doesn't have buckets of guts and axe-wielding internet murderers. This movie doesn't even have a villain, save for the legend of the blair witch!
What I'm saying is, this flick preys on every weak human emotion. Fear, Paranoia, the works. It draws you into this little world and grabs you by your sensitive bits to hold you down. There is no scary music which gets louder at the scary parts, there are no fuzzy shots of a fourth person out in the woods, waiting. Nothing. You get absolutely crap all. You are stuck in a dark theatre wondering just like everybody else what the hell is going on.
It takes fantasy and makes it nightmarish reality. Because it's filmed like a home-movie by three actors who are actually playing themselves, essentially, you do sometimes sit back and get caught up in the fact that it just might be true...or not...yes....no...yes...no?
The Blair Witch Project makes you realize what a spineless wimp you really are. You won't be venturing in your basement any time soon, ladies!
My advice: Go unless you already know you're a spineless boob. If you know that, you might need hospitalization afterwards, and not just for motion-sickness. All you macho jock-types out there, I dare you. I dare you dare you dare you.