# Blair Witch Project, The (1999)

### reviewed by
John Beachem

    A review by John Beachem

    * * *

     CAST
     Heather Donahue - Herself
     Joshua Leonard - Himself
     Michael Williams - Himself

It seems to me that critics and audiences have become so tired of the same old kind of movies, that they now turn to anything remotely different and acclaim it as though it were the greatest film ever made. This would seem to be the case with "The Blair Witch Project". While certainly innovative, and contains a few genuinely creepy scenes, most of the film seems to revolve around watching three teens bicker out in the woods.

Three students set out for a small town in Maryland which is home to a legend, the legend of the Blair Witch. First interviewing the townspeople, they eventually decide to head into the woods to find the site of the Witch's killings. The three travel through the woods for days, becoming lost and eventually turning on each other. The whole time, something in the woods stalks them. Leaving small symbols at first, the stalker becomes more and more bold and eventually openly attacks, dragging one off in the night.

It seems that the majority of people feel fully one way or another about this film. Either they think it's one ofthe greatest ever made, or is an utter piece of garbage they can't believe they were dragged to. I, on the other hand, am fairly divided about this movie. As I said earlier, it's a truly innovative film. Shot entirely as though it were lost footage shot with a home camera, it does seem quite realistic. However, if you suffer easily from motion sickness, stay far away. There are also a few scenes which are quite eerie. The two that stick out most in my mind are the conclusion, and a scene where the group stumbles across hundreds of figures made out of sticks in a section of woods.

Now, on to the items that really couldn't stand. One thing which I simply can't believe, is that while running terrified through the woods, with some horrible thing chasing them, the kids would actually keep the camera held at eye level! The other major problem was that between nights in the tent, when the creature in the woods harassed the group, they spent the days arguing on and on. I saw some people in the theatre begin to doze off in these scenes.

Some truly creepy scenes which are plagued by stretches of boring dialogue earns this movie three stars, and a reccomendation to wait for video (but watch it with the lights off to get the true effect).

* * * * * - One of the greatest movies ever made, see it now. * * * * - Great flick. Try and catch this one. * * * - Okay movie, hits and misses. * * - Pretty bad. See it if you've got nothing better to do. * - One of the worst movies ever. See it only if you enjoy pain.

E-mail with comments at: JABII@aol.com

The review above was posted to the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due to ASCII to HTML conversion.

Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews