Lives up to the hype. Very surprising!

Rating: 9/10 (11 December 2009)

I tend to avoid traditional Horror films and certainly the American ones partly because everything has to be explained to the audience and wrapped up in a little bow at the end, but mainly because they're never horrific or scary at all. As an adult, there are only so many times you can put up with impossibly beautiful teens running around a remote cabin half dressed while the college kid with a grudge (and usually superhuman strength and the power of invisibility) picks them all off one at a time, but "Blair Witch" was different, so was "Rec" and most Asian horror is too, so for me there is occasionally still hope with the genre. It was therefore with some trepidation that I went expecting it mostly not to live up to the hype. Another Blair Witch knock off that won't come close I assumed. Jeez was I wrong! It's tense, genuinely scary, with some stand out moments particularly when the bed-cam scenes that aren't shown on the trailer are revealed and is so well acted from two complete unknowns who carry 99% of the film themselves that it's hard to imagine how known actors could've carried this film any better. Each to their own I guess, but I don't scare easily and this film made me jump.
I hope they don't go down the sequel route as there's just no need. Blair Witch 2 showed us why that's not always a good idea. So for me it's a huge and very unexpected thumbs up.