leaves unanswered questions which are not worth asking

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 1999)

I finally saw this film after being psyched to do so ever since I heard about the Sundance screening. I wasn't expecting much... I wanted it to be a fun watch and for it to be scary. It was neither. In particular, the ending felt like a huge cop out and the house location felt like "the spooky abandoned dwelling in the woods" with absolutely no sign or sense of a presence. The art direction of the house consisted of children's handprints when so much could have been done to really evoke a scary presence (a lone television in a room, etc.) I endured the boring unraveling of the film crew (a good performance from Heather Donahue notwithstanding) thinking I might at least see a mutilated or possessed Joshua, but it ended elusively with a split-second visual reference to an anecdote muttered toward the beginning of the film. I don't like having to read a FAQ on a fan site to figure out what I'm seeing. I can hear the filmmaker's obnoxious, condescending retort in my head: "Well it's the question that's important, not the answer." The problem is that the question is not profound nor is it worth asking.