"I never gave Mike any fart allowance." I'm in two minds over this one.

Rating: 6/10 (1 November 2005)

The Blair Witch Project starts with the revelation that three student filmmakers disappeared in October 1994 & that the footage they shot has been discovered & is presented here for our viewing pleasure... Two young student filmmakers Heather Donahue & Joshua Leonard pick their friend Mike Williams up & set off for Burkitsville, Maryland to investigate & film a documentary on a local legend known as the 'Blair Witch'. To get their documentary going they interview various residents of Burkitsville who tell the tale of the Blair Witch, with the interview footage in the can the three set off into the nearby woods to carry on their documentary & try to delve a little deeper into the legend. Unfortunately they soon become lost, tensions begin to boil as Heather has the map but doesn't seem able to read it properly & when they try to sleep at night they are awoke & attacked by something from within the woods. Their plight becomes desperate as they run low on food, morale, patience & are continually harassed by someone or something, someone or something evil...
Edited, written & directed by Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez The Blair Witch Project was apparently shot in a mere 8 days, was made for about $22,000 & made back $240,500,000 which is a ratio of $10,931 made for every $1 spent which ain't too bad, is it? Persoanlly I like certain aspects of it but dislike others. The script tries to keep it as real as possible with natural dialogue (I'm not sure who counted but apparently The Blair Witch Project contains 133 'F*cks') & most of the film looks improvised which I think it was. Everything is kept to a minimum & nothing is really explained which gives it a genuine creepiness at times, in this case less is more. We know what the characters know, which is pretty much nothing when I think about it. It can drag a bit, has only three character's & it does go round in circles while the lack of any sort of explanation for anything did annoy me & then there is the bizarre ending which will either please or disappoint you. The main area where The Blair Witch Project stands out is the way it is filmed just like a documentary & the film could indeed be made up of scraps of footage haphazardly spliced together as it alternates between colour & black and white & the cinematography has a real amateur hand held jerkiness about it to add to the supposed authenticity & we get lots of pointless (but psychologically important for the whole documentary effect) shots of people's backs, the ground & the sky, the entire film is shot first-person with a hand held camera usually operated by Heather & frankly this approach can become tedious & annoying at times. For those looking for sleek cinematography, cool camera angles & fancy special effects The Blair Witch Project is not for you, for those looking for something a little bit different & original then you could do a lot worse although it's hard to tell what any one person's reaction will be to a film such as this. There is no blood or gore or sex, just lots of bad language so don't expect anything like that. I must admit there is a certain eerie atmosphere & creepiness about The Blair Witch Project especially the scenes where the three students are attacked in the dead of night & are unable to see anything. The acting is pretty good throughout by a young & unknown (at the time) cast. The Blair Witch Project is certainly different although I'm not quite sure why it turned out to be such the huge commercial success that it was, I can still remember when it came out over here it was everywhere & everyone I knew wanted to see it but most were ultimately disappointed when they did. Definitely worth a watch especially for horror fans & considering it probably turns up on TV all the time it shouldn't be too hard to get the opportunity to see it & you should give it a go if you have a spare 85 odd minutes.