Shocked and Horrified!

Rating: Null/10 (12 October 1999)

(Spoilers! (really))
Shocked - by the hype - after seeing the film, a month or so ago.
Three kids lost in a small wooded area, eager to argue with each other, never able to detach themselves from their camera equipment, unable to stick together even on watch, and so on. It's so bad, hey - it MUST be some sort of satire (that seems the excuse for other silly movies in reviews on imdb).
They don't need the cameras, they don't need a map, they don't need a compass. Take the film you've got, travel light if you think you're being stalked, and head back to the car (remember where you put it?). Follow the sun? And so on. It's nuts.
End of the film I literally shrugged my shoulders, involuntarily, not from horror or fear - but disbelief. What the HECK was that? I asked myself. I could see in the dimly lit multi-plex, the others just shaking themselves awake, seemed to be having similar thoughts - perhaps similar to the person who walked right out in the middle of the lost in the woods scene (sorry - one of the lost in the woods in the day time scenes, as opposed to the scary lost in the woods in the night time scenes).
I was so . . miffed, I haven't been eager to see another theatrical release since. Once burned, right?
I wonder how soon it will be before the 'executive decisions' are made to try the hype again? In for a few thou, in for another few thou? Hey - maybe Blair Witch II - the finding of the film cannisters. Or, Ernest Goes to Camp, in the woods, with a compass - and gets lost. Sundance Festival runner-up. A true watershed in filmolological history. No music. Makes it even better. And Ernest does something truly unique, by shooting macro lens close-ups of his imbecilic features and whispering aloud - "I'm reaallly scared, I've never been so scared." And so would we be.