Sorely disappointed local demands a refund.

Rating: 1/10 (22 September 1999)

Spoiler Alert: This film contains the scariest heaps of pebbles and most menacing twig-wrapped chicken giblets ever to grace the screen. Real Spoiler Alert: Nothing happens in *The Blair Witch Project*. Nothing.
There's no witch, there's no suspense, no chills, nada. There are three grubby-looking drama queens running around in the woods, painfully aware that they've been instructed to scare up a little fear. It's possible to conjure terror out of the ether; Dreyer's *Vampyr* did it more than 60 years ago. But there has to be some sort of intelligence behind the camera, if not in front of it. Horror is a genre that depends on phrasing; it thrives on tension and release, created on film much as they are in a piece of music. The structure could have come together in the editing room, but it didn't.
Nothing in the movie is phrased properly. Mike freaks out much too soon, bringing disagreements to a head before they're motivated. The tedium of our unhappy campers fails to translate into a sense of their tiredness. Heather emerges as a doggedly faithful chronicler, improbably refusing to relinquish the camera, though she (and Josh) record nothing cinematically effective. Everything's a stolid closeup or a jerky pan. There's only one advancing shot that gives any sense of an "out there" that could be inhabited by unseen evil. The eye simply bounces off the rest of it. Not that we ever believed in Heather's film credentials. In the beginning, she undermines the impression that she's a documentarian by failing to conduct a single successful interview. She interrupts each of her subjects before she gets a usable quote. By picture's end, we want to see her get it in the neck, but, alas, are denied even that pleasure.
The actors are clearly at a loss. They never refer to "the map" when "the f**king map" will do. There's nothing wrong with a little profanity, even a lot of it. But our trio uses it desperately, lamely attempting to create an atmosphere of urgency by "f**king" their dialogue to death.
I live four miles from Wheaton, MD, where some of the early scenes were filmed. I saw the movie in the theater closest to Seneca Creek State Park. Intrigued by the concept and bolstered by the hype, I was rooting for the home team. But I feel ripped off. Myrick and Sanchez, if you're out there, my wife and I would like our 15 bucks