Prepare to be disturbed

Rating: 10/10 (1 January 2000)

The Blair Witch is one of those rare occurances in cinema which manage to be much more than the sum of its parts. A low budget film, shot by the actors on less-than-a-shoe-string managed to be one (after The Phantom Menace) of the most talked about films of the year. This film is not flawless, however. The arguments, although adding to the believability of the characters, do tend to grate after the first hour. The loosing of the map incident seemed a very unlikely occurence considering the circumstances. The main flaw however has to be the fact that filming is not a natural human response to extreme psycological trauma, and, although the film would be lacking somewhat if during moments of terror the camera was shut off, it would make more sense. The ending it a major example of this which verges on the unbeleivable, even if one beleives that it is a way for the characters to psycologically distance themselves from their reality.

However, on the whole, the good points outweigh the bad. The level of emmersion is unsurpassed - there has seldom been a film that (figurativly speaking, of course) skewers you, puts you in its mouth, chews thoughtfully and finally spits you out as well as this one - leaving you only with haunting images that stay with you for weeks, and the silent promise not to go camping again. It deftly sidesteps the ironical slasher movie formula, and delivers its message not through flashy script or "cheap" shock tactics, but by getting inside your head and whispering; and by giving you icons and symbols (such as the wood itself - which it taken as a symbol life, and then stripped of it (like the children themselves) - no birds sing, no leaves grow.
The Blair Witch is a fantastic movie, but, the fact that it is more disturbing than scary, means that the audience has to be able to let the Blair Witch work its voodoo without putting the brain onto automatic and expecting to be entertained; you are, unfortunatly (although it is a rarity in modern Cinema) required to watch it on a deeper level.