Overrated and avoidable

Rating: 1/10 (9 November 1999)

We had a website devoted to it, trailers, magazine articles, and superfluous information about it, so when this film finally arrived on these shores it was not going to have the same effect as when it opened in America. Shot with video cameras on a minuscule budget, the film is about an asinine trio of film students who decide to go into the woods and make a documentary about the myth of the Blair Witch. Led by the bossy and foul-mouthed Heather (who seems to use the 'F' word in every sentence) along with her two geeky-type male associates, they get lost and are stalked by an unseen witch/spirit/whatever it is, notice the word unseen, we never see anything only sets of twigs made into a strange symbol and the tent moving, and we hear lots of strange noises at night. At first the amateurish camera style works but soon becomes tiresome as the trio constantly bicker. The ending is also unsatisfactory. The film has broke box office records and good luck to it, but when you have seen it you feel letdown. There was howls of derision at the cinema when I saw it, and that was from a lot of people. An overrated disappointment. Don't believe the hype.