Worthy of respect, but not really a good film experience.

Rating: 5/10 (12 March 2019)

There's something about this film that stops it working for me, and I think it's probably the pacing - let me clarify. I think the performances from Heather Donahue and Joshua Leonard are good (though Mike Williams relies a lot on pantomime stuff like rocking back and forth or laughing manically), and the interviews at the start all feel genuine aside from the fishermen. The premise of recovered footage (à la "Cannibal Holocaust (1980)) from a student documentary about an urban legend is fine too.
But it's the way the plot unfolds as drama about getting lost in the woods that's the problem. There really isn't much variety in watching people argue about who lost the map, or why Heather is still filming, in between scenes of inane conversation about burgers and getting your shoes wet. It all comes down to people talking in the woods, except half the time it's filler dialogue and the other half it's just swearing and shouting.
I can at least respect it for being one of a few films to really treat the found footage style seriously. The audio seems to be recorded from one microphone, so half the dialogue is inaudible, and the camerawork is often shaky and imprecise. While these can be good ways of conveying that this is genuine, raw footage, they also limit your film, and a savvier FF film would find ways of working in spite of those limitations.
One way this film does at least accomplish that is via its filming style, in which the actors were given cameras and told to basically shoot the film themselves using a vague plot outline. It would've been better, though, if the plot were less padded and there were some variety in the visuals other than leaves, twigs and faces. Attempts at social commentary about Heather using a camera to distance herself from reality don't help.
For a film that's trying to look like real footage, the end product feels distinctly unnatural and messy, almost like it was just improvised by a bunch of people in the woods...
5/10.