Confusing, Nauseating, and Disappointing

Rating: Null/10 (25 October 1999)

It seems that Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez have succeeded in making a great majority of the population portray themselves as mindless nitwits. Maybe I should be blaming Artisan. Either way their both the masterminds of one of the greatest heists in American history (maybe the world, but I'm not familiar with how the movie has done elsewhere); a heist of trust; a heist of intelligence; a heist of common sense. I admit that when I saw the trailer for The Blair Witch Project, I was interested. There has been a lack of genuine scary movies, and I didn't want another shock-horror Hollywood job. Sooner than I realize, the movie is taking the country by storm. I saw numerous positive reviews and the movie was making a killing. In my faulty judgment, I assumed that so many people couldn't be that wrong. That's where I faulted.
My interest began high, but throughout the course of the film, it dropped to next to nothing. The camera work gave me a headache, as I've found it did to other people. A good film is supposed to draw you in with good cinematography, as well as all the other elements of quality film making. The directors tried too hard to get the element of realism with an 8mm camera. It was nauseating.
I sat through the camera work trying to focus on the story. Three film students filming a documentary and getting lost in the woods. Not the best storyline but has potential if done right. It wasn't done right in this film. Every time they turned on that camera, it was one person blaming another for getting them lost. Very dreary and uniteresting. The dialog was supposed to be "real" but I just found it tiresome.
The worst part of the film is how the plot unfolded. It kind of cracked open at the first and then hit you across the jaw at the end. No in between. During the course of the film it wasnt' as if (like in normal plotline) you got bits and pieces, then more as the movie went on, so you could try and put it together yourself, or at least make some sense of where things are progressing. The film was extremely confusing in that aspect. The directors don't lead you to the end. Even in surprise ending films you have an idea of what's happening, and there's just a twist at the end. It would have been much better if the directors had lead the audience more besides just throwing out a bunch of film with an ending that you're supposed to like and understand. By the laughs, comments, and profanities that were uttered by some fellow movie goers at the end of the viewing I attended, I at least didn't feel as much alone in not liking this horrible attempt at film.