The scariest thing about this film was how badly the critics overrated it

Rating: 4/10 (24 June 2000)

When Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez came up with the idea to create a mock documentary made solely to creep people out, they were definitely playing around with a good idea. The movie could be made on an extremely tight budget. The shaky camera work and poor film quality would actually do the film a service, by making it seem all the more genuine. And, finally, the movie could rake in a fortune because, when you think about it, who doesn't like to hear a good ghost story, every so often? Too bad this one doesn't chill you to the bone, like the directors had intended.
The long, arduous filler scenes used between the scares also made Witch a less-than-perfect "project." We have the 2 minute horror scene, during the night, then the 10 minute filler, during the day. After 2 or 3 times, this cycle becomes an exercise in tedium. Not to mention, despite what everyone is saying, the horror scenes weren't really that terrifying . . . with exception to one.
It is this scene, the last 5 minutes of the film, where The Blair Witch Project succeeds amazingly well. What is revealed during the last 5 minutes of Witch (don't worry, I'm not going to tell you what it is), will have the hairs on the back of your neck standing on end. This isn't something you'll forget easily. Once you've seen it, it's gonna be ingrained inside of your brain for a long time. You could come down with Alzheimer's, be hit by a truck, fall off of a bridge, and be thrown into a coma, and you still wouldn't forget the finale of this film. It's that creepy. That horrifyingly memorable. That intense. It's what The Blair Witch Project, in its entirety, reached for, but never quite grasped.