Great movie! Very different from anything else this year, or maybe ever

Rating: 10/10 (24 July 1999)

Very unusual movie. Scary but not in the same way as "Scream" and the like. Good acting by all, especially Heather Donahue who had some great parts including a sad, emotionally charged monologue-type part near the end (I will say no more so as not to spoil). Michael C. Williams also was quite good and the actors had great chemistry as the the slowly disintegrating friendship / work relationship fell to pieces.
Don't blink or you could miss something. This movie is totally unforgiving to the casual moviegoer- there is quite a bit of foreshadowing but nothing helpful, and if you miss a part it is gone, never to return. Go to the bathroom before the movie starts, order only a small soda so you will not need to go during the film. Like real life, the film has parts where it seems to slow down. Then suddenly, something crucial to the story appears, and then it's gone.
Perhaps the most eerie part is the "documentary" framing device. The film is totally loyal to this fiction, though at times this makes it seem a bit unrealistic (especially at the end, when cameras are still rolling in the direst of emergency situations, and perfectly focused). Still the use of this framework gives the film an amazingly eerie quality. It is like a Discovery Channel documentary, gone horrifyingly wrong. No creepy music, no cheesy special effects, just the story and the actors, and that is quite enough.