It's so scary because it's so real

Rating: Null/10 (21 August 1999)

"The Blair Witch Project" is a damn scary movie! The premise: three student film makers go into the woods to shoot a documentary on a witch legend, then disappear. Their footage is found months later and this film consists entirely of that footage. The making of this movie is nearly as interesting as the movie itself. The two guys behind this film, made for just a few thousand bucks, didn't so much write and direct it as conceive it. They gave their three actors a broad outline of the story and two cameras, which the actors used to actually shoot all the footage themselves. The movie looks amateurish because it is, but that only adds to the horror. We see the three characters start out as cocky college kids, but wind up as terrified, cowering animals, hunted by something in the woods. What we never quite find out. In this day of computer generated monsters it's nice to see a horror movie where not everything is shown. The fact that we often must listen intently while looking at a dark screen or shaky, out-of-focus camera work only makes it more real. Our imaginations are engaged. This movie is something like Orson Welles' great "War of the Worlds" radio stunt. Cool, scary stuff if you allow yourself to get into it.