DON'T BE FOOLED: boring, annoying garbage

Rating: 1/10 (1 October 1999)

DO NOT BE FOOLED: "The Blair Witch Project" is incredibly boring, isn't scary, and contains some of the worst acting you've ever seen. Heather Donahue is the most annoying character to curse the screen since Jodi Thielan in "Four Friends," more annoying, even, than Jar-Jar Binks.
Everyone knows the story of "Blair Witch Project" by this time, due to all the hype and incessant promotion, so it's not worth the time to comment on. What could have been an interesting little horror movie looks, instead, like a C- film student's thesis project. The "acting" is loud, the characters are annoying, and the "cinematography," if we can call it that, is worthless: since most of the "scary parts" happen at night, and most of the movie is shot on a hand-held video camera, there is very little that is actually visible. That would be commendable, if the actors and sound were good enough to carry the story, but they're not. (See "Wait Until Dark" if you want a good example of how this SHOULD work.) Example: Heather hears an unidentifiable sound and mutters to herself, "What was that? What was that sound? Oh, God, I'm so scared!" Ridiculous. The filmmakers don't trust the audience to even figure out that they're supposed to be frightened.
Additionally, the events that scare the characters aren't scary: awakening to find a pile of rocks by the tent isn't scary. Heather: "Oh, my God! That pile of rocks wasn't there last night! Who could have done that?"
Also problematic is the fact that nothing happens for the first hour of the movie except the slackers get lost in the woods and whine a lot about how they hate each other.
By now you've all heard that the end of the movie is "truly frightening"; even if you find it frightening, it doesn't make up for the sleep-inducing first hour and 15 minutes.
"The Blair Witch Project" may be the stuff of nightmares, but only when you consider that the video will be out soon and that a sequel is in the works.
DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS INSIPID NONSENSE!