Cinematic landmark.Claustrophobic Intensity.What "Jaws" did for seaside vacations, Blair Witch does for going to the woods.

Rating: 10/10 (30 September 2014)

Using a gritty, documentary-style approach, the three interview Burkittsville residents about the region's ghost stories and a string of child murders in the 1940s. Every version is a bit different, but the details are unsettling.The tension mounts as the trio begins a two-day hike into the desolate forest to the witch's reputed lair. "The Blair Witch Project" is terrifying. It's also an exuberant prank of genius. The thought that Blair Witch Project just might be real makes it much scarier than any of the teen horror flicks that have stumbled along in recent years. keeps audiences in the dark about its titular villain thus proving that imagination can be as scary as anything on screen.Scarier than "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." Scarier than the shower scene in "Psycho" the first time you see it. Scarier than the final twist in "Carrie" and the shark attacks in "Jaws.""The Blair Witch Project" is scary because it doesn't really show you anything.A lesson that other horror directors would be well-served to learn. There's only a brief moment when you see blood, but it registers like a howitzer.t also makes us as viewers uncomfortably complicit in the characters' suffering. Watching the film is an act of ghoulish voyeurism. We're granting their wish to attract an audience, but at a cost they never could have imagined. It's a chilling comment on action-thrillers that sell sanitised brutality as fun, and the decadent appetites that draw us to them, like Romans to the Colosseum.
Clasp your hands, press them into your lap, cross your legs tight and brace yourself. You're about to take one hell of a ride. A sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, was released in the autumn of 2000, but was poorly received by most critics.A third instalment has been announced.