be careful what you seek...

Rating: Null/10 (6 August 1999)

Ok, here's my two cents. I've probably seen thousands of horror movies and made a couple of my own so I feel a little qualified to comment on this one. I loved it. Original and scary. The tension builds in a smooth crescendo until the final five or ten minutes when it becomes so high that the theater is permeated with it. Everyone on the edge of their seats. As usual, ignore the hype and just see it. I think this would have been way cooler had I just discovered it on the shelf at a video store with a layer of dust on it. But then these folks who made it wouldn't be getting paid what the certainly deserve for kicking Big Hollywood in the ass. This is a wake-up call. CGI is not scary!!!!! Try some originality!!! Alot of people who like this movie have said it's a refreshing break from the resurgence of splatter films we are experiencing. What resurgence? Along with all the campy splatter/slasher movies of the seventies and eighties there were some real gems. Argento, Soavi, Romero, and even John Carpenter defined horror in those days. The Blair Witch Project should not be compared to those kinds of films. That's just not what it is. It's a little closer to Polanski's "Repulsion" or something. A thriller not a splatter. I heard people walking out of the theater after the show I saw lamenting that no one "got their arm ripped off". That's a shame. I'm just waiting for Warner Bros. and the rest of them to try to make $50 million look like $5,000. That will be hilarious! Jan Du Bont with a palmcorder! Ha, ha, ha!!!