A new disturbing genre is born & Hollywood should be scared!

Rating: 9/10 (2 August 1999)

"The Blair Witch Project" is a masterpiece in its own right. The movie is laid out like a student documentary would be. The interaction between the characters is truly realistic from friendly exchanges to mild distress to pure fear. The mysterious disappearance of Josh induces a true array of human reactions in Heather and Mike. This movie leaves you with a chilling climax without the use of computer graphics or blood squibbs. In fact, the psychology of the last chilling schene is what scares you, not the visuals. In addition, every little detail has a significance and returns later in the film to provide a sense of closure.
Hollywood is full of the notion that higher budget will mean better box office results. Due to this, Hollywood is only interested in making movies with large budgets and famous stars. This movie had a miniscule budget and no-name actors and is turning heads left and right. I feel the quality of acting in this film is almost unparalleled with any other movie I have ever seen. I hope that Heather Donahue and Michael C. Williams are nominated for Best Actress and Actor. Joshua Leonard also deserves an Oscar nod for Best supporting Actor for his performance in this phenomenal film.
But this won't happen. There is too much Academy to entertain. They will take the latest realease from a major studio for consideration. This new type of "real life" motion picture should be a wake up call that big budget, action packed films are on their way out.
There are signs though that Hollywood is a little bit intimidated by BLAIR. Dream Works was afraid that their latest offering, "The Haunting," would not be as popular due to its opening against BLAIR. Universal Pictures delayed the release of "Mystery Men" a week to prevent it from being slaughtered by BLAIR.
My only complaint lies with the theater where I saw this film. I sat 5 rows from the front and I got motion sickness and eye strain from the wobbly camera. I really can't complain about the camera because it did create the mood and tone for the picture. Please, if you see this film and plan to sit in the front, take some motion sickness patches!