Truly "scary as Hell" ?

Rating: Null/10 (23 August 1999)

I thought the film was a smart way to make a movie with no budget. The editing was good. The subjective storytelling was good. If I had been in the characters' place, I'm pretty sure I'd be freaking out too. However, I seem to fall into the camp which claims the film isn't scary.
What could be called scary about the film, though? Aren't there definite moments meant to create fear in the viewer?
From short clips used in trailers of what looked to be people running in the dark of night, I inferred that they were being chased by an unseen monster. To my dismay, in the film the characters are the ones trying to do the chasing -- tracking down the source of some unexplainable sound. Any running in the dark in film fails to be frightening for this reason.
There are also some scary anecdotes, stone piles, stick figures, sounds in the darkness that the characters could certainly hear better than I could, a stick bundle encasing bloodied clothing and flesh, and finally a deserted old house. I'll admit that the bloody piece of flesh perhaps raised a hair or too, but wasn't close to giving me the kind of shivers I got from the film Seven -- which I use as my personal standard of a scary film. I was prepared not to be able to sleep the night I saw TBWP as I wasn't able to when I saw Seven.
The house is the only element that seems to tie back to the beginning stories which could be used to stir up more fear, for it was in the basement of a house in the woods where some children in the 1940's were killed in a particular manner, not by any witch, but by a man who admitted to it.
My final reaction was that it was unrealistic and somewhat comedic.