Highly over-rated B-movie should win awards for marketing.

Rating: 3/10 (30 July 1999)

I don't know when the last time was that I disagreed with so many critics and (it seems) viewers (though the sold-out audience I saw it with did not seem too impressed). BWP is a small, mediocre film that is not without it's pleasures (I enjoyed it), but it hardly deserves the praise that has been laden upon it. It is certainly not the most frightening movie ever, nor is it particularly original, nor a genre breakthrough. The film makers took an intriguing idea and made a modest, flawed, dull student film. The general conceit is doubtlessly lifted from the superior Cannibal Holocaust, a film which is not only more frightening, but which manages a thematic layering that is much more deserving of the label "genre breaking." BWP is not terrible. It is entertaining, largely due to the excellent actors... Heather is especially good, managing sympathy for a truly dislikeable character. The other plus in this film (here I agree with the seeming majority) is that memorable final sequence. But even THAT lifts its tension build from the ending of Psycho. Lifts it very well, mind you. Had the script been more carefully drawn out, preventing disbelief from being weighed to the ground by a number of motivational inconsitencies, this might have been a troubling and effective film. Incorporating the documentary's documentary from the Sci-Fi channel advertisement wouldn't have hurt either. Every person I've met off-line has cited the films shortcomings and their disappointment. But on-line both amateur and pro critics have been stoking the hype. Is it summer? Is it, the Blair Witch?!!!