Lost in the woods

Rating: Null/10 (17 March 2000)

I don't like slasher movies. They depend on the characters behaving stupidly. BWP is not a slasher movie but still its characters had to behaved stupidly for the story to proceed.
Gore in slasher movies is shock used to make up for a lack of skill in creating suspense on the part of the film maker. BWP used gimmicks; shaky camera work, irritating actors and a fore-shadowing pre-amble.

I was lost in the woods of Michigan twice when I was a child. Once when five, once when nine. The woods of Michigan look very much like the woods of Maryland, as depicted in BWP. But even at the age of five, lost and alone in a place I had never been before, I did not behave as these three young adults (one of whom liked hiking) behaved.
Not everyone gets lost in the woods. Not everyone investigates witch legends. But most everyone takes showers, which is why Psycho is so effective. You can relate to it. You make yourself vulnerable every time you step under that water. It could happen to you. That's why it's terrifying.
So, if you want terror watch "In Cold Blood." It will hit you where you live. If you want horror see the Dutch film from the 30s, "Vampyre." It will hit you where you sleep.
It is true that what you imagine is much worse than anything a film maker can put on screen (the off-screen murder of the child in Fritz Lang's "M" for instance). And, like what happens in Room 101 in Orwell's "Nineteen Eight-four," what terrifies each of us is different.
Horror IS in the mind, but it's not in The Blair Witch Project. To me BWP is not a scary movie, nor is it frightening. It is unrealized potential. A brilliant concept squandered due to lack skill on the part of the film makers.
And there's two more coming. Now that's terrifying.