Unique and an acquired taste, like exotic food

Rating: Null/10 (15 August 1999)

Negative comments about this film interest me, amuse me. In most of them the errors are blatant, their diet of large budgets and pyrotechnic technology clearly shows, even when they steadfastly deny that influence. I find myself wondering what books they've read, in their past, where they garnered their sense of theme and character and plot regarding fiction in any medium. TBWP is a ground breaker on so many levels it's difficult to watch the film fairly if you are an informed viewer. "Scary as Hell" means many things depending on your trip from then to now. Yes, it is scary, it is terrifying, if you can shred your way through the current standards of "horror" and film making. This isn't our usual drummer. This is a gut raw excursion into a piece of our collective psyche some of us have glibly missed as we moved from kid to adult. This movie may pass and be damn near absent from video shelves in a few years but I'll bet it will hold its timeless spell, that, like "Night of the Living Dead", most video stores will keep a copy or two because the movie has tapped something that might be difficult for words to keep but lingers in those secret and dark niches of ourselves. One mistake in the whole phenomena is the hype seemed to pitch a movie over "there", when the film was quite seriously anchored right "here". That, I think, was simply a marketing move. When people ask me if I've seen it, I say "yes, twice so far". When they ask me if I recommend it I tell them I have embraced it in the "top 5" of my horror film closet but that I don't recommend it to anyone because there is nothing to compare it to. There's no way to prep a first time viewer of the film. I think those having to decide how to market the film faced the same dilemma. Horror, languishing and withering in our full speed ahead culture, has snagged an unseen claw in the fabric of our times and gained a foothold. How history regards Blair Witch is up for grabs, but Hollywood, media, consumers and our culture will adjust their trajectory because of an obscure film made on a laughable budget that reminds us the first tale ever spun around a campfire was undoubtably a ghost story. We have reached the beginning of the end of the color splashed, audibly thunderous and visually garrish "BOO!". We happily swap it for a precisely and perfectly timed " ... boo..." Some may miss the point, find it benign rather that frightening, wrestle over the first person, real time excursion and cast its "less is more" philosophy against the current "everything isn't enough" cinematic appetites. But I find much solace knowing that this tiny film has settled itself into movie history, already a truth, alredy becoming an influence. Horror has turned a long overdue corner. Neat! How often is something to fear such a cause to smile.