Overrated, but worth seeing for horror fans.

Rating: 1/10 (31 July 1999)

There are two ways to look at this movie: as entertainment, and in terms of it's importance. As entertainment it is passable, but the importance of BWP is very great. Hopefully this movie will encourage others to make movies that rely on similar scare strategies. What this movie has is atmosphere. It doesn't use loud blares of music and expensive special effects to scare the audience. You know what I'm taking about: Jan De Bont. Compared to recent remake of The Haunting, Blair Witch is a masterpiece.
Yet as I said, as entertainment BWP is only passable. It is a repetitive bore, with a few scary scenes near the end. The final moments leave a LOT to be desired. A lot of people complain about gore in horror movies, but here it would have helped. Without it, the movie seemed like just a bunch of kids running about in the woods trying to make a scary movie. If we had actually seen, say, a glimpse of Josh, it would have worked wonders for the movie. I also did not like the use of the second camera, as at the end we are not seeing the actual footage, but edited footage to heighten tension. Considering the movie is desperately trying to be realistic, this completely shattered the believability of the last scene.
Furthermore, the sound effects could have been equalized or something to make them more audible. This is supposed to be realistic, but so much so that the audience can barely hear the sounds. As it is, the sounds of Josh in the distance are drowned out by the footsteps and breathing of the other actors.
Sadly, the audience I saw this with did NOT like the movie. The film makers tried hard, but ultimately their low budget and unwillingness to use some special effects hurt the movie. It might have made them money. That is another story. The Haunting made 33 million on openeing weekend. What does that tell you? These movies are all hype folks; the true judgement is what you thought of it yourself, how it made *you* feel.
Heather Donahue could be in line for an Oscar nom with this one, even though the 'script' was overdone. Despite this, she did great in her part.
In the end, I don't know how this movie got so hyped, or got so many great reviews. This is definitely not the most original movie I have seen, either. Cannibal Holocaust, for instance, was in the same vein, and more disturbing. I guess audiences have been craving a good horror fix, and nothing has come along for a long time as good as Blair Witch.