The "Duh, What Project?"

Rating: 1/10 (24 November 2001)

Like Tin Man, I have been involved in writing film reviews for many years and have had my fair share of exposure to just about anything you care to mention from BIRTH OF A NATION to JASON X and I'm here to tell you, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is the greatest "Emperor's new clothes" routine ever foisted on the cinema-going public. Personally I really get-off on horror flicks, good bad or indifferent, and have watched pretty much every bloodletter made! (Still trying to figure out what was actually WORSE than I STILL KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER?)
Whom-soever was "scared" by this, has serious issues to deal with. Either that, or a rampantly manipulable imagination, one can only assume is totally at the mercy of repressed childish fantasy. My GOD - WHAT was scary? nothing happened! Its very amateurishness, far from compounding a fear-factor (though so many were taken in by critics worldwide SUGGESTING this be the case) served only to promote the "home-movie" status of the finished 'product'...and I use the term loosely!
Now I agree, knowing the fact that other horror flicks are actors, retracting knife blades, latex injuries and half empty bottles of ketchup, interacting before a camera, FOR THE MOST part renders the shudder content (for any thinking person at least) to negative levels. So what's different here? Ok, you got no color, no ketchup...a LOT of trees and no-one can act! (Don't be fooled by Heather's 'natural' funk)....worse still that irritating as hell 'hand-held camera' and interminable shots of the ground (yeah that WAS scary huh?)
Where have you guys crossed over from reality to fantasy? It wasn't the film's brilliance, it was your exploited vulnerability!
You want "SCARY?" watch THE INNOCENTS (1961). That and CANDYMAN (The original), perhaps even COMMUNION (1976). That is the SUM of "scary" I have found in seventy odd years of horror. (You could add that one "jolt" scene in EXORCIST III)
Loved the end too..."Aaaarghhhhhhhh" Cheapest climactic effect in history! Maybe Sanchez should consider AAAARGHHHHHHH 2? For all its contrived, low budget amateurishness - I preferred BLAIR WITCH 2..not a half-decent concept in there if you think about it! What am I saying? I preferred PLAN NINE FROM OUTER SPACE! Now, thats SURE to rub a fair bit of fur up the wrong way...might have to keep an eye out for some 'sinister' little twig-men hanging off my porch!