It's not a horror film. It's better than that.

Rating: Null/10 (15 November 1999)

You go to the cinema, you sit down with your popcorn, you watch a film, you come out and talk about it with friends, go home and forget it.
Rarely does a film ask you to think for yourself as it is essentially a passive entertainment. This is what The Blair Witch Project attempts to subvert.
Okay, the reactions are those of Heather, Josh and Michael but it is possible to identify more closely with these characters than the standard victims/heroes or horror films. They don't do what we would consider the obvious things - like follow the river downstream - to get out of trouble. They are arrogant, inarticulate, stupid and frightened. Just like us. Just as we probably would be in the same situation - cold, running out of food, hunted.
And that's what we're not used to seeing on film. Traditionally, main characters act upon events to influence their own destiny. It is the support cast who are quickly sketched and lack motivation and therefore have "Will be holding own entrails in fingers in the next five minutes" invisibly tattooed across their forehead. Here, the three principals try to convince themselves they have some idea of what they're doing even though we know, and perhaps subconsciously, they know, they are doomed.
The Maryland woods with their cold, dry sticks and leaves are a perfect setting. For a good example as to how the countryside can be a strange place for alien visitors, The Blair Witch Project ranks up there with Picnic at Hanging Rock.
The Blair Witch Project isn't the scariest film you'll ever see but it is genuinely unsettling in the same way Jaws is. Just as we all laugh at the big fake shark but wonder if we really should swim out too far in murky water, we might think twice about camping out in woods in the autumn.
Forget the hype. or rather enjoy the hype for what it is. Well thought out and creative hype but watch the movie by itself. Let yourself get involved, get drawn in. Don't expect the film to do all the work for you. Remember your imagination? Use it. Close the distance between you and the characters and believe.