UnbeWitched

Rating: 5/10 (30 January 2000)

I finally decided it was time to see what all the fuss was about. Now that I know, I'm a little boggled. Am I missing something here? How can I be scared at something so patently unrealistic? If this were truly realistic, the footage would have ended about an hour into the movie, at the point where the three film makers decide their lives are more important than camera equipment, ditch the backpacks, and hike non-stop, day and night, south and/or east until they get to civilization. They have a compass. They have legs. Make use of them. Don't stop every night and invite the evil right up to your doorstep. Maryland's just not that big, and there's plenty of populous all around it. Go towards it, all the time. And take a cell phone while you're at it, just for emergencies. A creative idea, to be sure (though not necessarily as original as previously thought, cf. The Last Broadcast), and the first half-hour or so is promising, but the stunning stupidity of the characters made the last hour of the movie just an irritating joke.
We give a pass to most movies, especially horror movies, when they're unrealistic, because we know they're fictions trying to pass themselves off as reality. But Blair Witch tries to pass itself off as the reality itself, as a documentary, and in so doing sets a higher standard of realism for itself. For me, it failed miserably in meeting it.