incredible. i've never been this scared during a movie

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 1999)

To anyone who plans on seeing this astounding movie: this film WILL stick with you. Particularly the ending. Consider yourself forewarned. It's been over 24 hours since I got out of the theater, and the final images are still burned indelibly into my memory. This was easily the most shiver-inducing, all-out frightening movie I've ever seen. There are no jump-out-of-your-seat scares, no shots of a slimy, ugly alien or any other cheap scare tactics: all that exists while this film runs is FEAR, nauseating, jaw-clenching, stoop-down-in-your-seat fear. I went in to the theater afraid that the film had been overhyped, that I wouldn't like it as much as I hoped I would, and, after about 20 minutes or a half hour, I thought that my worries were coming true. Then I realized that I was hoping, really hoping, that the scene wouldn't shift to night again. That's when I realized just how afraid I really was. The big reason that this film is so frightening is it's realism. In most movies you have to make an attempt to identify with the characters; in TBWP you have no choice. You become basically the fourth person, and that prospect is what is truly scary: "What if that was me up there?" I shudder to think about it even now. I'm not even going to get started on the last 5-10 minutes of the film; I'll just leave it at the fact that I have never been as scared in a theater as I was at TBWP's conclusion. And I slept with the light on afterward. This is a brilliant, brilliant film.