Excellent Movie - if you can suspend you disbelief

Rating: 9/10 (10 March 2005)

I just rented this movie and was blown away. Using what I think was two camcorders, no special effects, no music and an under $50,000 dollar budget, three (probably more as well) filmmakers made a hair raising, wonderfully crafted movie that scares effortlessly without one single, scary scene. The premise starts with 3 students attempting to make a documentary on a local legend-The Blair Witch. They interview the local people living around and eventually go into the forest to search for a cemetery. They eventually get hopelessly lost and we see a wonderfully realistic transformation from hope, to anger, to sadness, to absolute desperacy. The acting is completely unscripted-and to a person who lives in movies where every line has five minutes of thought behind it, might find it a little one note, but if you can forget it's a movie, one will see it's an amazing performance. The characters truly develop and if any of you have been camping for a long time, it will feel very realistic. From bicker to tears everything works well. The premise behind the movie, is that you have to suspend your disbelief and doubts and accept that the everything is real, and further, immerse yourself in the experience and pretend that you are lost in the forest. If you enjoy movies that go to lengths to scare the apathetic viewer, you won't like this movie. It requires empathy and understanding, an once you can accept that, it will blow you away. And if you can, the movie can give a real tense scare and a wild adrenaline rush, without one scary scene.