Sometimes eerie, but never scary

Rating: 4/10 (1 August 1999)

I walked into the highly-anticipated, mostly well-received "The Blair Witch Project" expecting a terrifying little movie about three student filmmakers who are hunted by an evil entity in the backwoods of Maryland.
Boy, was I wrong. I mean, that's the basic outline of the film, but, to me, "The Blair Witch Project" was more of a survive-in-the-middle-of-nowhere, distinctly amateurish indie flick.
We never really get to know the three college kids (unless you count their foul-mouthed comments and antics as character development). And, come on, as a member of the so-called "Generation X" group of kids, would we really stand around and drool whenever we found out that there was no way out of here and that we were going to die? I don't think so. I think we would've put up a fight. We might not have won, but we would have certainly died trying.
In short, "The Blair Witch Project" is sometimes eerie, but never scary. I suppose this is one of those movies that is meant to be more psychologically stirring than, say, the cat-jumps-out-from-the-corner genre filmmaking. Still, I didn't have any trouble sleeping, as some supposedly did. Rated R. 82 minutes. 4 out of 10.