It may sound cliched, but I was unable to sleep for 4 nights.

Rating: 10/10 (25 December 1999)

I'm not a fan of horror films at all, probably because they don't impress me. Oh sure, their special effects tend to go "gross out" and all, and they get a reaction from me, but as far as I'm concerned being grossed out is not the same thing as being terrified. Just because something looks or acts disgusting doesn't mean it frightens me. And to be frank, I've grown bored with the constant parade of "horror" movies coming out these days, and not just because I don't care for them... also because they don't frighten me. Enter THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the first movie I've ever seen which terrified me so badly that I was unable to sleep for four nights! (It doesn't help that my apartment is currently in a cellar. If you've seen the movie, you know what I'm talking about.) This is a movie for, say, computer game fans who prefer thinking games to arcade style games, THIEF as opposed to QUAKE. This is very much a thinking person's movie, and those who (I hate to say it) don't have much imagination will get precious little out of it because they are the types who need to have their visuals spoonfed to them. I did have a few complaints about the film, but many were answered in the info provided by www.blairwitch.com. **The following are considered spoilers, if you prefer to see the film without knowing any background info first, please stop reading.** For example, I kept wondering why no one tried using any of the techniques of that "lost in the woods" book that was brought along. But then, I went to the webpage and read the personal diary that was there which said things like (paraphrased), "Why can't I remember what I'm supposed to do after reading it so much in that book? Why isn't our compass working?" The suggestion is that they've been put until a spell by the Blair Witch, and that it's slowly eating away at their logic...and maybe even screwing around with their compass? The only part which still makes me jump a little bit with suspicion is the idea of carrying the cameras and filming everything all the way to the very end of the film. While this is soothed a bit by the fact that the webpage's diary says (paraphrased again), "I'm going to film everything that happens, so hopefully some good will come out of this..." so it can be argued that the characters continued doing so in case they felt they'd need the filmed information in the future, I can't help but wish that, say, they had been equipped with those special cameras that mounts on one's head so they could have an excuse to forget the cameras were still rolling while everything was happening. That's the only slight damper on what is otherwise a brilliant film, and I for one am willing to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy such a great movie. It may very well become at this rate the only scary movie I would ever actually BUY.