A tad overhyped, but still good

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 1999)

Cynics has butchered this movie into pieces, calling it nothing but cheap footage of three people screaming, swearing and smoking. I thought I was going to be one of those cynics, but after viewing, I was pleasantly surprised. Okay, so the hype may be excessive, and the editing was a bit too neat for it be considered "real footage", but overall it was a genuinely creepy, thoroughly fascinating and innovatively made film. It's not very scary, definitely not as terrifying as "The Exorcist", but it's harrowingly realistic footage style is a refreshing change from everyday blood-and-guts material. "The Blair Witch Project" has been called "a masterpiece" and "brilliant", I wouldn't go that far, but it's movie that definitely stands above the rest, proving that the most effective chills are through minimalism. The two eeriest parts for me were the "What the f**k is that???!" chase through the woods (which looked extremely menacing) and the very final scene, which was just chilling to bone. The performances by the three actors were impressive, especially Heather Donahue's. Although they are screaming hysterically at each other most of the time, we were still able understand perfectly why they were so angry and terrified. More information on the Blair witch would of made the movie a bit more clearer, we would of known what exactly was so horrific about her, the makers should of made Heather recite more passages out of her book. The famous "I'm so sorry" speech given by Heather near the end unfortunately had no effect on me, but I'm pretty sure it wigged out some people. So in all, "The Blair Witch Project" has a few flaws, but it's definitely a horror film worth seeing.