if it looks like S%#t, and it sounds like S%#t, then it must be S%#t!

Rating: 1/10 (5 August 1999)

If you thought that "Star Wars Episode 1" was the most over-hyped letdown of the year, get ready. "The Blair Witch Project" is so shockingly bad it could have been made by your ninth grade brother's friends on their first camping trip this summer. Shot primarily with a poor quality video (which appears to pre-date steadyshot), "Blair Witch" should have had a hard time getting into student film and video festivals based on the poor visual and sound quality alone. Instead, it has won prizes and accolades at both Cannes and Sundance, and has become the new indie darling of film critics most everywhere. But, "Blair Witch" is far scarier than many of the critics have even begun to hint at. It's basically 80 minutes of watching amateurs stuck in flat woods, running in circles, with no concept of shot composition, no script, no performance talent, and absolutely no idea of what the hell they are doing. This is the movie that puts the 'horror' in horrible.
"Blair Witch" is supposed to be about the making of a documentary. Is this supposed to represent a documentary film crew? A girl who is a complete bitch, and two dweebs who act like whiny versions of Beavis and Butt-head. The interminable fits of yelling and screaming will have you bored stiff. Do stick figures made of wood, and the sounds of nearby "filmmakers" making funny noises in the woods give you the creeps?...if so, you might actually find this frightening.
Well, as audiences everywhere are finding out (as Cinemascore is indicating), "The Blair Witch Project" is not a good film, and certainly not what they were told it would be. Shame on critics making comparisons to horror classics like "The Exorcist" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre". Those were bold masterpieces of terror in which the scripts were solid before production began. Jeez, even "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" was scarier than "Blair Witch" (if Jennifer Love's breasts get any bigger...) Any dolt can do what the makers of "Blair Witch" have done, just look at the worst home videos your neighbor Larry has in his collection (but Larry knows how to use that tripod his wife bought him last Xmas).
To quote Bart Simpson from that great Halloween episode with Poe's "The Raven"; "Do you know what would have been scarier than nothing?.....................ANYTHING!!"