Please, wait for the video

Rating: Null/10 (29 July 1999)

All right, I'll tell you what IS scary. What's scary is that this movie is doing so well in the box office--hopefully, after all the suckers who bought the hype see this movie, they'll tell their friends what a yawner it really was and the sales will drop off. Luckily, I saw this movie for free at a sneak preview a few months ago, and I foolishly thought then that interest would drop off and we wouldn't have to deal with yet another gimmicky movie making a ridiculous amount of money and sinking the film industry further into the mire it has been festering in for the last twenty years.
Look, guys, the movie isn't scary. We the audience don't hear the things go bump in the night, or get any sense of the darkness of the woods--it is simply relayed to us by our frantic trio of pre-adults, as is all the vital information in this film. "The Blair Witch Project" is a great ghost story--that is, a story you read or hear. But film is a VISUAL medium, relying on what you see or, as effectively, don't see. This movie chooses neither of these paths--instead, we play witness to 80-some minutes of talking, talking, talking by actors who don't have the benefit of a script. Sure, they are scared; sure, they fight. But so do the nimrods on Jerry Springer, and you don't see anyone being kept up at night by that drivel.
I don't quite know what is so terrifying about this flick. The characters walk around taping trees, get scared over a bunch of sticks (among other things, all of which can be categorized as "meaningless objects meant to scare you") and mostly waste their breath arguing about nothing. True, the last five minutes are pretty dang jittery, I'll admit I got the heebie-jeebies--but when's the last time it was worth 8 bucks for five minutes of belated, schlocky entertainment? So wait for the video, rent it for your kids, along with other classics like "Urban Legend" and "Disturbing Behavior." those are all cute little fright flicks, mutant afterbirths of that mother of neo-horror, Scream. But please don't do truly gut-renching cinema the dishonor of worshipping "The Blair Witch Project" as something special. Read a frickin' book instead.