A movie that does different things for different people

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 1999)

I think I can sum up with ease the reason that the Blair Witch Project has gotten mixed reviews from mixed people: It is a movie that requires a vivid imagination. Someone who is unlikely to be carried away by their imagination and finds it hard to suspend disbelief will be considerably less likely to enjoy this movie than someone who is more subject to wild trips of the imagination. Since Blair Witch shows precious little to the camera itself, leaving most of the action unseen and the horrors undepicted, a person with a vivid imagination will usually create a more horrifying image and atmosphere in their mind of what is going on than anything that could actually have been shown on the camera. So, basically, whether this film scares the bejeezus out of you or leaves you feeling disaffected and saying "What was so scary about all that?" is a good test of how imaginative you are. I myself had a decidedly difficult time of trying to fall asleep last night after seeing the movie, for my imagination was running wild. Hard-core movie fans, like those at the Sundance festival, are likely to be very visual and imaginative people - dreamers - and perhaps this is why the movie went over so well there. Within the general populace however, people are not always so imaginative and do not find it so easy to let their imaginations take a hold of them. This is the reason, I believe, that the Blair Witch has encountered more mixed reviews from its wider release.