The filmmakers refuse to pay their dues...

Rating: 9/10 (3 November 1999)

...so we, the viewers, have to pay them instead. That, I think, lies at the heart of the many chants of "worst movie ever made" from BWP's detractors. It's also one of the reasons the film will stay in the heads of its fans for days, and why those fans won't shut up about it.
The problem is that not everyone is used to art which doesn't readily explain itself, which makes the viewer work at interpreting it. Two practitioners of this type of art in other fields are the writer William S. Burroughs and the composer John Cage. Some famous movies which do the same kind of thing are "L'Avventura", "Last Year at Marienbad", "8 1/2", and "Blow-Up". Some people can't stand these films, others can't live without them. What they have in common with BWP is that they put the viewers' minds to work, filling in the deliberate gaps in the plot and unexplained areas. While a lot of people dote on films like this that "make them think", others don't appreciate being put to work when they've come to be entertained.
A better precedent for BWP is "David Holzman's Diary", which purports to be a young filmmaker's attempt to turn his life into a film (and which also aroused strong negative reactions from viewers who felt cheated by its not being "real"). Some have asked why the students kept filming after losing all control over events. The answer is that, like David Holzman, they found the act of recording their experience on film was the only way to impose order and meaning upon the experience.
Alfred Hitchcock, I think, said something to the effect that drama was just real life "with all the dull parts removed." BWP does have some admittedly dull parts, and its detractors have seized upon these as proof of its badness. Others have cited the repetitive dialogue, and the arguments that run in as many circles as the students themselves. One could also argue, though, that these devices enhance the veracity of the film (at least on an emotional level--we all know it's not "real", right?). Along with the fact that almost all the shots are point-of-view, they give the impression of actually being inside the film while it's happening. This is another reason the film arouses so much enthusiasm.
While remarkable in its own way, too much has been made of BWP's Web-driven publicity campaign. If anything, the hype might have been too effective, in that it attracted (along with the curious film intellectuals) a number of people unsympathetic to this type of film. On the bright side, it seems to have swept in quite a few people who, without knowing it, have been waiting all their lives to see something like this. This is the kind of fan most likely to declare BWP their all-time favorite film, the best horror film since "The Exorcist", etc. One hopes they will get equal enjoyment out of Burroughs, Cage, and "L'Avventura"!
For my part, I admit I don't see many regular horror films (though in retrospect I'm reminded that many landmarks of the genre, including "Cat People", "Psycho", "Night of the Living Dead", and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre" were also made on low budgets, if not micro-budgets), but do enjoy art that makes the viewer work a little. I enjoyed BWP for all the reasons listed above, along with several images and sequences I expect to stay with me a long time. Like a dog trying to get the last bit of meat off a bone, my mind keeps worrying at these scenes, trying to impose meaning on it all.
This reminds me of how a conventionally-trained classical violinist tried out an avant-garde piece by Charles Ives and hated it, saying that if you swallowed something that disagreed with you, you could take something to get rid of it, but that he (the violinist) couldn't get these awful sounds out of his ears. I wonder if some of the negative reactions to BWP might come from people unwillingly carrying it in their heads for days, weeks, maybe even months.
BWP isn't my favorite film of all time, but I prefer it to all the other films I've seen so far this year. I can imagine seeing better films this year, but the filmmakers are going to have to work a little to please me. (Heh, heh.)