Say what you will, it's very innovative and honestly frightening.

Rating: 8/10 (25 April 2003)

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is all about effect. It's the kind of movie best enjoyed on the first viewing, like THE RING or MEMENTO; analyze it to heavily and you ruin some of the thrills. The concept of a completely staged documentary is, of course, not new. The best example, and the one that BLAIR WITCH most resembles, is an excellent French film called MAN BITES DOG; the latter is a much better film, but BLAIR WITCH pulls off its premise more realistically than any other "mockumentary" I've ever seen. Talented but completely unknown actors man the cameras and much of the sound effects throughout the film, while simultaneously remaining in character enough to improvise as each new terror is presented to them. Of course, they knew it was all staged, but the verisimilitude achieved in the film cannot be denied. Shooting in "real time" and actually depriving the actors of food and rest, as well as scripted lines and any cognizance of plot direction, it is easy to see how writer/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez managed to perpetrate this ingenious hoax to the point where audiences were actually terrified. This is a very realistic, ominous and visceral film.