waste of a good Saturday night

Rating: 2/10 (10 September 2009)

Please, please, don't buy into the hype surrounding this movie. It was pretty darn awful. Let me tell you now; I'm a very squeamish and easily frightened viewer(I practically had a heart attack when a certain little girl crawled out of a certain TV-you know which movie I mean!) but this film did not have me diving behind the sofa cushions. Not even a little bit. It starts out good; the tension is there alright, but because it is set 'film documentary' style there is no atmospheric music to set the scene, which means any tension or atmosphere has to come from the actors. Maybe I'm missing the point, but a bunch of teenagers running around in pitch black woods whispering the 'f' word over and over-and yes folks, a good five minutes is spent where you can't see a darn thing and can only hear the sound effects as the kids drop the video camera and screech terrified obscenities to each other-doesn't really entertain me that much. Even then the volume had to be turned up ridiculously high just to hear what they were saying, then turned down again in disappointment as I realised I wasn't missing much. I found the scene where they emerge from their tents and practically have a hernia over some re-arranged twig formations more funny than ominous. Was anyone else willing the Blair Witch to pop out and say boo? Anything would have been less laughable than twig formations!! It is true that a good horror flick can entertain you not by what it shows, but by what it doesn't, but here is where the movie fails. Had the teens been stalked and chased down by an evil presence then it would have been frightening and entertaining, instead we have three college-age idiots lost in some woods and behaving like hysterical, well, college-age idiots. 'AHHH!! A re-arranged twig formation!!!' Please. Can you say 'low budget?' Give us viewers some credit! And I won't go into the disaster that was ending. Just as the movie builds up some tension and genuinely grips you to the screen, the credits roll. I had to go back to the title menu screen and repeat that scene just to make sure the DVD hadn't skipped. In the words of Comic Book Guy...'Worst Ending EVER'. Bless Heather Donahue, for she was meant for things far greater than this. Well, thankyou for taking the time to read my little review. I beg of you not to waste any more actually viewing this movie, if it weren't for the foul language it would barely make a PG certificate. There are plenty of better chillers out there, and I know children who wouldn't take this flick seriously.