The worst movie of all time

Rating: 1/10 (21 November 2003)

This film is horrific. It's horrific that it came fifth in Channel 4's scary moment poll; it's horrific that it got good reviews, and it's even more horrific that people actually like this trash. Quite simply, The Blair Witch Project is the worst film of all time. ...and yet somehow, while this film is on the same level of crappyness as films like Freddy got fingered and The Fast and the furious (except Blair Witch isn't as good as those two), I still get the feeling that someone is going to disagree with me.
For the first part of this review, I will be doing things a little differently than usual. Usually I would write out my views of the film in paragraphs, however, this time, to highlight the misinterpretations that people have of this film, I'm going to show you what my TV guide's say:

Named and Shamed 1: 'What's on TV' (The UK's best selling TV magazine)

"Three student film makers get lost in the woods while investigating a legend. Forsaking special effects, this low budget documentary-style fright fest is a return to the basics of what screen horror should be all about - sheer terror"
****/****
Errrr...what? Excuse me, 'Sheer terror', pardon me if I'm wrong, but when I think of sheer terror, getting lost in the woods isn't the first thing that springs to mind. And where the hell did they get 'fright fest' from? I spent most of the movie waiting for something to happen, not being scared out of my wits. sheesh.
Named and Shamed 2: 'Weekend' (The TV magazine that comes free with 'The Daily Mail' on a Saturday)
"How does a film with a tiny budget, no stars and no effects become one of the scariest movies ever? Simple, by making the audience believe that what they are seeing is real. That's the ingenious mind game carried off by this 1999 horror hit, which pretended to be the video diary of three film students lost in a Maryland wood"
****/*****
Well, first off, credit where credit's due, at least they didn't give it full marks. I'll talk more about the mind game thing later but I don't how that makes the film scary, so what something that's not scary but real is somehow scary now? When I was about 10 my grandfather videoed me playing football, that was real, but was it terrifying? No.
I have a more simple answer for their question though: It doesn't.

Named and Shamed 3: Sky TV's information button
"This terrifying film follows three student film makers who went in search if the Blair Witch only to discover the meaning of true horror"

I think this is my favourite of the three comments. 'the meaning of true horror', oh what? So the meaning of true horror is walking around the woods with a camera? sheesh, its ok guys, none of us have anything to worry about ever if that's as bad as it gets.

People seem to think that no gore, no special effects and no big shocks are a good thing. And they can be, if done correctly. Take Rosemary's Baby for example, there is a film that has no gore, no effects and no big jumpy moments, and it worked, know why? It has an idea behind it. The idea that a woman could be carrying the child of the devil is a genuinely frightening idea, it probes into the unknown, and that is a terrifying thing to do. Getting lost in the woods, not only doesn't probe into the unknown (people have been lost in the woods before); it's just genuinely not scary. Maybe getting lost in the woods with a man eating bear might be a scary thought, but just getting lost in the woods isn't. Ok, if you really did get lost in the woods it might be frightening, but for a film, I think we need a bit more plot than that.
For a film to be good, we're not talking Oscar winner here, just merely good, it needs to have several things, including:
a plot a decent script Direction Acting Watchability
Blair Witch doesn't have any of these. Look:
a plot - Plot? What plot? Ok, so we have a reason why they go in the woods, but once they get there, then what? Nothing happens except for them finding a few twigs and stuff hanging from trees. Lame. a decent script - I realise that they were trying to make things look real, which gives the effect that there isn't a script but whereas in most other films the script is used to move the story along, in this film all the script is a bunch of shouting and moaning. I mean, ok, fine you're lost in the woods but surely you wouldn't just sit there shouting at each other all day. Direction - I think it's hard to judge whether or not this was directed. It just looked to me like a bunch of bad camera angles loosely strewn together.
Acting - Wasn't any. Watchability - I can't see any reason to watch this film. I mean watch the film again. It just isn't watchable, the way the camera(s) move is annoying, and it's hard to tell what's going on most of the time. Well, really nothing goes on. The movie's more boring than Streetcar.
The producers of Blair Witch however realised that to sell a film, you don't need those five things, you just need one thing: marketing. And sadly, they were right.
I remember back in 1999 when this crap....err...film was released. Out of nowhere came great reviews, spouting crap like 'it's terrifying'. I didn't go to see it as soon as it came out, but some of my friends and family did, and every single one of them came back saying that it sucked. However, I thought 'uneducated fools, what do they know?' and then guess what? I went to see it and they were right. It's a good job the film wasn't much longer, I reckon I'd have left if it were.
Then we've got this mind game thing. About it being real footage. When I first went to see it this rumour was still ripe and I thought it was really real. Well, actually I was under the impression that this was a film based on actual footage, not the actual footage itself, but anyway, same difference. So how come I still wasn't in the least frightened? And how come even now, now that everyone knows that the rumours aren't true, why do people like the writers of my TV guides say it's scary? why why why? It's too boring to be scary.
I suppose they do deserve some credit for pulling that off though, even I was fooled. But that's credit for the producers, not for the film itself. It's a shame actually that this rumour was done with this film, if it were done for a good film, movie history could have been made. What a waste.

Then we come to the 'utterly horrifying' ending. Well actually, last time I checked, a man stood in the corner while a girl drops a camera isn't scary, but it looks like I'm wrong again. It's horrifying. I realise that at the start someone said that's what happened to a kid or something, but so what? It's still not scary.
One of the (many) main reasons why this film isn't scary is that non of the characters are engaging, or even likable, the audience has no reason at all to like them, so why would we care if one of them has to stand in the corner? Even if it was frightening, who cares? For a good example of something horrifying happening to someone, see The Wicker Man. The Wicker Man did a good job of making itself scary because the character of Sgt Howie was portrayed as being likable so the audience could identify with him, and so when his time came, we felt empathy towards the guy, but what did we feel here? Absolutely nothing.
In conclusion, The Blair Witch can be summed up in 5 no's.

No effects No gore No shocks No stars Nothing
I give this trash 0/10. What? What do you mean I can't? Oh ok, fine, 1/10, but I'm being VERY generous. I even feel like upgrading every film I ever gave a 1/10 to a 2/10, just to emphasize how bad this was, but I can't be bothered.