The (sort of) original and (sort of) best

Rating: 8/10 (28 December 2015)

'The Blair Witch Project' invented the 'found footage' portion of the horror genre. Well, it kind of did. The genre was technically lurking in the background, somewhere behind the slasher genre and low budget zombie flicks. You could probably trace it back to such cinematic delights as 'Cannibal Holocaust' in the seventies (only you'd probably regret it if you did). Anyway, The Blair Witch Project may not have entirely invented the type of film which is purely watching shaky hand-held camera-work filmed (for the purposes of the story) by the characters we're following, but it did bring it back to the forefront of horror-movie making. Maybe that along means I should despise it. Only I don't.
If you're not familiar with the 'found footage' genre then you probably don't watch enough horror films, therefore any interest you may have in watching three teenagers get lost in a woods will be minimal. That's pretty much the story. The three of them are film students and decide to make – you guessed it – a project on the (allegedly fictional) 'Blair Witch.' Naturally, things don't go according to plan and, if getting lost wasn't annoying enough, some unseen force starts to mess with their little school trip (and one girl gets a runny nose – if you've already seen it you'll know what I mean).
You may have picked up on my use of the word 'unseen.' For all found footage films are cheaply produced (okay, feel free to shout me down with such epics as 'Cloverfield' and the odd high budget one, but MOST are!). That way the film-makers don't really have to spend that much money on special effects when they can just have the person holding the camera shake it about a bit and then run off. This is the Blair Witch Project all over. If you're expecting hordes of computer-generated monsters storming the woods and chasing our hapless teens down then you're going to be sorely disappointed.
You have to realise that you're going to get long periods of time where not that much happens. The highlight for much of the film is crossing the same river again and again. When I read what I've written I really think I'm not really selling the ol' BWP very well. Believe it or not, I did enjoy it. Back when I watched it in 1999 it was still a fresh genre and, not including old 'video nasties' was pretty original. Plus the acting was good. It really felt adlibbed (actually I think some was) and what you might expect from watching hours upon hours of footage filmed by just some bloke behind the camera. Perhaps one of the reasons I enjoyed it was because I spent a fair proportion of my childhood as a young boy getting (sort of deliberately) lost in the woods and could relate to how creepy the prospect of never getting home again could be (although I made sure I was never more than a stone's throw away from the road and with my dad at all times!).
The three actors themselves were just about likable enough, but they do get a little bit annoying and whiney towards the end. I guess that could be explained by them slowly losing their minds due to their predicament, so, if you don't mind their constant swearing, it can be excused.
So, if you're okay with 'found footage' films and are interested in the one that spawned a hundred inferior clones, then give this one a go. It's not long and you won't waste too much of your life on it. It's genuinely creepy here and there. Just don't bother with the sequel which doesn't even bother to be original and is just your standard horror cliché-fest.
Oh, and if you don't think much to the way BWP ended, you're not the only one. It's a love or hate ending. I guess Family Guy hated it – look up the clip of Brian Griffin the cinema watching Blair Witch on Youtube and see that you're not alone. I felt a little cheated, but grew to accept that that was the way it was just going to be.