Not the same ol' stuff

Rating: 8/10 (20 November 1999)

Have you ever been seriously lost somewhere and been unable to find your way despite repeated attempts? Have you ever been trapped in a truly nightmarish situation that you could not control? Have you ever been dissatisfied with the unrealistically accelerated event time of most films, i.e., the failure to show process? If you answer yes to these questions, then you will probably find The Blair Witch Project satisfying and very unsettling, as I did. But if you're hooked on the jolt-a-minute manipulations of films such as Alien, this is not your movie.
As a hiker and former high school science teacher from the region where the film was shot, I can assure viewers the banality of the some of the dialogue and panicky and irrational behavior so effectively displayed in this film are far more genuine than most of what I've seen from major studios. Let yourself be young and inexperienced and frightened...and enjoy the luxury of saying afterwards, *It's only a film.*