Rating: 
Summary: Something Witchy This Way Comes
Review: 'Blair Witch' is a movie people either love or hate, but no one seems to be neutral about this one-of-a-kind scare flick. I am squarely in the 'love it' camp and give it 5 stars. The creators have gotten more atmosphere out of less budget than I thought possible. It just goes to show budget isn't important if you have good ideas. This pseudo-documentary of three collegiate slacker types lost in the Maryland woods WAS hyped to death, luckily I ignored all that and discovered what is now one of my favorite movies of all time!Yes, this movie has a lot of shaky-seasick cam, and yes, it has a lot of swearing. This isn't why it's effective of course! I think it scares people (me especially) for 3 reasons: 1) As mentioned by other reviewers, you never see the Blair Witch. This allows your imagination to run free with the creepy sounds and images you ARE given. 2) There is a curious balance for a horror flick, hardly any blood and gore...heaps of bad dream images (particularly the lil' house in the woods...I think I've been there in a nightmare!) Also lots of scenes in pitch blackness (that nust have been intense in the theatres). Not only was eliminating the usual gore a way to deal with the low budget of this film, but in suspense, less is always more! Think of JAWS, some of the scariest parts are when you DON'T see the shark! But my favorite point, and one I don't think many people notice or mention is 3)...the contrast of the spooky supernatural witchy elements with the very believable, everyday terror of the way people mistreat each other. As the situation worsens for the characters, they begin arguing and lashing out at one another more and more. Since at the beginning, everyone is chummy and likeable, I find that this disintegration of their friendship to be unsettling and scary too...sort of a mirror image of the external threat of the Blair Witch. Many reviewers say the people in this movie spend too much time arguing...but I think that's intentional. It simply puts another level on the 'bad vibes'. I'd cite examples but I don't want to spoil anything worse then I already have! So if you want to see an example of the amazing atmospheres that can be created in a movie on a ridiculously low budget...and you want to be scared so bad that your soul temporarily leaves your body...check it out!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Imaginative Horror- But NOT For Gore Fans
Review: First off, let me warn you: If you are someone who is terrified by gory horror with lots of blood, guts, and murder, this movie is NOT for you. Avoid this movie the best that you can. But to everyone else, let me start off with, this is one of my top three favorite horror movies of all time! I'm a huge horror buff, so I've seen a lot of horror in my life; this tops it all. :) The Blair Witch Project is about three college-aged kids who go off into the woods to explore the legend of the "Blair Witch" for a project at school. The three of them are: Heather Donahue, the solid leader of the group; Joshua Leonard, the cameraman; Michael Williams, who takes care of the sound. They decide to go camping over the weekend and have a planned out trip through the woods. The first night, everything seems to be going as planned. But soon they find themselves in a terrifying reality that may cost them everything. Eerie sounds begging to haunt them outside so that they cannot sleep at night. The noises continue to become more intense as their journey deepens. They find voodoo witchcraft things all over the place. One of them is missing. The map is gone; they walk in a straight line all day and end up where they started. They are lost, hungry, tired, and hunted. In reality, three amateur actors were sent out into the wood with two cameras- a black and white and color- and a sound system. They kept their real names for the film as well. Everyday they were given notes on where to go, and some of them had "special" directions. During the filming process, the actors truly were cold, tired, and hungry. They were given very little to eat, had to sleep in the cold outside, and didn't get much rest. All of this enhanced the film's quality. The originality of this film is something like I haven't seen in a very, very long time. Made on a terribly low budget, the filmmakers come up with an excellent horror story sure to chill you imaginative people to the bone. I have found that it's especially scary to those who have lived near/in the woods at one part in their life. For the first 11 years of my life, I lived almost out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees and wildlife. This movie scared me in particular because I know what lurks in the forests at night. :) I would also suggest, should you have the DVD, to check out the commentary. I thought it was very interesting to see what these three actors had to go through to make the film what it is; it's also interesting to see how they made a lot of the night sound scenes work. This film is, all things considered, an imaginative and highly original film that is sure to be refereed to as one of the best horror movies for a very long time. **NOTE** I have been told that this film is based on the legend of the Jersey Devil. Look it up on google to find out more. It's actually pretty interesting :)
Rating: 
Summary: The Rip-off Project
Review: Is this movie a joke???!!
I can't belive all the hype they had with this movie, it was boring and the scariest part for me was paying $12 to see it.
If you want to look at close ups of peoples nostrils, then this films for you. Basic plot, teens get lost in the woods and wake up in the middle of the night hearing sounds outside (you would figure racoons, maybe bears), but it's not, it's some sort of witch who builds stone structures in front of teens tent, then teens disappear and the witch(who we never see) gets them all in the end. EVERYBODY IN THE THEATER BOOED WHEN IT ENDED!!!!!!!
Ignore at all costs and go buy something like The Changeling or Amytiville Horror if you want to be frightened.
Cheap budget or not, this was the biggest waste of film ever put together in the history of movie-making. It's been in the discount racks at my video store forever. ...
Rating:
Summary: Love it, or hate it
Review: Sift thru the more than 1700 reviews on Amazon at the time I write this and you'll see a lot of 1 star and 5 star reviews. People seem to love this movie or absolutely hate it. My first knowledge of this film was a brief blurb from Roger Ebert talking about an upcoming film and he showed footage from the Blair Witch Project of people running and screaming in the woods at night. My first thought was, "Is this a student film?" It never occurred to me that the film was real, even though it was marketed that way, and even though I saw the Sci-Fi Channel's excellent Curse of the Blair Witch special, all before seeing the actual film in the theater. The reason I mention all of this is because I think a lot of people resent being hoodwinked into thinking the events they were watching were real. To that I ask "So, you paid money to see a snuff film and now you are disappointed?" As the credits rolled in the theater I heard more than one group of people note the actors names and say "See, I told you it was real". At that moment they loved the movie. People had been jumping out of their seats and hiding their eyes. Imagine their disappointment when they found out the people on the screen weren't dead. I bet they were angry enough to trash it to anyone who would listen. My two closest friends in the world did EXACTLY that. They both admitted liking it until they found out it was just a movie. Now they talk about how it was the worst movie ever. Why the change? I guess I should actually review this DVD. Despite my original worries, this is not a student film, although it was certainly made on a student budget with student equipment. The 3 unknown actors were simply more convincing than any $20 million per picture actor that has hoisted an Oscar. Remember, people watched this and thought it actually happened. The plot was simple; Three students go into the Maryland woods near Burkittsville to investigate sites haunted by a local urban legend, the Blair Witch. They get lost, they find more than they expected, weird noises surround them, someone disappears, and it culminates in a search of the ultimate Blair Witch location. The DVD is great, not only for it's special features including a great commentary track, but it also features the full length Sci-Fi mock documentary Curse of the Blair Witch, which gives background on the "myth" of the witch and "interviews" with people with knowledge of the legend. Please, if you have not seen this movie, watch it with watching a work of fiction in mind. As a movie, it is spooky, and the isolation and building terror of the cast will draw you in. There's nothing that will change the monds of people who watched the film with the wrong mindset. Instead, I urge you to see it for what it is; a very good, scary film.
Rating: 
Summary: The best way to watch this movie
Review: The best way to watch this movie would be to stumble across it late at night on cable, not know what it is, and get sucked into the documentary style. I loved this movie when I saw it, because the hype-machine hadn't blown it out of proportion, and I was willing to let the unpolished production quality of the movie convince me it was real. The outstanding acting and the realistic pacing of the film augmented that feeling of verisimilitude wonderfully. Rent this movie, invite a friend who's never heard of it, and tell them it's supposed to be an interesting documentary. And consider this a suspense movie, not horror.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't believe the hype, but still OK
Review: Looking over the other reviews for this film it appears that people either loved it or hated it. My reaction to it was more luke warm. The basic premise of the movie is actually pretty interesting. The main problem is that a movie about the mental or psychological breakdown of a group of student film makers, as its members slowly realize they are hopelessly lost in the (dwindling) forests of western Maryland, was marketed as a horror movie. I guess the distributors didn't think people would be interested in the more psychological aspects of the tale. Why is this a problem? To start, the movie isn't really all that scary. Let's face it. I'm not sure if I'd even notice if someone had left a pile of rocks outside my tent overnight. The best part of the film was watching how sleep deprivation and total lack of preparation could lead to a total breakdown in group dynamics and lots of cussing. Also, one is left with the following question. Why didn't they just get a bearing using a compass and walk straight? They'd certainly hit a road or, now this would be really scary, a strip mall in a matter of hours. They're in Maryland, not Montana.
Rating: 
Summary: Not What It Could Have Been
Review: I really, really wanted to like this movie. The days of independent drive-in-type movies that were made with a minimal budget but lots of imagination are long gone. True, they were often a hit-and-miss proposition; some were great, some were awful, but they were uniformly fun to watch. Not so now. Hollywood has appropriated the horror movie. Such a movie now is a multi-million dollar extravaganza with slick special effects and a cookie-cutter plot. So, I was hooked by the ad campaign for this movie. It was presented as a triumph of the cinematic outsider using a mimimal budget and a lot of ingenuity to overcome the restrictions of an entrenched Hollywood that all too often caters to the lowest common denominator possible. Unfortunately, this film was a great disappointment to me. The shrill, amateurish acting I could have withstood. After all, a lot of landmark horror movies ("Night of the Living Dead" is one that immediately comes to mind, or "Carnival of Souls") are not noted for the efficacy of its actors. This plot, however, is pretty non-existent. Basically, it consists of unpleasant people staggering lost through the woods and screaming at each other. Hopefully, one of the benefits of this film is that it will inspire other budding movie-makers to scrape together whatever resources they can and give it their best shot at translating their inner vision onto film. It is to be hoped that such films will be more inventive and entertaining and frightening than this.
Rating:
Summary: The begining of reality TV
Review: I am one of those people comnpletly sick to death of reality TV. And this movie is one of the causes of it! Ever since this cheap, low budget film was released, it inspired producers everywhere that cheap/low budget/and bad ideas can be make a quick buck. When I first heard about this movie, there was a humongous rave about it, I wasnt intrested in the movie, but got dragged along anyway.... while watching the movie I was not the slightest bit scared, everything was bad, and nothing was sacry. Then when the movie finished, i think everyone had the same thought going through there head as me "Is that it? Is that the end? huh?" The movie got more hype then it deserved too! First they said it was a true story, and it was actors reinacting the tapes found. Then they admitted it wasnt 100% accuret, there where a few scenes added to the movie to make it scaryier, like the tent shaking...then they admited that the whole thing was 100% fictional!!!!! so they had to lie to get this garbage veiwed!!! I have only heard people say that the thing that scares them about the movie is it now makes them afraid to walk in the woods alone.. and claim that the movie was brilliant for achieving that idea.... i guess they never saw Friday the 13th??? I know alot of you love this movie. And you will hate the fact that i love Book Of Shadows, but hate this movie!!! But its my opinion, and I respect everyone elses opinion, so i hope youll accept mine. Thats the way I fell about this movie that i beleive is part of the reason Tv is infested with RTV these days. But, with every bad, there is a good.... it did inspire a few great parodys and sketchs in other films and tv stuff.
However, I also did inspire a copy cat type of film that i didnt think was too bad called "the last broadcast" check that out if you like these type of movies.
Rating:
Summary: WITCH You Were Here !
Review: Your hair stands up to its end, the flesh of your mouth ( is ) slack, your face looks vimpire-pale and sweaty-damp, and you just sit still that way looking blankly dull. No medical school certificate required to identify this primary syndrome as S-H-O-C-K. That could happen to some of you after seeing the last 10 minutes of the film or even the very last scary shot. It all began in the mid-90s when the three skeptical college students- Heather, Michael and Joshua- launched their documentary-shooting journey to discover the legendary Blair witch who was believed to reside in the Burkittsville, Maryland forest. They went there and were believed to find what they had been looking for- that, of course, satisfied their needs and wants. Well, they NEVER came back. Three years after their vanishment, only their footage was found and that' s the very beginning of one of Hollywood' s low-budget scariest witch tales on films. Handheld video camera shooting- the kind you can find in normal houshold practice- helps projecting very natural documentary images created by low-budget curious college student amateurs, which serves the purposes of the film as a projected genuine documentary film ( we all know that it' s a film, yet to entertain our psyche, we choose to believe it' s real ). Ad-libbed script / screenplay naturally improvised by these main characters makes the film unique and distinctively experimental in its own way. The outcome ( of the film ) is what happens when you, as directors, left someone in the middle of nowhere with limited food & water supply and basic camping tools and equipments with a set of brief instruction / conceptual script of what you' re gonna do to them and what they, as characters in the film, are expected to react in scenes on periodic basis. It' s not what you see that scares you- it' s what you can' t ! And there' s nothing much that you can do except being scared. BE VERY SCARED !
Rating:
Summary: A powerful indie bone-chiller
Review: Although all of the hype surrounding this movie was excessive, in the long run, "The Blair Witch Project" is still a creepy and nerve-racking film that gets under your skin and stays there for days afterwards. Okay, so it may not be as terrifying as "The Exorcist", but there are certainly some scary moments that are virtually impossible to forget. It's raw, gritty style successfully amplifies the tension and fear that mounts, plus it's not everyday we witness a seemingly ordinary camping trip turn into a fight for survival. The makers of this film did quite a job creating an atmosphere, images such as trees and piles of rocks are transformed into objects of danger and evil. The performances by the three actors are incredible, there is not one moment where you can tell that they are just acting, you can literally sense their emotions of frustration, anger, and most of all, terror. But the most effective aspect of "The Blair Witch Project" is the last 5 minutes, the tension starts to escalate immensely, and it ends with a scene that is just chilling to the bone. A very good horror film.
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