The Blair Witch Project

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I wasted my time on this!
Review: This has to be the worst movie I have ever seen in my life. I wish I had spent that 80 minutes doing something more important. The movie was poorly written and wasn't frightnening at all. The only thing it left me with at the end, was anger that I had rented it and a horrible headache from the constant shaky camera angles!

Rating:
Summary: IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY...
Review: I found this a very creepy film, managing to wring out some extremely tight, nerve wrecking momoents courtesy of it's unusual approach. Filmed purely in documentary format, it becomes remarkably easy to buy into whats going on, and unless you're completely turned off by the whole thing within the first 15 minutes you can't help but be gripped to the bitter end.

As the film was put together for such a low sum - a mere $22,000 - and filmed mainly on HI8 video, it's never going to win any awards for digital presentation. The film mixes footage from both film and video. The video element deliberately comes across as shakey and at times nauseating to watch and is designed to make you feel you are watching someones home video, hence making you beleive it is real. Definately worth adding to your collection. MAKE SURE YOU WATCH IT WITH SOMEONE IF YOUR FAINT AT HEART.

Rating:
Summary: Come on!
Review: This is the worst movie I have ever seen. I was so ambitious to see this from all the hype I heard. "Scarriest movie ever" yeah right. 80% of the movie we saw dead dry leaves or things that we had no clue what we were looking at. And the ending which thought would be cool sucked the most. Please don't see this movie it totally sucks!

Rating:
Summary: The Blair Witch Project
Review: DON'T BUY IT! Complete waste of time and money. It took me three days to complete watching this video because I kept falling asleep. A one star rating is definitely too high. Why did they bother making this movie? This is the same producer who made PI another equally BAD film.

Rating:
Summary: Worth Watching
Review: I enjoyed this film very much. I was impressed, in particular, by the originality of its concept and execution. I also appreciated the fact that it did not rely on the usual blood and gore, which is so sophomoric and so typical of the vast majority of current and recent horror films. As for the ending, it's outstanding, albeit too cryptic.

Of course, the film wasn't perfect. For example,the underlying story of the Blair Witch was insufficiently addressed, to put it mildly. What really bothered me, however, were the tortured explanations for the ongoing use of the cameras. I can't help but think that most people would have abandoned filming once they recognized that they were well and truly lost. And I think it's beyond question that no one would have bothered filming once they understood that they were in ghastly, inescapable danger. Of course, then there wouldn't have been a movie, and that would have been a pity.

Rating:
Summary: Blair Witch Doesn't Deliver
Review: The Blair Witch Project was a film that everyone "had" to see this summer. The trailers drew people in, the concept was unique, and the hype was contagious. Now, only two months later the movie has come out to buy on video and DVD. Unfortunately, the only thing scary about this film is that I almost paid $7 to see it in the theater. What sickened me more was that this film has racked in so much money. Here's the concept. Three college students and ambiguous film makers, Heather Donahue, Micheal Williams, and Josh Leonard, decide to make a documentary on the legendary Blair Witch. Armed with two cameras, some other technical equipment, and supplies to last a few days, they head out into the woods to film. Somehow, they get lost, and that's when the terror begins. Not bad at all, right? Well, maybe, had the execution of this concept been put into effect. Instead, what we see is a bunch of teens who get lost and who have no idea how to survive in the forest in the first place. They curse for ten minutes, yell at each other, curse for another ten minutes, and then run around in circles cursing. Then they run away from something "evil" and cry. Doesn't sound incredibly scary, does it? Occasionally, some elements are thrown in to remind the viewer that this is indeed a horror movie. The teens hear eerie sounds at three in the morning, find a bunch of rocks (you will have to see the movie to understand this) outside their tent, and have slime on their gear. One member of the party is missing one morning and the other two hear him yelling at night. Although these are all scary things, they don't add to the overall pictures of what this movie is supposed to be about. I'll give the film credit, the last 20 minutes generate good chills, and the final scene will leave you visibly shaken. However, this scare is only good if you managed to stay awake for the other 80 or so minutes. Overall, I can't say it's terrible but it's not something I'm going to watch again and again.

Rating:
Summary: Well made film
Review: BWP is an original idea for a film, and it succeeds in appearing as a realistic documentary. It was scary, to those people with enough imagination to see themselves in the predicament the characters were in. People who said it was boring just have short attention spans. Now, you may not like this film...but to all the people who said it was the worst movie they have ever seen, I say this: you must not have seen very many movies. I mean, come on, get a grip on reality. This movie was worse than any David Spade or Chris Farley (or god help us, both of them) movie? Please.

Rating:
Summary: Reduces the english language to 1 word
Review: Worst 'movie' we have ever seen.... The 'dialogs' of the 'actors' consist of virtually one word only, the 'F'-word. No thrill whatsoever. Just 3 absurdly hysterical people yelling non-stop the 'F'-word. Perfect example of an over-hyped NULL-product. What a waste of money. There are infinately better (horror) movies you can get at amazon.com. Watch Lilies or Maurice instead, or 'Mars attacks'.

Rating:
Summary: an ancient story with a modern, cautionary twist
Review: One of the most enduring Western folk tale motifs has to do with woods/wildernesses and witches. Thumb through a copy of Grimm's Brothers folk tales, or watch the film The Wizard of Oz. In these stories, the witch personifies the chthonic forces of Nature, which can be confronted and transformed into usable energy for the hero(ine) and society. Usually the protagonist accomplishes this transformation by meeting helpers on the way, but finding the helpers requires an open heart, an aware mind, and the necessary respect and reverence for the larger powers inhabiting the wild.......In this story the protagonists are self-absorbed, irreverent, and extremely undisciplined physically, emotionally, and morally. They enter the woods as if it is just another playground. Such do not fare well on the journey through the Underworld. The so-called project is quite self-referential--it's more about the lead woman in her search for the witch than it is about the witch herself......These people are so blind that they cannot use what helps are available to lead them to safety, that is, the river and the sun. The trap they fall into is really the trap of their own overblown egos, which the woods turns against them......This could well be the story of the modern day Everyman, who sees Nature as a stage for his own self-serving production, rather than as the intermediary source of our Being.....

Rating:
Summary: REPEAT: If u ain't seen it, U SHOULDN'T BE READING ABOUT IT!
Review: Well, here's comment # 1,012. Maybe I shouldn't even bother.

I'll try to refrain from repeating or responding to the billions of things said before, except to add myself to the list of those who recognize this as one of the few really unusual and compelling "horror" movies made in our time (sometimes I think that genre is on its last legs).

For concise, articulate rebuttals to most of the standard criticisms, scroll down to the Oct. 30 comments and read the one from [e-mail].

A few observations that I haven't seen made much:

This is a movie that's misunderstood or misdescribed even by a lot of people who like it. Fans often say little more than "I was so scared I chewed my left thumb off," or variations thereon. But to describe it as "scary" in the usual sense and leave it at that isn't wholly accurate. "Unnerving" is the word I prefer. The ghost story parts probably freaked me out less than the more ordinary situation of being lost in the middle of nowhere with people you don't trust to help you out. BWP is about things that go bump in the night, but equally it's about people starkly confronting their real strengths and weaknesses and the puniness of their civilized props, including their reliance on other people.

I think that's partly at the root of the many frustrated complaints about how "whiny" or "stupid" or "unlikeable" the characters supposedly are. Heather, Josh and Mike react like real, scared kids, not heroes. Where most mainstream horror movies end up as fables about the triumph of ingenuity over darkness, BWP is a fable about helplessness.

And even critics who praised it tended to talk about it as just a great gimmick. It's much more than that (although it's that, too). BWP reshapes standard movie storytelling. Normally we view a movie from the safe viewpoint of a pair of invisible eyes floating around the action. For virtually every second of BWP, I am effectively the eyes of the characters; this stuff feels like I'm not just watching it happen, but that it's happening TO me. If something comes out of the dark, I won't watch it come after someone - it will come after ME. Filmmakers have known for ages how such point-of-view shots work to scare people; Sanchez/Myrick's daring inspiration was to stretch the tactic for the whole running time, and to find a way to do it convincingly.

Closely connected to all of the above are the long stretches of more or less blank screen that people mock so often. Humans are very visually-oriented creatures, never more so than when we're watching movies, where we expect to be shown most everything we need to know. BWP sabotages my vision at key moments of unease or "danger," when I want it most; so, it forces me to concentrate with rare intensity on the SOUND, an element we usually don't consciously notice, taking it for granted as background to the visuals. Deprived of my eyes, I turn to my ears as a crutch, listening for the information I need to be assured of my "safety." Even then, my crutch is shaky, since the sounds are so uncertain. It's an intensified, extended version of those panicky seconds when you're lying in the dark, hear a noise and fumble blindly for the lamp switch in spite of the logical part of your brain telling you to chill out.

That's what one film critic, Michael Atkinson, meant when he said the movie "blinds us and sets us running in the dark." He observed that BWP is about the limitations of our senses, the ultimate futility of our illusion that we can control what we can see. As such, it also calls into question the standard way we watch movies.

To all who read my whole comment, thanks, and you can go now. Given all the static around this film, I really wanted to explain why BWP, for many of us, is unsettling in a way that goes deeper than mere goosebumps. I don't expect to convert any detractors -- your reaction is your reaction-- but I hope to make people think a little more before turning up their noses at the movie's more unusual and difficult elements.