Quick recap: Three film students hunt down information about a local Maryland legend, the Blair Witch. While camping in the woods, the hunters soon become the hunted. GET IT?

a scene from one of the scarier parts of the film

Fun (?) fact: Most of the actors’ lines are improvised. The director gave them very general notes as to what their direction was and then they were in charge of the rest. They were also in charge of filming the whole thing and stayed in character during the entire 8 day shoot.

maybe if Etsy had been around, the Blair Witch might’ve had something with which  to fill her time, rather than killing people.

My thoughts: No sense beating around the bush for this one, The Blair Witch Project scared me half to death.  Which is quite disappointing because this was supposed to be a month long journey of fear and then I go ahead and chicken out after 3 movies. I’m going to continue to watch horror films this month but I’m not sure anything will be able to top the fear I felt after the last scene.

What made The Blair Witch Project so scary for me were all of the times my imagination had to fill in the blanks. There were several scenes where the screen was black and all you could hear wa some rustling and a few voices. Even the final scene when Heather and Mike walk into the house you never see the witch. But what you do see are remnants of what the witch has done: bloody child handprints all along the wall.  The final shot of Mike standing in the corner was almost too much for me to handle. Once again, you never see anything but on the other hand, the nightmare is everywhere. Maybe even your own home. Maybe in your bedroom. Maybe even in the corner with the lamp that came from your son’s room because it creeped him out and now at midnight you finally get it and you want to go in and tell him but then decide against it because that would probably be an example of bad parenting.

What most surprised me about The Blair Witch Project was its authenticity. The beginning of the ‘documentary’ is slow moving with the 3 students packing, goofing off and talking about the cameras. It’s important to have all that in there because the whole idea is that this movie is footage found a year later. It kind of reminds me of my pet peeve with America’s Funniest Home Videos, and believe me, I have MANY. Anyway, my biggest annoyance was the fact that the cameras just happened to be rolling when grandma fell off of the roof or some 4 year old kid was chased by a rabid dog. Were people just sitting there for hours waiting for something to happen or did they just get lucky? Or is it all staged? Why hasn’t Buzzfeed done a ‘where are they now?’ post about the stars from America’s Funniest Home Videos? So many questions now.

RIP 3 acting careers

Final review: 4/5

Up next: Horrorfest!