A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: The Blair Witch Project

Date Viewed: 8/1/99

Details:

Heather Donahue

Michael Williams

Joshua Leonard

Written and directed by Eduardo Sanchez & Daniel Myrick

Score: --

The Review: Part ghost story, part witch legend, part murder mystery, part adventure; mostly content-free and very self-conscious.

The initial premise is intriguing: three film students set out to do a weekend documentary shoot around a local Maryland legend of a witch. They disappear. Several years later, their footage is found -- and this movie is the result. One only wishes that it were a more professional team, so that the result were more watchable. Set up as a student film project, the cinematography intercuts between color video and a borrowed B&W 16mm, both hand-held without image stabilization. Take both aspirin and anti-nausea medication early; you'll need it. It's a very dark film in a very simple sense: as amateurs, the filmmakers do not know anything about exposure or lighting. There is little to see, and less to be interested in.

On a different level, The Blair Witch Project tries to project itself into the "horror film with invisible off-screen terror" genre. But ultimately it fails because much too much is indeed off-screen -- like action, focus, interest, and quality.

Boring; unsympathetic; tedious; disturbing; unsatisfying; neither entertaining nor recommended.

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