The Blair Witch Project

Grade: A

Compared to this year’s flood of films by corporate studios that bombard you with computer generated imagery and mindless scripts, I look at The Blair Witch Project as a cool, refreshing breeze on a hot, steamy August day.

Shot on a shoestring budget by some amateur Florida filmmakers, word of mouth has churned up a lot of interest. Hollywood executives took notice of the film’s gross on a limited number of screens and released it to the general public this past Friday. It has now become the movie that everyone is talking about, and rightfully so.

Last week I mentioned how the scariest film I ever saw was The Silence of the Lambs. That was until I remembered the original version of The Thing. There were no special effects in it. In fact, we didn’t see the "thing" until the end, and it turned out to be James Arness before he achieved greater fame as Matt Dillon. But just the thought of what might happen to the Arctic research team in that film was enough to make you shake in fear.

That’s the formula used to a high degree of success in The Blair Witch Project. We don’t see the "witch" from the film’s title, but something makes creepy noises in the dark and leaves clues in the woods. With your imagination running in overdrive, thinking the worst might happen, you’ll get quite a jolt at the end.

The opening caption describes how three college students disappeared in the Maryland woods in 1994 while filming a documentary on the "Blair Witch." A year later, only the footage they shot was ever found. Seeing the footage is like watching a home video. The three (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams) get lost. As the movie unspools, it becomes apparent that something is going horribly wrong.

Shot in the same style as MTV’s "Real World," be forewarned that every other word spoken is "F" this and "F" that. This adds to the reality, but also helps seal the film’s R rating.

It’ll probably take six months to a year, but my hope is that the success of The Blair Witch Project will spawn a new crop of intelligent, low budget films. Young people deserve far better than the slew of formulaic schlock they’ve been getting from the big studios. And please don’t forget us fuddy duddies as well.