This is the story....of three people....picked to go into the woods...to find out what happens when people stop being nice....and start beingscared.

The Real World - Blair, Maryland.

Everyone has been wetting their pants over this movie - figuratively and literally.  It's the scariest movie ever, you won't want to go camping after seeing it, blah blah blah.  So I went.

I tried to read as little about it as I could.  I avoided most articles, ran shrieking away from their TV interviews (which made Chris look at me funny).  Unfortunately, the little that I saw and knew pretty much unscarified the movie for me, for the most part.  Any time there was a sound or movement that wasn't expected, I didn't think "Holy crap, what was that?" but rather "oh, that's just the director banging on the outside of the tent.  When's Heather going to get whacked?  She's annoying."  Half the time you couldn't hear the creepy noises because Heather and Josh and Mike were talking about the creepy noises.

Little things stuck out and bothered me - if you're lost in the woods and cold and hungry and going through nicotine withdrawal and scared and all that, are you going to take the time to put your hair in a perfect French braid?  Are you actually going to carry that camera around or are you going to put it down, cut your losses money-wise, and use the extra energy you gain by not having to lug that stuff around to travel further?

Although the movie is quite short - less than an hour and a half - it dragged.  How many times do we need to see them cross a stream on a log?  How many times do we need to see them complaining about being lost?  I would've liked to have learned more about the witch herself.  I didn't go to the website before seeing the movie, I didn't see the Sci-Fi Channel special, what I knew about the Blair Witch would fit in a thimble and still leave room for N'Sync.  So a little more backstory would've been appreciated.

You'll notice up above I said the movie wasn't scary "for the most part".  The last five minutes of the movie, whoa.  I still get creeped out by it.  I think the Self-Made Critic over at The Brunching Shuttlecocks said it best when he said "Noo!! God no!! oh my god!! mommy!!! HandS!! Christ! CORNER!! God no!!!!!!! mommyyyyyy!!!"

This movie is sort of becoming the opposite of Titanic.  Where with that movie you would be called a brainless idiot if you didn't like it, with this movie you're considered a brainless idiot if you did like it.  (At least that's the impression I started to get from the Mr. Showbiz Reader Review forum.)  It appears that it's mostly the horror film aficionados who dislike the movie in an "if you liked it you're an idiot" manner.  (Whatever happened to respecting someone's opinion is anyone's guess.)

I don't consider this a horror film; I consider it a really creepy nausea-inducing drama. (Yes, I did feel a bit sick to my stomach because of all the camera work.  Those've you who read my Titanic review will recall that I got a bit queasy during any scene with prolonged strobe lighting.  If I'd seen that
notorious "Pokemon" episode I'd probably have seizures too.)

I've heard that plans are underway for a sequel/prequel deal, and that the filmmakers are considering different angles to take - centering upon either the search for the filmmakers, the Blair Witch herself, the guy from the 40's who killed the kids, a prequel about the filmmakers.  I think a movie about the guy from the 40's would be cool, personally.

I am, however, thorougly sick and tired of all the Blair Witch Project takeoffs.  The "Two Guys and A Girl" ones on ABC, the one for the movie Detroit Rock City, and so on and so forth.  Imitation here is not the sincerest form of flattery; it's jumping on the bandwagon a little too late.

And to anyone who thinks this is a true story and Heather and Mike are dead - they were on MTV's Total Request Live a few days ago.  Although being interviewed by Carson Daly might be a fate worse than death.