Review of The Blair Witch Project (1999) by Kenny N — 14 Jun 2016

As of this writing, this movie is about to celebrate the 17th anniversary of when it first terrified audiences at the Sundance film festival on July 30th, 1999. When the film was released in theaters to the public at large, it arrived with some serious hype, generated by the Internet, in an age before #BlairWitchProject could trend on Facebook, Twitter, even MySpace.

And audiences around the world turned this tightly budgeted low-fi film into a box office smash, and, for awhile, truly believed in the Blair Witch legend, and that the three main actors had disappeared mysteriously and were never heard from again, save for the "found footage" left behind.

Nowadays there's 5 new found footage films coming out every week, ranging from great to good to forgettably terrible to terribly forgettable. But when this movie, made on a $60,000 budget by two aspiring filmmakers from Florida, first came out it was the first of it's kind.

It set the bar high for not just "found footage" films, but horror films in general. The plot, the actors, the filming, the "I'm so sorry" scene, the finale-it's all been talked about, studied, dissected, and pondered about for 17 years (and will be until the end of time.

) It holds up, and is glorious undeniable proof that great horror is timeless, and gives you a reason to sleep with the lights on...