the movie did one thing really really well. it broke the mold. love it or hate it you have to admit you havent seen anything quite like it before or since. while it didnt exactly scare me it was pretty creepy and the ending was pretty sweet.
that and they made a friggin fortune off it cant hurt to bad.
I didn’t see the movie for a couple years after it came out. I found it in a bargain bin, brought it home with few expectations, and watched.
Loved it. It seemed very real to me in several ways.
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Usually one character delivers a line; the other waits, then delivers the next. But in this, they would talk over each other. And, there was no economy of words: they’d say things multiple times if they were really scared etc.
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The shaky camera put me into the movie. Life isn’t viewed from a rock-steady camera on a tripod and it helped me suspend disbelief.
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The overall edit felt like right. People say some parts were boring, and that mirrors real life. It didn’t feel neatly-packaged or glossy in any way.
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It wouldn’t have worked with blockbuster stars like Matt Damon or Halle Berry: they just seemed like average people.
But I think it’s a movie you either love or hate.
As for the OP’s question about what happened at the end, I think we’re supposed to believe the witch is there. Heather gets bonked on the head, the camera falls while still running, and they’re all goners.
That’s it exactly. They got lost in what looked like a small sparse wood because…it was inhabited, or there was just something inimical about the nature of the place. What it brought to mind for me (I’m one of the people that film worked for, real well…and I am a jaded fuck who has watched horror movies obsessively since I was about six) was the grim old legends about the Fey Folk and what they are apt to do with people like us whom they decide to mess with – like leading them off paths and getting them hopelessly lost and betangled, wandering in circles until they died or went mad, sometimes just a little away from where they were going. That was the reason all the awful legends had attached to that little patch of forest; it was just …wrong, somehow. The place itself (or the spiritual forces attached to it) hated people and fucked them over whenever the chance arose, in any gruesome or uncanny way it (or they) pleased.
As for the OP’s question – yeah, he was standing in the corner like Rustin Parr the child killer was said to have had to have his second victim do while he murdered the first one. Oh, man…that couple of seconds with him standing there just before the chick drops the camera stayed with me for a fucking week after I saw that goddamn movie. And all those little handprints on the wall around the fireplace…
(DLuxN8R-13 starts shivering uncontrollably and tries to glance over both shoulders at the same time. 12 freaking years later.)
Oh, I play it straight: that there really was a Blair Witch and that the college kids got caught in her (his?) grasp.
The Blair Witch Project:
The Boo in the Big Blair House
(If you don’t get that, you don’t have kids that watch the Disney Channel)\
Moderator comments: It’s never clear when a classic needs spoiler warnings, and you’re probably right, Jennshark, but… this is the first time you’ve seen it, and there may be others. So, I’ve added the spoiler alert to the title.
I thought the movie was incredibly effective, especially the end, as others have mentioned. I couldn’t get that vision of Mike standing in the corner out of my head for weeks.
By the way, I could swear that I’d heard that one of the film makers (Eduardo Sanchez, I think)died a few years ago. I tried looking it up but didn’t find anything. Can anyone confirm or deny?
Pip and Pop did it.
I dunno… I wasn’t impressed and I thought the guy was taking a leak in the corner. At least then I could get some purile entertainment from this.
Never bought into it in the least… but it had a great marketing campaign.
Where oh where oh where is Shadow?
Count me as one who dislikes the jumpy camera. It’s the same reason I didn’t like NYPD Blue when it was on TV. It makes me feel vaguely motion sick.
I saw it amidst all the hype, so my expectations were probably too high, but I mentally MST3K’d it all the way through.
I saw this movie at a friend’s house with 10 other people, and it still got to me. I’m quite certain I don’t need to see it in the theater.
This guy I know watched this movie right before he was shipped out for 2 weeks of wilderness survival traning in the Florida everglades. He spent every night of the first week with his back against a tree, clutching a big stick, repeating ‘There is no such thing as a witch’ over and over.
I don’t go to many horror films, but I gave in to the hype and saw this. It annoyed me at first, for all the reasons others have noted, but by the end I was on the edge of my seat. The ending really stuck with me. Very creepy.
At the time, I thought this was one of the best horror films I ever saw, and I haven’t changed my opinion. I never got the impression that the kids got lost because they were stupid, it was because whatever was haunting the woods was messing with them. The whole movie was about the big bad getting into their heads, before going for the kill. It had the feel of some very old, nasty fairy tale.
The Last Broadcast - released a year earlier, far superior to Blair Witch… and I liked Blair Witch. 
I wouldn’t say that it’s far superior. If anything, the ending of The Last Broadcast left me thinking, “What the h…”?
imdb.com doesn’t say either is dead.
I remember being psyched for the movie and after seeing it, I was extremely disappointed. I was about ready to throw up from the camera shaking (I saw it in the theatre), and the movie did drag. See some scary stuff, run around, whine, say the word “fuck” 4,000 times, rinse and repeat. Then comes the so-so ending. I wanted my 5 bucks back…
Well… yeah, they did say “fuck” a lot. A movie in which modern college kids in a stressful situation don’t say “fuck” a lot is a movie without versimilitude. Unless they’re attending an Amish college or something, I guess.
The language the kids use these days… It’s this “rap music” they listen to, I’m telling you.
I’m not a horror person. The snakes in Indiana Jones scared me. The only thing I knew about the movie was it was horror, and that was enough for me. My friend loved this movie so I agreed to go to a matinee showing. She even insisted on paying. Not only was this the least scary movie I’d ever seen, ever, but I still feel I overpaid.
I’m with you, I found some of the scenes that were supposed to be scary more frustrating, and along the lines of -what the heck am I looking at?, I can’t quite make it out, is that a coat hanging in the corner? Why are we supposed to be afraid of a coat? Sheesh, this would be a lot scarier if I could see what it is I’m supposed to be scared of-.
Like you, I watched it a few years after it came out (not 9 though, more like 2 IIRC). And I’d seen very little of the hype, and hadn’t really heard anything about the movie when I rented it. I had no idea it was not an actual videography (if that’s the right word). I had to do a bit of web researching to figure out the real deal.