Every so often a film comes along so original, so pure, so brilliantly simple that it demands attention. A film that reinvigorates your faith in cinema while forcing you to curse yourself for not thinking of the idea first. The Blair Witch Project is one such film.

A horror movie disguised as a documentary, it succeeds by making you think it's real. The opening title card explains the premise: In October 1994, three student filmmakers go into the Maryland woods to shoot a documentary about a legendary killer witch. A year later, their footage is found. What follows is supposedly that footage -- shot on 16 MM black and white film and Hi8 video. The director, Heather (Heather Donahue), compulsively records each step, and misstep of their journey.

The actors use their own names, and the dialogue is mostly improvised. In making the film, a preplanned scenario was followed and the directors sent the cast notes rather than work with them directly. The footage looks real and sounds real, so you easily forget it isn't real. And that's how Blair Witch scares the bejesus out of you. Horror films aren't very scary when you know the blood is really corn syrup and it's hard to be really terrified when you can tell yourself, "it's only a movie". Blair Witch offers us no such assurances.

As the trio descends deeper into the woods bad things start to happen. They get lost. They stumble upon eerie-looking piles of rocks. And at night -- someone, or something is stalking them. As the crew hurries out into the night to investigate strange noises, the lights from their cameras only illuminate small patches of forest. Much of the screen is dark as they wave their lights around and we become afraid of what those lights may catch in their beams. This is a minimalist horror film -- the terror lies in what we don't see.

The Blair Witch Project could easily have been a disaster, but it's anything but. A big part of the reason lies in the excellent, intense performances. Donahue's chilling confession into the camera toward the end of the film, shot in extreme close-up, is tough to watch, but you can't turn away. The actors also deserve credit for really sounding like film students. They talk the talk -- babbling on in technical jargon that won't be understood by anyone who's never picked-up a DAT or a CP-16 -- and that's just as it should be.

The performances and the shooting style result in a film that is as utterly "real" as a work of fiction can be. Leaving the theater, I overheard people arguing over what they'd just seen was indeed real or not. That alone is a sign the filmmakers have created a remarkable work.

(c) Copyright 1999