August 2, 1999

There's a moment that never arrives in The Blair Witch Project, but that youwait for throughout the entire film. That moment is release, the jump scare that breaksthe tension which most horror/thriller films can easily engineer. You knowthe moment: the killer is prowling around the house, and you know he's thereand the victim knows he's there, and just as you imagine the killer's bladewill tear through the victim's blouse and give you a cheap tit shot before hebludgeons the buxom young thing to death, a cat or a doorway jumps into theshot and scares the shit out of you. You are startled beyond belief, slippinginto heart attack territory.

There is no release of any kind in Blair Witch. There is relief from thetension, in brief moments of character humor that come very naturally fromthe intense situations. But there is no release. You do not jump; you are not"scared" in the traditional sense of fil! m horror. This is no Scream orHalloween: H20, where the latest hot TV stars are rounded up to duke it outwith a blade-wielding psycho. This is real terror, pulled taut like a rubberband, and never snapped.

Still, for all its unending tension and terror, I was not really scared byBlair Witch. Perhaps it was because the last five minutes of the film, toutedby many as the most unnerving moments of film in decades, were more confusingfor me than creepy. They continue the verite approach of the rest of thefilm, but the filmmakers never give the audience enough to hang onto. There'snot enough really scary stuff to sink your mind into; it's all imaginationand speculation. While it is scary to hear someone far away screaming likethey're being killed, it's ten times more scary if you toss in a quick,hard-to-see shot of that person being killed.

I know that makes me no better than those idiots who might slight the filmbecause it doesn'! t have a release and there are no jump moments like thosefrom convent ional horror films. It probably makes me shallow. But damnit, I'mconvinced: Blair Witch would have been better if it had been moreconventional, not less.