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The Blair Witch Project (1999)

tomatometer

85

Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 133
Fresh: 113 | Rotten: 20

Full of creepy campfire scares, mock-doc The Blair Witch Project keeps audiences in the dark about its titular villain -- thus proving that imagination can be as scary as anything onscreen.

90

Average Rating: 7.3/10
Critic Reviews: 29
Fresh: 26 | Rotten: 3

Full of creepy campfire scares, mock-doc The Blair Witch Project keeps audiences in the dark about its titular villain -- thus proving that imagination can be as scary as anything onscreen.

audience

47

liked it
Average Rating: 2.5/5
User Ratings: 367,860

My Rating

Movie Info

Combining Hi-8 video with black-and-white 16 mm film, this film presents a raw look at what can happen when college students forego common sense and enter the world of voodoo and witchcraft. Presented as a straightforward documentary, the film opens with a title card explaining that in 1994, three students went into the Maryland back woods to do a film project on the Blair Witch incidents. These kids were never seen again, and the film you are about to see is from their recovered equipment,

R, 1 hr. 27 min.

Horror

,

Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez

Oct 26, 1999

Artisan Pictures

All Critics (133) | Top Critics (29) | Fresh (115) | Rotten (21) | DVD (25)

[A] creepy tale of witchcraft, murders and ghost sightings.

October 18, 2008 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Heather's shaky video work can induce motion sickness -- it looks like combat footage as she bolts through the woods -- but just try turning away.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Newsweek | Comment
Newsweek
Top Critic IconTop Critic

I could tell you the story -- give away every detail -- and The Blair Witch Project would still freeze your blood.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Slate | Comment (1)
Slate
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The viewer never glimpses anything more than the shadow of a clever movie.

September 24, 2007 Comments (2)
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

What gives the film much of its force and its mounting sense of queasy uncertainty is its narrative method, which ensures that we know no more about the proceedings than the characters do.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Chicago Reader | Comment
Chicago Reader
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Where is the suspense? Where is the involvement? Where is the identification?

April 27, 2007 Full Review Source: New York Observer | Comments (29)
New York Observer
Top Critic IconTop Critic

It's a small film whose power is derived from its stripped-down scale.

October 17, 2011 Full Review Source: L.A. Weekly | Comment
L.A. Weekly

Sanchez and Myrick's film knows that what's not seen frightens more easily that what is, and that the imagination's thoughts of what might have happened generally horrify on a deeper level than knowing what did.

October 17, 2011 Full Review Source: AV Club | Comment
AV Club

This one could be too scary even for your teen.

December 28, 2010 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

A brilliant marketing campaign, to be sure, but this Z-grade con of a film offers no payoff for audiences looking to be scared.

October 26, 2010 Full Review Source: IGN DVD | Comment (1)
IGN DVD

...still engaging and effective.

October 2, 2010 Full Review Source: DVDTalk.com | Comment
DVDTalk.com

Certain people might hate it, certain people might love it. I love it for it's ingenuity, cutting edge style and very tense situations. It's a gem.

April 29, 2009 Full Review Source: Cinema Crazed | Comment
Cinema Crazed

"Blair Witch" should go down in history as proof that it doesn't take a big budget to make a great movie, in fact it may not even take a budget at all.

August 4, 2008 Full Review Source: ESplatter | Comments (5)
ESplatter

This is a highly original and well-made film which is one of the best of the year, and a welcome change from the recent slasher genre which most horror films seem to be classified as these days.

January 15, 2008 Full Review Source: Dark Horizons | Comment
Dark Horizons

It is a horror film that shows nothing -- no blood, no violence -- explains nothing, and seems to mean nothing, but scares you and keeps scaring you long after it is over.

September 24, 2007 Full Review Source: Film4 | Comments (5)

The lofty talk in the press of its being a new horror masterpiece is nonsense.

July 23, 2007 Full Review Source: eFilmCritic.com | Comments (3)
eFilmCritic.com

The three actors manage not only to capture some beautiful footage but also to spout believable and consistent dialog without digressing into the standard Scream pop culture references.

July 14, 2007 Full Review Source: Big Picture Big Sound | Comment
Big Picture Big Sound

The actors never put a foot wrong; the video diary form allows no artifice, so that as terror mounts, the dread is infectious.

June 24, 2006 Full Review Source: Time Out | Comment

It's an original and admirable effort.

May 26, 2006 Full Review Source: Combustible Celluloid | Comment
Combustible Celluloid
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Blair Witch Project

Reputation precedes this work justifiably as the effect achieved is immersion into the DNA of terror namely: your own imagination. One might ask, "What's the worst that can happen?", but in truth you already know. You already know.

October 2, 2011
moonrivers

Super Reviewer

An innovation in film making and the first in the realism by the handheld camera genre, Blair Witch sparked films such as Cloverfield, Paranormal Activity, and Quarantine. Besides that, it is a really well made film. Drawing on old Hollywood's technique of building suspense without showing the ghost in the closet or

July 29, 2010
FrizzDrop

Super Reviewer

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Foreign Titles

  • Le Projet Blair Witch (FR)
  • El proyecto de la Bruja de Blair (ES)
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