The Blair Witch Project

I am.

Game designer Cliff Bleszinski wrote, "There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those who 'get' and love 'The Blair Witch Project....' And those who are Dumb."

This movie is going to create a camp of smarter-than-thou geeks who write off anyone who dislikes the movie as simply not "getting" it, and there's going to be a contingent of those who write off the smarter-than-thou geeks as hopelessly trying to be avant-garde by clinging to a second-rate movie surrounded by endless media attention. It's going to make people of average or below average intelligence feel like geniuses.

I didn't go into the theater with a chip on my shoulder, nor did I go in wanting to see the "best indie film ever ... really." I went in wanting to be entertained.

I didn't want to taint the moviegoing experience. I didn't read the story's background on TBWP Web site. I didn't watch the Sci-Fi Channel's special. I only read snippets of reviews, and I wrote off the "Scariest Movie Ever" label as pure movie critic hyperbole. I expected to be terrified in a Hitchcockian way -- a type of dread and terror that stems not from the action on screen but from the depths of the viewer's own warped imagination, and there aren't many imaginations as warped as mine.

I wanted to like this film. I anticipated the best scare since getting my first tuition bill. It didn't deliver. I wasn't disappointed as a person who followed this movie since the idea was initially conceived. I was disappointed as a person who likes this type of movie.

I don't need computer-generated sharks to be entertained, but this movie had nothing. Not a goddamn thing. I'd expect an "A" on this movie if it were a student project, but I wouldn't expect anyone to pay 8 dollars to see it. It's a Tisch School jerk-off film.

If you were not rooting for the three main characters' brutal demise by the fifth reference to one of the trio being a "fucking asshole," you have my sympathies.

The popularity of this film is proof that movie critics routinely get their dicks licked, sucked and caressed by directors and producers, and that Americans will buy into any product that generates enough hype.

"Movie scary. Movie good. Movie scary. Movie good." Did the makers of the movie "They Live" spearhead the marketing campaign?

The American public is so desperate for a movie that feels fresh, we'll latch on to the first inferior product to come our way.

TBWP will be the horror genre's "Star Wars." Everyone knows it's bad, but no one wants to admit it for fear of being looked at as a cultural illiterate. It's new. It's of the time. It's original. How can anyone not like it?

In 20 years, they'll rerelease the film, it'll still be insufferable, and it'll bilk a new generation of kids who were told it was "the scariest movie released at the tail end of July 1999." (Perhaps this was the terror Nostradomus predicted?)

It's the Ayn Rand Syndrome all over again. Claiming to be a devotee of Ayn Rand is hip, but reading her books is the ocular equivalent of ripping out one's fingernails. Few people read Rand's books cover to cover as it's tedious, and it's easier to say one devoured their contents than to actually do so. Watching TBWP is more tiresome than "Atlas Shrugged," but it's just as easy to claim one enjoyed the film than to actually do so.

What it boils down to is: You're an idiot with no imagination if you don't like it, so shut up and pretend that you do.

"'The Blair Witch Project' was intended to stimulate your imagination..." wrote a poster on a Yahoo! Message board.

It takes me about two hours to fall asleep once my head hits the pillow because my mind is racing. A mere tap on the window can turn into a 30-minute creative thinking session. I don't need my imagination stimulated; it's constantly on the go.

But when the characters heard a noise, I didn't envision the mysterious Blair Witch. I didn't get scared. I didn't ponder any possible symbolism. I sighed, prayed a bear on loan from "The Edge" was outside the tent, and considered various ways I could skewer this movie on my site. (Not to mention quiet the screaming infants who surrounded me.)

Yes, I really did see the movie.

Watching the jerky camera motions turned my stomach, and there was no need for it. I get it. It's a student movie. They're not professionals. It's a straightforward documentary made by witty, arrogant college pukes who get knocked down a notch due to psychological terror. Point made. Stop with the vomit-inducing shots.

When I videotape various outings and activities, one couldn't be faulted for thinking I'm an epileptic, but my videos are never that nauseatingly jumpy. Don't they teach film students how to hold a fucking camera in Hold Your 8MM Steady 101?

The LA Times film critic said: "...the film's twists and turns are impossible to predict and do generate low-key suspense..." which is quite accurate if the moviegoer recently suffered a momentous head injury or resides in the ghetto.

One black kid left the theater muttering, "That was deep, man." Of course it's deep if the average fare Hollywood directs at the black community involves sitting on a front porch mocking crackheads. When the height of American cinema involves LL Cool J commenting on "brothas" never making it out of action/scary movies alive while a fake-looking shark hunts him down, TBWP can cause pants pissing for the average movie watcher.

It'd be clichι to say one could fit a truck through the holes in the plot, but my mind is so numb after watching that movie, I'll go with it. Unless someone watches the Sci-Fi Channel's TBWP special or reads the TBWP Web site, it makes little sense. The plot - for the sake of argument, we'll call it a "plot" – lacks continuity.

The makers of this film want the viewers to create their own film. They were too lazy to invent a plot -- the film has large, gaping holes that rival those of any repeat mothers, and the movie was so wretched, I use the gaping hole clichι twice -- and they forced us to do their jobs for them. Instead of being insulted, people are lapping it up. We should be paid 8 dollars for making our own TBWP.

To be scary, a movie must place the viewer in the characters' positions and make the viewer care about the action. I could see myself lost in the woods, frightened at the slightest sound, screaming at the sight of newly-arranged rocks, but I didn't give a shit that Heather, Mike and Josh were inching closer to their deaths. I didn't connect with them. As a supposedly "frightening" moment occurred, I was not engrossed enough to be frightened by it.

When Heather, the girl responsible for dragging the trio into the woods, points the 8MM camera at her tear-stained face, she states that she knows she's going to "die out here." The audience feels her sense of resignation and terror. I whispered: "Please. Please die out there. And do it soon."

"The last quarter of the movie (where Josh goes missing) is terrifically terrifying..." reads another posting on a Yahoo! message board.

Crafts made by a WASPy, forest-dwelling witch, rock piles stolen from a Japanese garden and a little goop on a rucksack don't add up to a terrifying film. A good idea that wasn't developed, maybe.

And if you think TBWM is terrifying, what the fuck is wrong with you? Do you sleep with a goddamn nightlight illuminating your room and a teddy bear tucked under your arm?

Then again, you should probably ignore my review. I'm not big on movies. I'm not the person who can name every important director, and I've never used the pause button to analyze frames; my finger is forever reaching to press fast forward.

But I do occasionally like horror films and psychological thrillers. "A Clockwork Orange" disturbed me, and it took several years for me to work up enough courage to pull my eyes far enough apart to insert contact lenses. "Jaws" kept me out of the ocean. "A Nightmare on Elm Street" gave me a week's worth of insomnia. "Psycho" forced me to look outside of the shower curtain every minute. "The Omen" caused me to fear all children riding tricycles. BWP made me grateful that I only spent $3.75 at a Sunday matinee.

Providing jack-off material for white misogynists since 1997.

The Misanthropic Bitch does not encourage feedback. You are not as clever, witty or hate-filled as you think you are. All submissions, though, become property of The Misanthropic Bitch. Submissions may be published or reused in any other medium. Think before you hit send.