Found Footage Horrors/Franchises: Blair Witch. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

If The Exorcist is one of the iconic horror films of the 70's, then The Blair Witch Project can definitely be considered one for the 90's (the 1980's had so many that I'm not even going to try to generalize that decade). Along with Scream, it was the biggest horror hit in the mainstream and was the most successful independent film ever made for a while. If you were around in 1999, it was hard for you not to hear about this film because everyone was talking about it. The first time I ever had any knowledge of it was when I saw an advertisement for the fake Sci-Fi Channel documentary, Curse of the Blair Witch. I had no idea that it was a gimmick to advertise a film that was purporting itself to be real; like everyone else, I assumed that it was a true story and that what they were showing in theaters was real footage. I can remember kids at my school and friends who had seen it talking about it and, believe you me, if people talk about it where I live, it's very popular. There was a book purportedly about the "real story" that I saw at a video store (a copy of that somehow ended up at my high school's library) and I'm sure that I saw the PC game based on it at Wal-Mart. Of course, it wasn't just us. It had taken the whole country by storm by the end of that summer and was hailed pretty highly by critics, some of whom claimed it to be as frightening as The Exorcist or The Silence of the Lambs. There was even a parody of it on Cartoon Network that fall called The Scooby-Doo Project! Long story short, it was a phenomenon and an enormous hit worldwide... then, the backlash happened. At a certain point, I started hearing rumors that the story wasn't true and people were now saying stuff like, "What a rip-off!", or, "It's so stupid!" Granted, I hadn't seen the movie myself at this point, but I can remember how angry people were, feeling like they had been tricked. As a result, its popularity faded and everyone stopped talking about it. For years, I had written it off and while I hadn't forgotten about it (it's not the sort of thing you can forget), it didn't cross my mind hardly at all. In October of 2007, I was in Wal-Mart, looking for horror movies I'd never seen before (something I do every year), and I saw the DVD in its annual horror rack in the electronics section. I just figured, "What the heck?" and bought it fairly cheaply. I wasn't sure what to expect when I finally watched it but, when I did, I was amazed by it. I thought it was a well made, believable, genuinely creepy little film. At the time, the "found footage" sub-genre was not very popular and, aside from The Blair Witch Project, the only other well known examples were Cannibal Holocaust and The Last Broadcast (the latter of which I've never seen but I've heard is not very good). In fact, it's amazing to think that no other types of movies like this came out immediately after The Blair Witch Project and that it took the success of Cloverfield to make that sub-genre uber-popular. But, that's beside the point. The point is that The Blair Witch Project was a unique concept for its time, deservedly became a huge success because, all of the hype aside, it really is a good movie, and in my opinion, it doesn't deserve all the hatred that it still sometimes gets.

In 1994, three student filmmakers traveled to the small town of Burkittsville, Maryland to film a documentary on a local legend called the Blair Witch. They disappeared and have never been seen or heard from since but, the following year, their camera equipment was found and what we're seeing is the footage leading up to their disappearances. It starts off banal enough with them meeting, traveling to the town, interviewing the townspeople, and so on, before traveling into the nearby woods near the town. That's when things begin to turn sinister. They go deep into the woods in order to shoot material for the documentary, only to become lost and unable find their way back to their car. As their morale disintegrate and they fight among themselves, they must contend with bizarre and increasingly frightening occurrences, including strange sounds in the woods, an assortment of creepy, witch-like stick figures that they find, and the unshakable feeling that they're being stalked. Unable to find their way out of the woods, the confused, exhausted, and utterly frightened students must hunker down each night, prepare for whatever is going to happen, and just pray that they last until morning

I'm just going to say that, more than not, I tend to enjoy these "found footage" types of horror films. Not every single one of them is a home-run, granted, but I think if done well, they can be very effective in generating real suspense and scares with very little means. I know many people hate the shaky camerawork that's common in these films but I think it's authentic: if you were running from something in the woods that's after you or from fast zombies (REC) or an enormous monster destroying the city around you (Cloverfield) and had a camera on you the whole time, the camerawork wouldn't be all that smooth either. One argument against these films is that, in many of these situations, the idea of somebody having a camera with them the entire time is stupid and I do agree that, in some of these movies, they really should just drop the camera. But, in situations where they're not sure whether or not they're going to live and want to document it so people will know what happened, or if they're actively trying to film something strange going on, as in Paranormal Activity, I buy it.

The two men who came up with the idea of the film and directed it were Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, neither of whom, unfortunately, have done anything as incredible or significant (this movie was just so unique and groundbreaking that anything else they came up with just paled in comparison). They came up with the idea in 1993 when they were film students at the University of Central Florida, hitting upon the notion that they found documentaries on supposed real paranormal phenomena to be scarier than typical horror films and decided to do a movie that combined both styles. As early as it was conceived, they didn't get enough funding to begin production until 1997. To make it seem as real as possible, the movie was shot almost completely on the cuff: there wasn't any real script, the actors were adept at improv, with most of the dialogue being made up, and they were given instructions as to where to go and a basic outline of what to do when they got there. The actors themselves shot most of the footage, with Myrick and Sanchez actually scaring them during the night, going off of one of their producer's memories of military training that involved being stalked by faux enemy soldiers. The directors not only pieced together the movie from the twenty plus hours of footage that was shot but they also went as far as to create a fake mythology for the Blair Witch by combining together vague aspects of other bits of folklore and literature, such as the Salem witch trials and The Crucible. It was a unique way of making a movie and, again, the finished product comes off as very realistic. In the years since, the directors have gone in various directions but with not nearly as much success. Neither of them directed again until 2006, with Myrick doing a web series called The Strand, while Sanchez did a movie called Altered. He went on to do 2007's Seventh Moon, 2012's Lovely Molly, a segment of V/H/S/2, and 2014's Exists, another found footage type of film. Myrick, meanwhile, has done some films outside of the horror genre, such as a 2007 thriller called Believers and a sci-fi action flick, The Objective, in 2008. He also did Solstice in 2008 and, in 2017, did a film called Under The Bed. Sadly, the most notable thing they've done since The Blair Witch Project was when they re-teamed to make the third film, simply titled Blair Witch, in 2016 (a movie I have seen and was not all that taken by).

A big part of why the movie feels so realistic (and, as a result, why many people believed the claims that it actually was real) is due to the actors. All three of the main characters look and act like real people, coming off as just typical college students who, initially, are excited or, at the very least, interested in making this documentary. They're having fun and kind of goofing on the idea of the legend of the Blair Witch and some of the kookier townspeople they interview, especially the very weird Mary Brown. When they first head out into the woods, they're still kind of just goofing around when they're not filming, despite some initial skepticism about whether or not Heather knows where they're going and if the map they're using is really useful or not. But, as they become ever more lost and scared by what's happening around them, you can see them just gradually breaking down mentally and losing it, to the point where they start to turn on each other. I think some people complain about the amount of foul language (the movie is only 81 minutes long and yet, according to IMDB, "fuck" is said 154 times throughout it) but I were to bet that, if that was happening to you, you'd probably be swearing like crazy and ready to kill the people you were with too, unless you're a freaking saint. You can also see how run ragged and tired they are by the end of the film, knowing that they're more than likely not going to live through this experience, be it due to them simply dying of starvation and exposure or at the hands of whatever it is that's stalking them.

As the director of the documentary, Heather Donahue is very, very passionate about making the best film that she can. She can definitely be described as overconfident and naive, insisting that they're not lost when they clearly are, as well as that she knows where they're going and what's going on. But, as the situation becomes more and more dire, her confidence melts away and she becomes very hysterical, screaming and hyperventilating constantly, and quickly reaching the point where she's going to suffer a mental breakdown. Despite this, she continues filming everything for the documentary, even when her friends are yelling at her to quit and when it's gotten to the point where said documentary is never going to be finished or seen. Josh at one point suggests that she likes the camera because it's a "filtered reality" and through it, she can sort of pretend that what's happening isn't real, prompting him to turn the tables on her when things look their darkest. Donahue even said that she modeled the character after a real person that she worked with at one time, someone who was really self-assured when everything was totally okay and completely lost it when things fell apart. Without a doubt, she herself is the most recognizable image from the film, other than the stick figures: her apology to the camera near the end of the movie is positively iconic and you can just see the fear in her face and eyes, as well as that she's simply resigned herself to the fact that she's going to die. It's too bad that she received a lot of backlash (she had people coming up to her on the street, saying, "I fucking hate you,"), as did just about everyone involved with the film, and that she doesn't act anymore, as she did a really good job.

While we're talking about Heather, let's touch on that legendary scene and how it's one of the most successful flukes in film history. She did that 100% on her own, with no coaching from the directors, the script outline, or anything else, and completely improvised it. That makes the amount of fear, terror, and sheer hopelessness in her eyes, face, and voice just as impressive as it is affecting, that she was able to summon that and her dialogue up completely out of thin air. Moreover, the extreme close-up on her face was a happy accident, as she had no idea that the camera was zoomed in while she was filming. Proof positive that you can't try to create something iconic and that it just organically happens.

Josh Leonard, the cameraman, is the most laid back of three... or, at least, he starts out that way. While he's a nice enough guy, there's a tiny hint of tension between him and Heather before they even get into the woods, as it seems like he doesn't know how to use the camera that he's brought to shoot the film, not sure if it measures in meters or what and admits when production is underway that he's only used it once before. When they initially get lost, he's the one who tries to be the voice of reason when Heather and Mike start arguing, especially given how erratic Mike begins to act, but as the situation becomes more desperate and frightening, he cracks big time. At one point, when they've ended up back where they started, even though they walked in one direction all day, he snaps, shoves the camera in Heather's face, and mocks and yells at her until she breaks down crying. Some may find this to be extremely douchey of him but, honestly, I'm not sure I wouldn't have done the same at that point, since it really was her fault since they first got lost. When Josh gains his senses back, though, he apologizes to Heather and they settle their differences. He disappears the day after and we never see him again, although we are given clues to his possible fate during the last act.

Mike Williams, the sound guy, is my personal favorite of the three for several reasons. The main one is that he reminds me of myself (he even kind of looks like me, although I'm a lot heavier). I hate to say it but, I know from experience that I'd be acting the same way he was throughout most of the movie. When my senior high school class went on a required hike, the group I was in went the wrong way and it took us almost an hour to get back on the right path. I did have a breakdown because it looked like we were just going deeper and deeper into the woods, much like what happens here. I don't think I acted quite as jerky as Mike does, although I did have my moments and so, I see a lot of myself in that character (moral of the story: do not go hiking with me unless we're both absolutely share where the trail leads.) Even though he goes along with the filming, he doesn't like the idea of hiking and when they get lost, he argues with Heather a lot, accusing her of not being able to admit that she doesn't know where they are. He also can't make heads or tails of the map they're using and eventually admits that he did something really stupid: unbeknownst to the others, he kicked the map into a creek. That was a really, really bad judgement call on his part and, even though Heather was the one who got them lost to begin with, he just further compounded the error. That moment where Heather and Josh attack him when he admits what he did is really believable to me as three people who are out of their minds with fear and exhaustion and one of them just did something that could have doomed them all. Plus, when you look back on it, when Heather and Josh initially can't find the map and argue about, he made himself look like an even bigger douche by innocently asking, "Neither of you have the map?" Again, very dumb of him, but if I had done something that stupid, I think I would have acted innocent too so they wouldn't rip me apart (although, I doubt I would throw away a map in the first place, whether or not I can read it!)

Another thing that's interesting about Mike is that he and Josh sort of switch roles about halfway in. Initially, it seems as if Mike's the one who's going to completely crack and Josh is going to be the sensible one who becomes close with Heather by the end but, like I said, Josh eventually goes half out of his mind and disappears completely, leaving Heather and Mike alone. You wouldn't think that those two would become close because their arguments become heated and even violent at points but Mike, possibly now realizing how stupid he was for throwing that map away, becomes the voice of reason, telling Heather to leave Josh alone when the guy's lost it at one point, talking Josh down when he's shoving the camera in Heather's face, and saying that they need to stick together. You can see that he and Heather are becoming closer, especially when the two of them are alone, and if they had made it out of the woods, maybe something would have developed between them. All in all, Mike may have done something very stupid but he does seem sorry for it afterward and he even sort of becomes the voice of reason.

The townspeople, even though none of them have a very big role, are interesting to me as well. I've heard that some of them were real townspeople and others were actors planted among them, unknown to the actual actors (I'm pretty sure the ones that tell them of the legend of the Blair Witch were the actors). You've got the man (Jim King) who tells them the story of Rustin Parr, a man who killed a bunch of kids in the 40's; a younger man in a yellow cap (Mark Mason) who adds more to the story, adding in the detail of how he would make one child stand in the corner of the basement while he killed another; a woman (Susie Gooch, though she used the pseudonym of "Jackie Hallex") whose little girl doesn't like her telling the creepy stories about the witch, to the point where she tries to cover her mouth while she's talking to Heather: the waitress (Sandra Sanchez, Eduardo's sister) who, when asked about the Blair Witch, says that she knows someone who went to Blair High School; and, my favorites, two guys fishing at a creek (Bob Griffin and Ed Swanson), one who believes in the legend, calling the filmmakers some "damn fool kids" who will never learn, and another who doesn't. I get a bit of a chuckle out of how one thinks the other is full of it, to the point where they talk over each other, arguing about it. The most memorable person they interview, though, is Mary Brown (Patricia DeCou), this weird, reclusive lady who claims to have seen the Blair Witch as a child, describing her as having a body completely covered in black hair. The three of them mock her as they leave but, come on, don't act like you wouldn't either. While Mary Brown is maybe a little out there, I thought the townspeople were another reason why the film looks and feels legit, as they do come across as real people (and, again, most of them weren't actors, so there you go).

One of the many things I like about the movie is how believable the footage is as stuff that was supposedly shot by some amateur filmmakers in the early 90's. We're all so used to found footage horror movies being shot on pristine, clear, digital cameras that's it's refreshing and more authentic to look back at one that was shot with crude, 16mm camcorders, on very rough, cheap film stock where, in the right format, you can see the edges and corners of the frame. It gives the movie quite a gritty feeling and really makes it unsettling during the many times where you see nothing but black when they're filming outside at night as they hear stuff out in the woods (that's why I think it's best to watch it at night, with the lights off, in order to get the full effect). We actually have two different looks for the movie, the other being the black-and-white DAT footage, which they were using to shoot the more dramatic parts of their documentary and also use when it's too dark to see, making for a good reason as to why they don't just stop filming altogether, an issue with most found footage movies. The quality of that footage gives off a more ghostly, otherworldly vibe, particularly in low light, and really helps to make the forest and the cabin they come across at the end look very ominous. The way the characters handle the equipment, sometimes having stuff in the frame but other times being a little off-center or tilted, makes it feel like these are people who aren't very used to what they're working with.

The location and time of year the movie takes place in also really do it for me. It's set around Halloween, as you can tell from the decorations you see in a store's window at the beginning, so it feels perfect that they would be going to a historic, Salem-like town in order to investigate the legend of a witch. You see an old cemetery that has a lot of child graves, a small, secluded trailer park where Mary Brown lives, her trailer being complete with a weird-looking gate out front, and the interior of one of those little motels you always find in these kinds of towns, making me think of all the trips like that I've been on. Then, of course, there's the woods they hike into and become lost in. They look banal at first but, as it becomes apparent that they're lost and something is stalking them, they take on a much more sinister vibe, especially in the final hours before nightfall and at night, when it's pitch black out there. There are certain spots in the woods that have an eerie or memorable vibe to them all their own, like the little cemetery with all of the rock cairns, the spot with bare, spaced out trees that have the stick figures hanging all around, the field that they take refuge in after being chased out of their tent, and the log that they use to cross over a stream, only to wind back up at after a whole day of walking in just one direction. And finally, there's the old, abandoned cabin where the movie's ending takes place. That sight is creepy in and of itself but then, they go inside and you see how hollowed-out and rundown it is, with sections of wall missing, an old fireplace, and little to no furniture. There are also what look like bloody, child handprints on the wall in the upstairs area, satanic and witchcraft-like symbols here and there, and a dark, eerie basement, where something was apparently waiting for them.

A complaint I often hear from people who say the film isn't scary is that you don't see anything... and they're right about the latter. You don't see anything, and that's the reason why it is so scary. Myrick and Sanchez, besides not having the budget for it, knew that the movie would become laughable the minute a weird monster or witch or whatever appeared on-camera, so they kept the threat either hidden in the shadows or just outside of the camera's frame. The movie's sense of authenticity also hinged on this, because the minute a ghoul popped up, you'd know you're watching something fictional, killing the effect. Sometimes, it's better to show little or nothing at all, and the sounds you hear in the woods in the film do the job well. Now, obviously, if you don't find sounds in the woods scary, I can't convince you otherwise. But, as a guy who's lived his entire life in a house in the woods, I can tell you that, when you're by yourself at night and you hear something in the woods, it's creepy. (Plus, I've been on camping trips, so I realize how eerie the woods can be at night, even without weird sounds.) If you live in the city, you might not agree with me, but that's beside the point. For instance, those cracking noises they hear the first couple of nights are really creepy because you have no idea what they are. Is someone stepping on briars out there? Is someone smashing sticks? What is it? Even creepier than that is what happens during the third night, when they hear little kids and a really weird voice right outside their tent. That is a really freaky scene, leading up to something shaking their tent and them panicking and running out into the woods. I also get freaked out at the part where, as they're running, Heather suddenly starts screaming, "Oh, my God! What the fuck is that?! What the fuck is that?!" You don't see what she's talking and the camera movement is so frantic that you can't make out where she's even looking, but the sound of terror and absolute hysteria in her voice makes me panic when it gets to that part. (You were supposed to see a glimpse of a figure in white during that moment but they didn't get a usable shot of it, so they left it ambiguous.) But the scariest one to me is when Josh disappears and, that night, they can hear him screaming out in the darkness. You're not sure what's happening but he sounds like he's in extreme pain, perhaps even being tortured. We get a little bit of a hint as to what happened the next morning when Heather finds a bundle of sticks containing a piece of Josh's shirt that's soaked with blood and contains teeth (real teeth they got from Eduardo Sanchez's dentist, by the way), hair, and what looks like a tongue. While everything up to that moment was scary, it didn't feel exactly dangerous but that moment, which was doubly shocking because it's the only moment in the movie where you see anything bloody, proved that whatever is stalking them means business. You don't know what it is but you now know it has the capability to harm and even possibly kill them.

The mystery of what's happening is another part of the movie's creep factor, and there are numerous possible explanations you could come up with. The most obvious explanation is that it is the Blair Witch, who some of the townspeople believe is still haunting the woods. The creepy stick figures that they find certainly do look like something used in witchcraft, as do the little cairns made up of rocks they come across as well. In fact, the latter could be directly tied to what's happening, as the night where they're filming footage at the little cemetery and one of them knocks over a cairn is also the first night where they hear the strange noises in the woods. Maybe those cairns were grave-markers and the spirits of the deceased were disturbed when one of them was knocked over. Moreover, Josh was the one who knocked it over, which could explain why he was specifically targeted before Heather and Mike were. When they return to their camp after being chased out of their tent that one night, Josh's stuff is thrown about and there's a jelly-like substance on his equipment. That could have been him being marked for death, leading into his disappearance the next morning and very likely death. There's also evidence that they all were marked for death since they find three cairns around their tent one morning... namely, two mornings after they knocked over the cairn at the cemetery and heard rustling noises both nights before. Granted, Josh says he heard something that sounded like cackling the night before they knocked over the cairn but he might have just been hearing things... or, then again, maybe it was the witch or whatever it is manifesting itself for the first time.

There most definitely seems to be some kind of connection to the story of Rustin Parr murdering the children in the woods. The kids they heard that one night could have been the spirits of those that he murdered and the house they find at the end has to have been the Parr's, because the man who told them the story said he had a cabin in the woods. If so, it adds up to why the last image of the movie is Mike standing in the corner just before Heather drops her camera and the film ends: maybe the ghost of the Parr lured Heather and Mike to the cabin in order to go back to his old ways. When Mike drops his camera, that was likely Parr's spirit attacking him and forcing him to stand in the corner while he waited for Heather to come down so he could kill her. To go even further, when they hear Josh yelling for them, they question whether it's really him or something imitating his voice: maybe Parr's ghost was either imitating Josh or forcing him to call for them and lure them to the house. Maybe it's not just one thing; maybe it's all the various aspects of the area's past, from the Blair Witch and Parr, to the spirits at the makeshift cemetery and so on, coming together for revenge on those who dare exploit them for a documentary. Or, as Mike suggests, it could be just a bunch of angry rednecks who don't like the sordid history of their town being documented and decide to get rid of them by any means necessary, even if that means killing them. See, isn't this more fun than outright knowing what happened? It lets you use your imagination and makes for a much more engaging movie in that aspect (which is one of the reasons why I didn't care for 2016's Blair Witch, but that's for another day).

Now, I want to address the reason why many people eventually turned on the movie and still hate it to this day, aside from its being hyped like crazy: that it turned out to not be real and they felt tricked. First off, it was Artisan Entertainment, not Myrick and Sanchez, who really pushed that notion, so the filmmakers themselves shouldn't be blamed. Second, the movie claims that this footage was shot in 1994 and, on top of that, there were trailers and TV spots that had "news footage" and "interviews" discussing the search for the three teenagers at the time but, if that were true, why had you never heard about this story up until the release of the fake documentary and the movie? Finally, and this is the most important point, you were expecting to see a film that purported to be footage of the last few days of three people's lives and you're disappointed that it wasn't that? This does not make you look sane, people. Furthermore, why would a film distribution company put footage like that in theaters anyway? The families of the deceased would sue them for all their worth!

This was really the first movie whose success was due in large part to internet buzz. The internet was still a fairly new concept at the time and not everyone had it, but the filmmakers knew how to take full advantage of this new technology. Before they submitted the movie to Sundance, they created the Blair Witch website, which instantly became very popular and had people believing that it was real. Moreover, at the time, IMDB listed the actors as, "Missing, presumed dead." Then, when the movie did very well at Sundance and Artisan Entertainment bought the distribution rights, they decided to run with the idea that people were thinking it was real. Their marketing only added to the website's growing traffic, as people were desperate to know more about this thing, as well as the constantly building word of mouth.

Whether you liked it or not, you have to admit that the marketing for the movie was absolutely brilliant. In deciding to purport it to be real, they went all in with that idea, with those trailers and TV spots featuring the fake news coverage of the search for the characters (which was something that Myrick and Sanchez created to get investors interested in the film) and The Curse of the Blair Witch, a fake documentary that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, featuring interviews with the characters' purported relatives and people claiming to be historians on the history of Burkittsville, which was how I first learned of it at the time. It was actually culled together from unused documentary footage that Myrick and Sanchez had shot for the actual movie, as they originally planned for it to be made up of some found footage and the rest of it to be the various interviews, historical accounts, and reenactments cut together. But, during the editing process, they realized that the found footage itself was good enough, so they made this instead. Normally, whenever we're discussing movies, my only concern is what's on the screen; anything else, be they deleted scenes, expanded universe material like novelizations, comic books, connected short films, and the like, doesn't really count to me. The Blair Witch Project, however, is another matter, in that the expansion and expounding of the mythology of the Blair Witch herself, the crimes of Rustin Parr, the history of the town of Blair and then Burkittsville, and the details you can find about the background and personalities of the "student filmmakers" in The Curse of the Blair Witch and books like The Blair Witch Project: A Dossier, actually add to the experience of watching the film and enrich it, without potentially ruining the great mystery of it. The fact that it's optional and not something you absolutely have to take into account makes it even better.

Getting back to the movie itself, the wise lack of music is also something that helps its authenticity. I always find it distracting when a purported found footage horror film has music on the soundtrack like The Last Exorcism or Diary of the Dead (the latter had explanation for the music but it was still bad) and think it's not only realistic but also more effective to keep it silent. Oddly, there was a soundtrack CD released. None of the songs are heard in the film itself but they were supposed to be from a mix-tape made by Josh that was found in the students' abandoned car. Something, however, does play over the ending credits although I wouldn't call it music. It's just a bunch of distant, industrial-sounding, banging and creaking noises, with a sort of faint, constant pulsing sound behind them, that are meant for atmosphere (created by Antonio Cora, it's called The Cellar and is on the aforementioned soundtrack album). Don't know what else to say about it but it does leave you with an eerie feeling after you've apparently just watch these kids lose their lives to some unseen force.

To me, The Blair Witch Project is an undisputed horror classic from the new millennium. It's very believable, well acted, has a great vibe, creepy as hell, and a great example of the "less is more" approach. It was the first mainstream example of the "found footage" sub-genre and was one of the first, if not the first, films to successfully use the internet to create a buzz for itself. Yes, it may have "lied" about its authenticity, but that shouldn't make people turn on it the way they did, especially since, when everyone thought it was real and that the characters actually were dead, they were mostly praising it. Granted, it did quickly become hard to take the film seriously because it was spoofed and parodied to death, as it was very easy to do so, and the unfortunate legacy of its sequels, especially the immediate Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, didn't help matters either, but at this point, I think that's all just part of its historical context and should be seen as just water under the bridge. If you put the hype, the parodies, the controversy and backlash, and everything else aside and just watch the movie for what it is, I think you will see that it's simply well made, clever, and brilliant in more ways than one.