#27: THE BLAIR WITCH

Disregarding the mountains of hype surrounding this film, what you have is a scary movie that works at the most stripped down and raw form imaginable.  By playing on the fears of what you can't see, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT with it's amateur actors and bare bones budget succeding in scaring tons of movie goers in a way that other scary films released that year like THE HAUNTING that spent millions upon millions couldn't achieve.

Hats of the the BLAIR WITCH crew for making a pile of rocks, or sticks hanging from a tree seem scary.

And that scene where some unseen force is shaking their tent like crazy in the middle of the night, is pretty horrifying as well.

The ripoffs and parodies this film has spawned is unbelievable.  It's just too bad they had to spoil the magic of the first by making that awful BLAIR WITCH 2: BOOK OF SHADOWS.

But for creating a new urban legend that has been embraced by America so quickly with little or no real history behind it, you have to give the makers of BLAIR WITCH tons of credit.

Bizarro Shopping Zone

I highly recommend this great paperback collection of Bizarro stories from Amazon, at $3 off the cover price for $11.95 .  I bought it a year ago and have read it several times already, it's great laugh out loud comedy that hasn't been in comic books for decades.  And the Jaime "Love and Rockets" Hernandez cover is an added treat!