This is a different approach to the usual horror movie. Horror movies are always about bad, and supernatural things happening to normal people. But not often are they presented like this. This movie is in the style of a home made documentary as opposed to a thrill ride Hollywood movie that is 'Coming this October'. "The Blair Witch Project" does very nicely fit into the definition of horror, in fact because of it's style it probably fits in better than most.
Three people in haunted woods. That is really the whole premise of the story. They hope to disprove the myth of the Blair Witch but after getting lost find that they might have really encountered the myth it's self.
All things considered this was not a really scary movie. movies like the "Saw" series have million dollar budgets. "The Blair Witch Project" was made for a small 22,000 dollars. That is enough. And in the end, it is that cheapness that scars you and makes you look around you for something, you not what. And that is what happens in the movie. Things happen around the characters and there is noway to know what it is. They are simply blundering through the woods.
This scares us because we think "That is a person just like me.". There is also the unknown playing here. In most horror films we see the monster what ever it is. In this movie things just happen and they all end up going crazy before they die. Really for all we know they could have been behind the whole thing the whole time. There are long periods of black in the film.
This brings me to another topic of the movie; the style. I have described it in brief as a documentary style movie, it looks like it could have been shot by anyone. That is not to say that it was shot by random people, no there was a group of filmmakers out there filmmaking with their 22,000 bucks. And although the end result is amazing, as a movie its unconventionality can be somewhat annoying. Yes the jerky moves and the long stretches of black or blurry space adds to the feel of the movie but it gets old after a while.
The acting, although not Oscar winning is superb. It adds to the movie more than its style does, the actors bring the feeling to the screen that they are just people like anyone else. The dialogue, although wrought with swears throughout, is real and the delivery; even realer. It might also be the actors looks; they look normal they are not all shined up with hollywood glamor. The acting really does seem like it is not acted. Real.
By then end of the movie you find your heart pounding and your butt at the edge of your seat. Then you go and look out the window and see people, just regular people on their way and you know that you are one of them and they do not know you just like you do not know them and you realize you did not really know the people in the movie, but it feels like you have seen into part of their life, and it is scary. You think that it could happen to a normal person just like you, but you are safe in your home.