By MICHAEL BOYLAN
Weekend Editor

In 1994, three student filmmakers entered the woods in Burkittsville, Md. to make a film about the legend of the Blair Witch. A year later, their footage was found.

If you are watching the film, “The Blair Witch Project,” you are watching their footage. At least, that's the premise.

The film began generating buzz when it took the Audience Prize at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival and then the Youth Award at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

This fictional documentary opened last Friday in limited release. The only theater in Georgia that ran the film was the Tara Theater in Atlanta. It sold out nearly every show since Friday at 2:30 p.m.

“The Blair Witch Project” is very deserving of the buzz and it may be the scariest movie to hit screens in over a decade.

The story is presented as reality and the actors portray themselves. To give the film even more credibility (and attention), a documentary about the Blair Witch, “Curse of the Blair Witch,” was created, showing clips from the movie and segments with the people of Burkittsville. It premiered Sunday evening on the Sci Fi Channel and will most likely air several more times this month.

Both the television program and the film are presented so seriously that real chills develop. The film is shot on 16mm film and Hi-8 video from the two cameras our ill-fated crew uses for their documentary. Heather Donohue, the director of the documentary, Joshua Leonard, the camera man, and Michael Williams, the sound man, find their key destinations very early on. They are excited as they film segments at Tappy Creek and Coffin Rock.

The terror begins when they realize they are lost deep in the forest.

Unlike recent horror films, “The Blair Witch Project” gets its scares from what it doesn't show the audience.

All of the night scenes are incredibly dark. The cameras jerk violently, as you can see only glimpses of the crew running. There is no gore and there are no shots of the witch.

As for things that go bump in the night, “Blair Witch” has a million of them. The sound is incredible and, in some scenes, all there is. You are hearing what they heard and your mind plays all the same tricks along with them. The directors of the film cast it with seasoned improv actors and nobody easily recognizable from any other projects.

The actors reportedly spent several days in the woods themselves, generating a basic form of a script to fit the several plot points the directors had left for them. The dialogue is completely realistic, and at some times profane.

If you're like me and have been searching for a good scare, be sure to check out both the movie, “The Blair Witch Project” and the television program, “Curse of the Blair Witch.” I consider the two scariest movies of all time to be “The Exorcist” and “The Shining.” I would easily put “The Blair Witch Project” among those films as genuinely scary. It is rare to find a horror film that is so innovative and against common convention.

Let's just say I won't be running around the woods at night any time soon.

“The Blair Witch Project” opens in wide release July 30. The show “Curse of the Blair Witch” will run sporadically through July on The Sci-Fi Channel.

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