What's out there? Well, The Blair Witch Project, for one, and it's garnering more current publicity than if the real thing were to land in Times Square at high noon.
The film, made on an almost zero budget by Hollywood standards, an estimated $35,000, was created and directed by a group of young, green film makers led by Eduardo Sanchez, Dan Myrick and Gregg Hale.
It is about another three student film makers, two guys led by a girl, your first hint of trouble ahead, who set out in 1994 to the Maryland Black Hills woods in search of a legendary witch. Supposedly this powerful hag has held sway in her territory for something like two hundred years performing all sorts of nasty, cruel witchlike deeds.
The trios spend eight days with their handheld camera equipment and recorders on, even as strange things happen that would send most ordinary folks running for cover. They become increasingly lost, confused and quarrelsome and become history, themselves.
Despite thousands of hours searching the Black Hills, none of the film makers, nor any of their photographic gear is ever found, and the search is abandoned. Then, one year later, a bag full of their film cans, videos and tapes turn up.
. The Blair Witch Project, then, is the found footage of their frightening ordeal before their total disappearance. When we are told at the outset that the footage we are about to see was created a year ago, the first set of chills sets in. There is nothing supernatural in this, but the woods, tents, isolation and their increasing fear are filmed in a series of starts and stops much more terrifying than any set of computer created graphics.
The movie, which reputedly had grossed $1,000,000 as of last month, is rated R and labeled "too intense and frightening for children." It will start Thursday at Cinema One.