Stay out of the woods

Associated Press Arizona Summer Wildcat Heather Donahue turns the camera on herself in this file photo, during her confession scene from the horror film "The Blair Witch Project." The nightmarish, pseudodocumentary thriller, shot on a shoestring budget of $25,000 raised on credit cards, is one of the year's most-talked-about films. Some film critics say it's one of the scariest movies ever made.

In 1994, three student filmmakers hiked into the woods of Maryland to shoot a documentary on a local legend, the Blair Witch, and never returned. Their footage was found a year later and explained their disappearances.

In 1998, two filmmakers and three actors hiked into the woods of Maryland to shoot a movie with a budget of under $100,000. Their film was released a year later and it made millions of dollars.

Both stories may seem to be urban legends, tales conjured up late at night by kids drinking beer and watching scary movies. One is true; the Blair Witch Project is a top ten movie- No. 2 - and it was produced for less than $100,000. Even stranger is it actually turned out to be a good movie.

Blair Witch is supposed to be a documentary of sorts, comprised of edited footage recovered a year after the disappearance of a trio of students. The concept itself is highly original and the methods the directors use to put it on film are brilliant.

But perhaps what is most amazing about this unusual movie is the number of people who leave the theater believing that it is real.

Part of the reason for so much speculation is that directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick took their actors into the woods of Maryland and gave them only a general idea of what to expect during the shoot. They did not have a concrete script, they did not have a trailer to stay in while off camera. Actors Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard camped in the woods for a week, with only a vague notion of what would happen next.

The three actors were genuinely terrified of their situation - and their performances prove it. Instead of Neve or Jennifer Love standing in the middle of the street daring their stalkers to attack them · la Kevin Williamson, these campers sincerely scream for the terror to stop.

For realism, Sanchez and Myrick also shot the whole film from the students' perspectives. The two cameras are in the actors' hands the entire time. It was constructed as a personal diary of the last days they were alive.

Although it was doubtful that near the end they honestly would have cared about grabbing both the cameras whenever anything scary happened, the method was very successful in creating a suspenseful, creepy movie. The only complaint - one also openly voiced by other moviegoers - an hour and a half of constantly shaking camera movement can make one nauseous.

If you enter the theater with expectations befitting a low budget, highly original film, you will not be disappointed. Just don't go in waiting to be blown out of your seats by special effects and scary monsters. On a $100,000 budget, that truly would have been supernatural.