Cinema: Blair Witch Craft

In October of 1997, three young actors went into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, to play in a horror movie. Twenty-two months later, their film was a smash...and the talk not just of Hollywood but of America. You could hardly walk down a bustling street last week or log on to a website without tripping over that ominous incantation "Blair Witch." The impact, sudden and seismic, of The Blair Witch Project is utterly unprecedented. Never has a--let's be honest--weird movie budgeted at a ludicrously low $35,000 stormed both the box office and the national pop consciousness. In its first week of...