The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch Project is more conceptual art and marketing phenomenon than movie. Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick drew from canny film- makers like Val Lewton and Alfred Hitchcock -- people are much more scared by what they don't see than by what they do see. The film-makers made a virtue of having no budget for special effects, and left everything to the audience's grisly imagination. Like some sort of cinematic Rorschach test, as we watch this movie, we are each scared by whatever lurks in our subconscious.

Teenagers have always loved scary movies. On one level, they provide peer bonding -- you have to be friends with someone you grabbed in a moment of terror and it is fun have that shared experience. On another level, there is something cathartic for teenagers about seeing this graphic representation of an uncontrollable id on the loose. It is important for parents to remember that tolerance for scariness is highly individual, and, especially for teens and younger kids, highly suggestible. In concrete terms, there is nothing really scary in this movie, but kids who see it need to be capable of getting that it is entirely manufactured and fictional.