Camping is one of the wholesome activities that any American enjoys. From Boy Scouts to Hell's Angels, almost everyone loves the fresh smell of the pines, the crackle of the campfire, and the nocturnal serenade of the hoot owl. But it's doubtful anyone who watches The Blair Witch Project will hit the hiking trail anytime soon -- at least not without a dozen shotguns, a two-million candlepower spotlight, and a priest or two in tow. Scary without being gory, Witch is a lesson in how to create pure psychological terror in audiences, and is a welcome departure from the Scream school of skewered-teen horror flicks.

Witch presents itself as recovered footage from three documentarians which went into the Maryland woods to research a local legend ... and were never seen again. Despite this ominous portent, its stars are introduced with a humorous ease reminiscent of home movies: there's camcorder-toting director Heather (Heather Donahue), grungy 16mm cameraman Josh (Joshua Leonard), and chain-smoking soundman Mike (Michael Williams). Before embarking upon a jolly hotel room bender, the three aspiring filmmakers glean some sound bites from nearby townsfolk. Undeterred by tales of crazed hermits, child murders, and an abandoned house used for human sacrifice, they nonchalantly march off into the forest.

In the woods, all seems normal. While turning appropriately solemn during official filmed footage (it's supposed to be a scary documentary, after all), the documentarians' playful off-camera hijinks are captured by the ever-running camcorder. The first day goes by with little tension, save some bickering over the compass and a couple of apparently innocuous bumps in the night.

Things soon become decidedly less cheery. Constant rain wears down the filmmakers' spirits. They find little to shoot, aside from a few oddly placed piles of rocks. More noises awake them, though flashlight sweeps of the forest reveal nothing. It isn't long before the crew becomes lost, with their constant arguing almost coming to blows. The following night, mysterious cackling laughter and sudden gusts of intense wind keep them sleepless. At dawn, they make a chilling discovery: something has placed bizarre totems around the tent, and, as Josh astutely observes, "rednecks ain't this creative."

The remainder of The Blair Witch Project travels further into terror than any film in recent memory. Using jerky, hand-held camerawork to evoke a panicked air reminiscent of the video footage from Dead Calm, the film excels at tapping into humankind's primordial fear of the dark. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez use the crew's bright camera lights to illuminate only a small tunnel of vision, freeing viewers' imaginations to conjure up images of what thing is lurking under the pitch black shroud of night. Witch's minimalist score also enhances its tense atmosphere; with the thundering music common in slasher movies thankfully absent, the film's near-silence gives the smallest twig-snaps ominous implications.

Witch relies on its stars' frenzied performances to make the low-budget production believable, and directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez utilized a process called "method filmmaking" to achieve maximum realism. During the film's shoot, the cast was given only a basic outline of the day's scene, some food, and directions to the next supply point. As the actors trudged ahead through the cold and the rain, they were shadowed by the directors themselves, who reducing the thespians' rations and harassed them with noise at night. The end result of this process was so convincing that many jaded critics left the screening at Sundance believing the film was an actual documentary. Why? Simply put, the actors' performances seem genuine because they are: virtually all of the fatigue, frustration, and shock they expressed was real.

The Blair Witch Project is not without flaws. Some suspension of disbelief is required (would you lug a 50-pound camera around if you were fleeing unseen terrors?), and gore-hounds may find the relatively bloodless proceedings tiresome. Some skeptics have branded it a kind of macabre one-trick pony, a sub-Usual Suspects twist thriller unworthy of a second viewing. But for days after the press screening, even the naysayers who finagled their way in couldn't stop talking about Witch's haunting final images. I'm sure you won't find one of them wandering into the woods anytime soon.