‘Blair Witch Project’ leaves audience saying, ‘Then what?’

“The Blair Witch Project,” written and directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick. Running time: 88 minutes. Rated R.

Don’t buy into the hype, Carol Anne!

Made on the cheap, “The Blair Witch Project” is a sometimes gripping yet fatally flawed independent horror film that’s less about witches than it is about a trio of film students unwittingly recording their own mysterious deaths in some genuinely spooky woods.

To be sure, what or who snuffs these three foul-mouthed brats is anyone’s guess; that we never learn is what ruins the film. Still, the film does have merit, namely its lack of a budget, which forced its creators — Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez — to scare us not with special effects, but by tapping into our imaginations and childhood fears.

The result is horror realized in the dark. Indeed, the scariest moments of “Witch” take place at night in an area of woods suspected of being home to the infamous Blair Witch. We see nothing as this trio is terrorized, but we hear plenty — lots of groans, cries for help, ghost children tittering, branches snapping.

The effect, heightened by the students’ unsteady, handheld cameras, is genuinely riveting, roughly recalling Hitchcock in that it forces us to summon our own demons to give us a start. The film does that well, but its ending is such a cheat, and so unbelievably anticlimactic, it left the audience at my screening sitting in stunned disbelief long after the credits started to roll.

“That’s it?” someone called out in frustration.

No one had the heart to answer.

Grade: C+

“The Runaway Bride,” directed by Garry Marshall. Written by Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott. Running time: 116 minutes. Rated PG.

Garry Marshall’s mechanical new film, “The Runaway Bride,” is desperate to recapture the same feeling, chemistry, tone, and corny charm of his last big hit, 1990’s “Pretty Woman.” At times, it succeeds — but the desperation shows in nearly two hours of painstaking contrivance.

No one here is willing to tamper with the formula that worked so well in “Pretty Woman.” On one level, that’s understandable; on another, it’s cinematic death. The performances from Richard Gere as a columnist for USA Today and Julia Roberts as a bride frequently unwilling to commit are measured, stiff — there is no looseness or spontaneity from either actor, each of whom have set their skills on auto pilot.

Worse is Marshall’s plot. Because the audience knows from the start that these two squabbling lovebirds will eventually find themselves at the altar, all dramatic tension is sucked from a film that wears its blueprint on Roberts’ many veils. A genuine surprise or two could have saved this film, but in the end, it only leaves us with this: Julia Roberts is more convincing as a prostitute.

Grade: C

Christopher Smith’s “The Week in Rewind” appears each Thursday in The Scene. Each Tuesday on WLBZ’s “News Center 5:30 Today” and “News Center Tonight,” he appears in Cinema Center.