The backwoods folktale involved a mysterious figure in the woods, missing children, abnormally thick arm hair, and wooden stick figures. Williams on their investigative project into the Blair Witch. All playing themselves, amateur filmmakers Heather Donahue and Josh Leonard are joined by a soundman Michael C. And though I remained skeptical, I cannot deny the movie’s initial impact, especially during the first hour of footage. Indeed, when I first saw the film on opening weekend at the Uptown Theater in Minneapolis, MN, the audience buzzed with belief and anticipation. At the time, I was in high school and can attest to the widespread belief that The Blair Witch Project was real, as though any studio large or small would release a supernatural snuff film onto the public. Meanwhile, a so-called documentary appeared on cable television, detailing the origins of the Blair Witch in Burkittsville, formerly Blair. A year later their footage was found.” Several articles in otherwise respectable magazines and newspapers featured similar “Real or not?”-type articles about the movie. The movie’s official website ( still going strong) contained faux newsreel footage and interviews attesting to its authenticity and the real-world existence of the Blair Witch legend, insisting, “In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while shooting a documentary. ![]() ![]() When it came time to release the movie, Artisan’s clever marketing campaign suggested the events depicted therein were real. Hundreds of hours of footage were cut down to an 81-minute feature. messed with) their performers from a distance, resulting in some very authentic responses. They hired unknown actors to handle the cameras themselves and shoot their experiences in the woods it was an entirely improvised experience scenario, and the directors interacted with (e.g. ![]() Their production company, Haxan Films, was named after Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 documentary Häxan, in which dramatized sequences recreate haunting moments of torture and ritualistic killing-terrifying stuff. They were fascinated by documentaries involving paranormal research and witchcraft. Shot on the ultra-cheap over eight days in a Maryland forest, Myrick and Sánchez set out to create something people would believe actually happened. Much talked-about upon its release, The Blair Witch Project debuted at the Sundance Film Festival and was purchased by Artisan for release the following summer. My take on the film, I suppose, will be a combination of these approaches. And though filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez didn’t invent the genre-Ruggero Deodato’s disagreeable 1980 gorefest Cannibal Holocaust deserves that crown-they popularized it. After all, more substantial narratives have improved upon the movie’s unsatisfying ending and rather annoying visual experience in the years since its release, even while employing the same “found footage” structure ( Chronicle and The Bay come to mind). I can choose to look at the horror movie as a whole, as objectively as possible or I can simply judge my initial experience seeing the movie in 1999 or I can even consider my subsequent viewings after the rash of “found footage” offshoots it inspired have worn down the gimmick, rendering it no longer effective, if it ever was. With the benefit of hindsight, writing a review of The Blair Witch Project seventeen years after the fact remains a thorny prospect.
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