On July 30, 1999, The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget, independent horror film that will become a massive cult hit, is released in U.S. theaters.
Shot with shaky, handheld cameras, the documentary-style movie told the story of three student filmmakers who disappeared into the woods and were never heard from again, although their footage was later discovered. With the help of a Web-based viral marketing strategy—a relatively new concept at the time—The Blair Witch Project generated huge buzz over the question of whether or not it was based on a true story. In fact, the story was entirely fake. Fake or not, it didn’t matter at the box office: The Blair Witch Project grossed some $250 million worldwide and was featured on the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines.
The Blair Witch Project followed the young filmmakers as they went into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, to make a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The filmmakers got lost and experienced a series of scary events and unexplained phenomena, such as strange noises and piles of stones being inexplicably re-arranged. The trio never returned to civilization, but their film equipment was supposedly found and the footage they shot became The Blair Witch Project. Unlike other horror films that featured bloody scenes and special effects, The Blair Witch Project scared moviegoers through implied terror and violence.
Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick, who met as film students at the University of Central Florida, wrote and directed The Blair Witch Project. The two filmmakers had their lead actors—Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard—improvise their lines based on private messages each actor received during filming. To make The Blair Witch Project seem more realistic and heighten the psychological tension, Sanchez and Myrick reportedly did things to agitate the actors during production, such as shaking their tent and cutting back on their food supply. They also had the actors do their own filming, and the resulting grainy, black-and-white footage became a Blair Witch trademark.
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I was really scared after watching that.
We are going tent camping in the woods today. So thanks.
We survived.
There was the deadly attack of the daddy long legs, a burn mark from a child that thought that wielding a burning stick from the campfire was great entertainment, my husband refusing to use newspaper or the specifically brought fire lighters when making a fire because it was “cheating”, an unsuccessful attempt at whittling a spear out of a stick and then spearfishing with it, swimming in a crisp cold and clear lake, hiking to the fire tower, nice quiet conversations around the campfire, and 3 children that slept great from 9pm to 5am and 2 adults that slept poorly from 11pm to 5:02 am. Good times and great memories.
Can’t wait to sleep in my own bed.
Wow… what a fucking landmark.
Ugh. Nope. Cannot watch these kind of movies.
One of the most boring, unwatchable movies imaginable. Right up there with a 1950’s space aliens movie. jmo
Chris Rock hosted the Oscars that year and made a joke something like “that movie cost $60,000 to make? Somebody pocketed $40,000 !”
Personally I thought that movie was original and really entertaining.
Indeed.
Pure unadulterated shit.
Lamest movie I ever saw.
After turd stick has a tantrum and throws away their map, they find they are going in circles, returning to the same point in a small river.
The terror.
To which I yelled out ” Follow the fuckin’ river, retards. They don’t go in circles!”
The terror was removed for the rest of the movie, as others in the audience ad-libbed every retarded move.