We accept that shows such as The Hills or The Only Way Is Essex contain explicit disclaimers: “ The following program may contain scenes that have been created purely for entertainment purposes.” Whether conscious or not, Myrick and Sánchez anticipated the state of entertainment of the next few decades, and their film increasingly becomes a natural part of the pop culture landscape. This conceit might be aided even more in the 21st century’s context of ubiquitous ‘reality’ television. Over 19 hours of footage was skilfully edited down to just 90 minutes, so it’s necessarily a creation of what the filmmakers want us to see. Even so, this too fades away after the first twenty minutes or so, with key moments of shock and honesty causing us to forget this is manufactured.
All of them were nominated for Razzies, with Donahue winning the Golden Raspberry for Worst Actress.
The amateur production is meant to represent a version of ‘reality,’ although a harsh reality is that all of the cast are terrible at playing themselves. In retrospect, you can see the cogs behind THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Comparatively, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT really looks as though it was shot 20 years ago, and if anything adds to the ‘authenticity’ of the piece as the years go by. In 1998, The Last Broadcast concerned a search for the Jersey Devil, shot entirely on consumer equipment, and while Myrick and Sánchez use a combination of video and “16mm” footage, there remains an immediacy to the film almost two decades later. The found footage technique has been (over)used so much in the subsequent years, with Rec (2007), Paranormal Activity (2007), Cloverfield (2008), Troll Hunter (2010), and Chronicle (2012) applying it to a variety of genres. When it is obvious they have become lost, tensions mount, especially when strange symbols and apparent supernatural happenings begin to surround them. Williams, and Joshua Leonard playing fictionalised versions of themselves as they head into the Black Hills to investigate the legend of the Blair Witch, the subject of local legend and superstition. A year later their footage was found.” We follow Heather Donahue, Michael C. “ In October of 1994 three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. The idea is a simple one, with the film boldly telling you what is going to happen in the shuddering opening title cards. Yet it’s arguable Myrick and Sánchez’s film was one of the first to bring the concept to the mainstream. In the realm of horror movies alone, Ruggero Deodato’s Cannibal Holocaust (1980) pushed many boundaries, including the use of found footage to forward the narrative. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, was not the first film to use the found footage concept. The ‘truth’ may have been revealed in the years to follow, but little has diminished its sheer terror and originality. Yet there was a time when we believed that what we were seeing might actually be a documentary. One of the first films to prominently use Internet marketing, younger readers will find its viral approach commonplace 17 years on. There were many fake interviews, photographs and diary entries to which misguided the audience into believing that the film/ documentary was real.It’s hard to convey just what a big deal THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was back in 1999. The Blair Witch Project, was the first film to successfully harness the power of the internet, capitalizing on the fact that no one was quite sure where to turn to for trustworthy information. Many people believed for years that all the events that happened in the film were real because of the marketing strategy of the director. The audience witnesses several paranormal activities which I personally found extremely disturbing because of its realism. Because their imaginations have been inflamed by talk of witches, hermits and child murderers in the forest, because their food is running out and their smokes are gone, they (and we) are a lot more scared than if they were merely being chased by some guy in a ski mask. One of them discovers slime on his backpack. It has no fancy special effects or digital monsters as it was recorded with a Handycam camera, but its characters get lost in the woods, hear noises in the night and find disturbing stick figures hanging from trees. “The Blair Witch Project,” an extraordinarily effective horror film.
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