Just as the internet took real life and became an entity of its own, sprouting into a near living, breathing thing – right before Facebook and everything else was poised to come alive too – The Blair Witch Project sucked people in with websites, marketing campaigns, and a realistic feel to the film, all combining to leave a huge impact on us culturally in terms of how horror movies would evolve from how low budget filmmakers would go on to begin breaking into the business in a new way, to how many horror movies would come to be marketed by production companies for years and years to come. As well as the fact this film was marketed perfectly.
#BLAIR WITCH PROJECT REAL FOOTAGE MOVIE#
That being said, this movie benefited from the way it was filmed in that the actors basically were just given minimal script direction, then sent into the woods to be messed with by the film crew and directors. So The Blair Witch Project is not necessarily overly innovative in its usage of found footage. Then only a year before Blair Witch, there was The Last Broadcast, which could’ve been one of the top found footage films along with this, however, the climax/end completely ruined everything to come before it unfortunately so, really disappointed me because I thought it was going to be incredible all around. For instance, 84C MoPic is a little independent fake documentary styled film about a missing during the Vietnam War. There are others after it and before this one. That I guess is technically the first found footage. Before this there was the savage horror Cannibal Holocaust – a film so nasty, raw and real in 1980 that Ruggero Deodato actually had to prove he didn’t kill the actors during its making. Of course along with that is going to come some part of its fame whether fame or infamy, time tells. Now, I will concede to some people who say that The Blair Witch Project capitalized on being the first big, mass marketed found footage horror movie. I mean, say what you want but I think this is still one of the best found footage horror movies that has ever come out. I couldn’t go to bed without thinking of someone standing in the corner, facing inward, I was always thinking of that haggard basement, wondering who or what was lurking around its corners. So honestly, the first I ever saw this the finale especially frightened me to death. Actually it would’ve been on my 14th birthday when I officially saw this film because I believe it was released in the summer of ’99 I turned 14 that October. Personally, as a 14 year old kid when this came out, I remember begging mom and dad to get it for my birthday. I don’t know how people my age look back on The Blair Witch Project now 16 years since it first hit theatres and completely scared the life out of, most, everyone.
Starring Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C.
Directed/Written by Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez.