For film makers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez along with actors Heather Donohue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard they would have little if any idea whatsoever that a small scale, miniscule budgeted independent film would become a massive hit, create a new genre and change the face of movie marketing with The Blair Witch Project released now as a limited edition 2 disc set.
Back in 1997 Myrock and Sanchez were film graduates who were knocking around ideas for a film. Both were keen fans of the TV series, ‘In search of….’ that had been hosted by Leonard Nimoy with topics as varied as extra-terrestrials, Big Foot and so on and the pair wanted to do something in a similar vein. In their minds was lodged the image of finding an abandoned house in the middle of the woods and from there they developed an idea about three students exploring the myth of the Blair Witch – a Maryland legend that has seen a supposed witch who lived in the forest and had abducted children killing them in his basement while one stood in the corner facing the wall. The students spoke to locals who warned them away from exploring the legend with stories of other abducted children, a levitating old woman and the horror of five men who had been ritually slaughtered. Like any student the three obviously ignore any warning about going into the woods and things soon go shockingly awry as they get lost, one of them goes missing and mysterious twig figures appear in their camp. It all builds to an unsettling climactic moment.
The three actors were auditioned having been made aware that they would be in the woods alone , operating their own camera and improvising their own dialogue in unknown scenarios that the directors would set up without their knowledge. They came back with hours of footage which was pared down to a feature length documentary that was shown at Sundance. Shooting had cost an average of $30,000 – $50.000 but production had pushed the final budget to around $500,000. It was quickly snapped up for distribution by Artisan.
They were on to a good thing as audiences were reacting to the faux documentary in an extraordinary way. The film makers had produced a short promo film for the production claiming that the documentary was made up of footage shot by the three missing students (the actors had used their own names for their roles) and that the footage had been found some years later. Added to this was the quite brilliant use of a Blair Witch website on the fledgling internet that had the trailer plus plenty of other information on the purportedly missing three, the history of the Blair Witch legend, news footage of interviews with the town people & investigating police officers. It put together a wholly convincing case persuading everyone that this was real in an age where people didn’t automatically go straight to google to fact check. It was and remains possibly the best piece of internet film marketing ever.
The documentary was shown at a handful of college campuses and together with the 160 million internet hits (unheard of at the time) and positive word of mouth plus a trailer that was shown with screening of The Phantom Menace saw the film go viral before the film being released in July 1999.
The rest is legend. The film became a sensation going on to become arguably the most financially successful film of all time earning $248m at the world’s box office of a meagre budget. Yet the three actors made next to nothing having to take legal action and even then only receiving a small pay out.
A sequel, Book of Shadows, soon followed in 2000. A disastrous, ill-conceived cash in that cost notably more and made notably less. And 2016 saw an unexpected and far better reboot from director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett that was financially successful but not enough for any further films to be made
But the film’s influence was and remains immense inspiring similar found footage films. Some very good ( Rec, Paranormal Actvity) but the rest were mostly dreadful from film makers making on the cheap in the hopes of enormous box office but failing to adhere to the rules of the genre and churning out utter rubbish that would desecrate land fill sites.
This new Blair Witch Project limited edition 2-disc blu-ray comes from Second Sight who have established themselves as the market leaders in releasing retro films lavishing them with a superb array of extras and bonus features and this release includes
- A new Second Sight Films restoration from the Hi8 videotapes and 16mm film elements, supervised and approved by the Producers and Directors
- 2-disc edition includes restored and remastered Original Theatrical Cut and Festival Cut plus original-release version
- The Blair Witch Documentary: a new feature-length Second Sight Films production
- New audio commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson
- Directors’ and Producers’ audio commentary
- Deleted scenes including previously unseen video and 16mm footage
- The Blair Witch Project: Analogue Horror in a Digital World by Mike Muncer
- Curse of the Blair Witch
- Alternate Endings
- Cannes 1999: archive Directors interview
- Trailers
Limited Edition Contents
- Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Timothy Pittides
- 184-page hardback book with archive production materials and new essays by Stacey Abbott, Becky Darke, Adam Hart, Craig Ian Mann, Mary Beth McAndrews, Dr. Cecilia Sayad, Pete Turner and Heather Wixson
- Heather’s Journal
- 3 collectors’ art cards
There’s a lot to like about this release and the stand out is the huge documentary about the genesis, filming, release, marketing and legacy of the film which is worth the cost of the disc alone. Though there’s a new commentary it’s the director and producer audio that remains the one to listen to and the deleted scenes are worth a look if only to understand just why they were rightly dropped. The alternate endings, though a variation on the one in the final cut are creepy and the one used in the final cut was the right one to have used tying in nicely with the myth of the witch.
There’s no doubting the influence of the Blair Witch Project which stretches on even to today and its influence can be seen in recent releases such as Late Night with the Devil. But The Blair Witch Project was that rare example of lightening in a bottle where everything came together exactly at the right time making it seemingly impossible to be repeated in a media savvy age dominated by social media- but let’s be honest who wouldn’t like to see a bunch of influencers disappear in tot eh woods unable to get a signal for their Instagram accounts. But this 2 disc edition, like so many releases from Second Sight, is a must buy.
related feature : Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin talks brutal horror, Easter eggs & Evil Dead 6 ideas!
related feature : ‘Late Night with the Devil’ disc review
Here’s The Blair Witch Project trailer……
