The Blair Witch Project

Steyn On-line ^ | October 28, 2017 | Mark Steyn

[Twotone]

Twenty years ago - October 31st 1997 - a pair of actors emerged from Seneca Creek State Park in Maryland and were taken to the local Denny's for their first full meal after eight days in the woods living on Power Bars and bananas. They had been filming a "naturalistic" horror film, and described how "surreal" it felt to return to the real world and be surrounded by booths of people dressed in Halloween costumes.

And thus did one of the most unusual of all movie shoots wrap.

It's hard now to recall how huge this thing was upon its eventual release in 1999. I remember hoping London's film critics would decline to roll over in the face of the juggernaut, but if anything they loved it even more than the US reviewers, whose enthusiasm derived mainly from a fear of being wrong-footed by a surprise hit. "Low-budget" hardly begins to cover it: The film cost $60,000, or $50,000, or $35,000, according to which paper you read, and made $135 million in its first nine weeks, or $150 million in its first three months, or whatever. In fact, the original budget was less than 25 grand and it grossed over a quarter of a billion - which makes it the biggest indy hit ever. It was also supposed to herald a whole new school of film-making.

The premise of The Blair Witch Project is explained in the card that pops up on screen right at the beginning: three students making a documentary disappeared in the Black Hills of Maryland; the footage we're about to see was found in the woods.

[This_Dude]

I got lost in the woods when I was 13 and was out there for almost 72 hours alone, and during the nights, this movie REALLY screwed with my head. That was about the most truly afraid I’ve ever been

[Popman]

Wife and I saw the film. We bought into the hype this being the scariest movie ever made...

I cannot tell you how disappointing the movie was...

I keep waiting for the scary part. Running though the woods isn't scary...

Ridiculously stupid and the end was a WTH moment...

[DouglasKC]

Me too. That movie Scared the pants off me. It really captured the sights sounds and feelings of being lost in the wood. We lived on the edge of some Woods at that time and I was afraid to keep my door open at night for a long time.

[greenishness]

Terrible movie wouldn’t even call it a movie. I saw it in the theatre, hated it. Good Web marketing to fool people into going to see it. They got me.

[central_va]

The porn industry had a field day with the title.

[sam_whiskey]

Ah, yes, I remember sitting in the movie theater in abject shock, horror, and disbelief....I couldn’t believe I’d wasted my hard earned to just watch THAT. I will never understand what people saw in it.

[Magnatron]

I actually thought it was well done. Very minimalist in a Hitchcock style, where you don’t need to see blood and guts to be drawn into the fright.

[reg45]

Awesome ROI.

[This_Dude]

All I wanted to do was fish in the calcasieu river in the kisatchie national forest in West central Louisiana. Lots of impassable thickets and such, and couldn’t find my way back. I found a hole to lie in at night and covered myself with brush in the hopes animals wouldn’t find me. It’s miles and miles of nothing but trees. The two most miserable nights of my life and found a house late in the 3rd day and called my mom. I was 12 miles from where I started off. Hell of an ordeal and all I had was a small folding knife.

It BEYOND sucked.

[P.O.E.]

Annoying shaky cam substituting for plot, characters, etc.

[glorgau]

Blasting Witch blessed the world with “shaky cam”. That was it’s main innovation

[wally_bert]

That title among many.

So much parody fodder out there.

[wally_bert]

It did nothing for me.

[TexasBarak]

A 13 year old boy lost in the woods with nothing but a pocket knife- kept his wits about him, and was resourceful enough to survive and travel to find aid. I get that it wasn’t any fun, but it’s actually an impressive story!

[exDemMom]

The movie was okay, I guess. Rather suspenseful, and lacking the blood and guts that seem to pass for “horror” movies these days.

The problem with it was that shaky camera. I have motion sickness, and routinely have to shield my eyes during action scenes of movies. That meant that I watched Blair Witch Project as a reflection on my water bottle because I could not tolerate looking at the screen.

I think that many people had the same issue with it that I did.

[This_Dude]

More luck than anything. I knew for a fact I was gonna die out there. I was convinced I’d never see home again. God pulled me out of it. The second night I slept in a tree, if you can call that sleeping

[bagster]

I got lost in the woods when I was 13

This dude abides.

[j.argese]

Spent some time lost in the swampy thickets of Central NJ when I was 8 years old. 10 years later, me and a few friends went driving around the roads surrounding "Crematory Hill". Yeah, THAT Crematory Hill. Blair Witch was overrated pap.

Scariest part for me was realizing I would have wasted 2 hours of my life watching it. I bailed earlier.

[Drew68]

I remember this well. Movie scared the crap out of me. I think you had to be in the right mindset because reactions to it were extreme. Viewers either found it the scariest filmgoing experience ever, or the dumbest.