#WAS THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT REAL MOVIE#
#WAS THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT REAL SERIAL#

Josh accidentally knocks over one of the rock piles. Once their journey into the woods has begun, and after some footage of the students at Coffin Rock, the site of five nineteenth century ritualistic murders, the students set up camp for the night.Īs they hike deeper into the woods they find seven small stone cairns, mirroring the seven children murdered by Rustin Parr. It’s hard to pinpoint one major inciting incident to take us into the second act, the film instead building piece by piece a sense that there is an unseen force working against the filmmakers. This first act unfolds in a traditional sense, providing some important foreshadowing and establishment of tone.

#WAS THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT REAL MOVIE#

I find the movie most compelling when considered on its own, with only fleeting clues to go by, so it’s mostly from this perspective that this essay will proceed.) Following completion of their first day of filming, they share a drink in their motel room before setting out to begin their long hike the next morning. I feel it’s important to make a distinction between the film’s effectiveness with all this extra background lore, and without. (The website released with the film is still running, and has a thorough timeline of the Blair Witch mythology from February 1785 right up to the fictional public release of the found footage. He murdered seven children, claiming to be under the influence of the Blair Witch, taking them down to his cellar in pairs where he’d make one face the corner while he killed the other.

#WAS THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT REAL SERIAL#

The trio interview locals about the legend, with one man mentioning the name Rustin Parr, a serial killer from the 1940s who lived in the woods outside what was then Blair. The first act opens with an introduction to the three filmmakers, Heather, Mike, and Josh, who we find to be in good spirits prior to setting out on their expedition. We are presented with the footage from their equipment found in the woods. The three students, who take their names from the actors portraying them, are never seen again. The Blair Witch Project, directed and masterminded by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick, follows three students as they set out through the woods north of Burkittsville, Maryland to film a documentary about the Blair Witch legend, a supposed malevolent presence thought to have haunted Black Hills Forest since Burkittsville’s former years as the township of Blair. Let’s talk those eighty-one minutes of shaky camera footage. I goddamn love this movie, so prepare for many pages of discussion and dissection. I’m going to argue that The Blair Witch Project is one of the most – if not the most – effective horror film ever made.

Few reviews/analyses on this site will mean as much to me as the one coming up. This might have been the most important night of my horror-appreciating life, since the film has grown to become my all-time favourite.

Seeing the mortal dread of my viewing partner vicariously awoke my own terror. It wasn’t until a few years later during a rewatch with my younger stepbrother that my life-long, fear-fuelled fascination with The Blair Witch Project was born. We found nothing scary about the film, instead making fun of Heather Donahue’s swinging snot, the silly twig stickmen over which they seemed to get in such a fluster, and the general feeling that nothing whatsoever had happened during those eighty-one minutes of shaky camera footage. Upon its release in 1999, at age thirteen, I went to a screening with my mum (yeah, she rocks) but we didn’t get it. My earliest memory of The Blair Witch Project is boredom.

Was the blair witch project real