The Blair Witch Project (1999)
- Directed by
- Eduardo Sánchez, Daniel Myrick
- Genre
- horror film, psychological horror fiction, mystery film, found footage film
- Country
- United States
- Runtime
- 1h 21m
- Rated
- R
- Rating
- 6.4 of 10 from 5,510 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
The catalogue in 3D
The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.
How it feels
Three student filmmakers hike into the Maryland woods to make a documentary about a local legend called the Blair Witch. As they get lost, strange events and escalating fear tear their group apart.
tenseunsettlingrawclaustrophobicanxiouscreepyvisceralslow-burn
What happens
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American found footage psychological horror film written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is a pseudo-documentary in which three young students (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard) hike into the Appalachian Mountains near Burkittsville, Maryland, to shoot a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch. Myrick and Sánchez conceived of a fictional legend of the Blair Witch in 1993. They developed a 35-page screenplay with the dialogue to be improvised. A casting call advertisement on Backstage magazine was prepared by the directors; Donahue, Williams, and Leonard were cast. The film entered production in October 1997, with the principal photography lasting eight days. Most of the filming was done on the Greenway Trail along Seneca Creek in Montgomery County, Maryland. About 20 hours of footage was shot, which was edited down to 82 minutes. Shot on an original budget of $35,000–$60,000, the film had a final cost of $200,000–$750,000 after post-production and marketing. The film was released in the UK by 20th Century Fox. When The Blair Witch Project premiered at the Sundance Film Festival at midnight on January 23, 1999, its promotional marketing campaign listed the actors as either "missing" or "deceased". Due to its successful Sundance run, Artisan Entertainment bought the film's distribution rights for $1.1 million. The film had a limited release on July 14 of the same year, before expanding to a wider release starting on July 30. While the film received highly positive reviews from critics, audience reception was polarized. One of the most successful independent films of all time, The Blair Witch Project was a sleeper hit that grossed $248.6 million worldwide. The film was also ranked the best found footage movie of all time by editors from both IndieWire and Entertainment Weekly. Despite the success, the three main actors had reportedly lived in poverty. In 2000, they sued Artisan Entertainment claiming unfair compensation, eventually reaching a $300,000 settlement. The Blair Witch Project launched a media franchise, which includes two sequels (Book of Shadows and Blair Witch), novels, comic books, and video games. It revived the found-footage technique and influenced similarly successful horror films such as Paranormal Activity (2007), REC (2007) and Cloverfield (2008). (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
More like this
Curse of the Blair Witch (1999)
The Sixth Sense (1999)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
American Movie (1999)
Cinéma Vérité: Defining the Moment (1999)
Desecration (1999)
The Blair Witch Project: A Hardcore Parody (2011)
Paranormal Activity: Next of Kin (2021)- More like this film, on a shelf you can walk up to.It's the lit case on the top shelf.