The Blair Witch Project
The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later. The purportedly "found footage" is the movie the viewer sees.
Not to be confused with Blair Witch (film).The Blair Witch Project
- Daniel Myrick
- Eduardo Sánchez
- Gregg Hale
- Robin Cowie
- Daniel Myrick
- Eduardo Sánchez
Tony Cora
- Artisan Entertainment (United States)
- Summit Entertainment (International)[1]
- January 23, 1999 (Sundance)
- July 14, 1999 (United States)
81 minutes[2]
United States
English
$200,000–750,000[3]
$248.6 million[4]
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 taking place in Maryland for eight days. 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 edits.
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". Owing to its successful run at Sundance, Artisan Entertainment bought the film's distribution rights for $1.1 million. The film had a limited release on July 14 the same year, before expanding to a wider release starting on July 30. While critical reception was mostly positive, audience reception was polarized.
The Blair Witch Project grossed nearly $250 million worldwide, making it one of the most successful independent films of all time, as well as the 29th most profitable horror film, while also being a sleeper hit. The film launched a media franchise, which includes two sequels (Book of Shadows and Blair Witch), novels, comic books, and video games. The film is credited with reviving the found-footage technique that was later used by similarly successful horror films such as Paranormal Activity and Cloverfield.
Plot[edit]
The film purports to be footage found in the discarded cameras of three young filmmakers who had gone missing.
In October 1994, film students Heather, Mike, and Josh set out to produce a documentary about the mythical Blair Witch. They travel to Burkittsville, Maryland, and interview residents about the myth. Locals tell them of Rustin Parr, a hermit who lived deep in the forest and abducted seven children in the 1940s; he murdered them all in his basement, killing them in pairs while having one stand in a corner. The students explore the forest in north Burkittsville to research the myth. They meet two fishermen, one of whom warns them that the forest is cursed. He tells them of a young child named Robin Weaver, who went missing in 1888; when she returned three days later, she talked about an old woman whose feet never touched the ground. The students hike to Coffin Rock, where five men were found ritualistically slaughtered in the 19th century; their corpses later disappeared.
They camp for the night, and the next day, find an old graveyard with seven small cairns, one of which Josh accidentally knocks over. That night, they hear the sound of sticks snapping. The following day, they try to hike back to the car but cannot find it before dark and make camp. They again hear sticks snapping. In the morning, they find that three cairns have been built beside their tent. Heather learns her map is missing. Mike reveals he kicked the map into a creek out of frustration, which provokes a fight between the trio as they realize they are lost. They decide to head south, using Heather's compass and discover stick figures hanging from trees. They again hear mysterious sounds that night, including children laughing. After an unknown force shakes the tent, they hide in the forest until dawn.
Upon returning to their tent, they find that their possessions have been rifled through and Josh's equipment is covered with slime. They come across a river identical to one they crossed earlier and realize they have been walking in circles. Josh vanishes the next morning, and Heather and Mike try in vain to find him. That night, they hear Josh's agonized cries but are unable to find him. They theorize that his yells are a fabrication by the Blair Witch to draw them out of their camp.
The next day, Heather discovers a bundle of twigs tied with fabric from Josh's shirt. Upon opening the bundle, she finds a blood-soaked scrap of his shirt containing a tongue, a finger, some teeth and hair. Although distraught, she does not tell Mike. That night, she records herself apologizing to her own, Mike's and Josh's families, taking responsibility for their predicament.
That night, they hear Josh calling out to them and follow his voice to the abandoned ruins of the house of Rustin Parr, featuring demonic symbols and children's bloody handprints on the walls. Trying to locate Josh, they go to the basement, where an unseen force assaults Mike, causing him to drop his camera. Heather enters the basement yelling, and her camera captures Mike standing in a corner facing the wall. Heather calls out to him, but he does not react. The unseen force assaults Heather, causing her to scream and drop her camera.
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Development of The Blair Witch Project began in 1993.[5] While film students at the University of Central Florida, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez were inspired to make the film after realizing that they found documentaries on paranormal phenomena scarier than traditional horror films. The two decided to create a film that combined the styles of both. In order to produce the project, they, along with Gregg Hale, Robin Cowie and Michael Monello, started Haxan Films. The namesake for the production company is Benjamin Christensen's 1922 silent documentary horror film Häxan (English: Witchcraft Through the Ages).[6]
Myrick and Sánchez developed a 35-page screenplay for their fictional film, intending dialogue to be improvised. The directors placed a casting call advertisement in Backstage in June 1996, asking for actors with strong improvisational abilities.[7][8] The informal improvisational audition process narrowed the pool of 2,000 actors.[9][10]
According to Heather Donahue, auditions for the film were held at Musical Theater Works in New York City. The advertisement said a "completely improvised feature film" would be shot in a "wooded location". Donahue said that during the audition, Myrick and Sánchez posed her the question: "You've served seven years of a nine-year sentence. Why should we let you out on parole?" to which she had to respond.[7] Joshua Leonard said he was cast due to his knowledge of how to run a camera, as no omniscient camera was used to film the scenes.[11]
Pre-production began on October 5, 1997, and Michael Monello became a co-producer.[12][8] In developing the mythology behind the film, the creators used many inspirations. For instance, several character names are near-anagrams: Elly Kedward (The Blair Witch) is Edward Kelley, a 16th-century mystic, and Rustin Parr, the fictional 1940s child-murderer, began as an anagram for Rasputin.[13] The Blair Witch is said to be, according to legend, the ghost of Elly Kedward, a woman banished from the Blair Township (latter-day Burkittsville) for witchcraft in 1785.
The directors incorporated that part of the legend, along with allusions to the Salem witch trials and Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible, to play on the themes of injustice done to those who were classified as witches.[14]
The directors also cited influences such as the television series In Search of..., and horror documentary films Chariots of the Gods and The Legend of Boggy Creek.[9][10] Other influences included commercially successful horror films such as The Shining, Alien, The Omen, and Jaws—the latter film being their major influence, as the film hides the witch from the viewer for its entirety, increasing the suspense of the unknown.[5][9]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The film earned $1.5 million from 27 theaters in its opening weekend, with a per-screen average of $56,002.[4] The film expanded nationwide in its third weekend and grossed $29.2 million from 1,101 locations, placing at number two in the United States box office, surpassing the science fiction horror film Deep Blue Sea but behind Runaway Bride.[56] The film expanded further to 2,142 theaters and again finished in second place with a gross of $24.3 million in its fourth weekend, behind another horror film The Sixth Sense.[57] The film dropped out of the top-ten list in its 10th weekend and by the end of its theatrical run, the film grossed $140.5 million in the US and Canada and grossed $108.1 million in other territories, for a worldwide gross of $248.6 million (over 4,000 times its original budget).[4][32] The Blair Witch Project was the 10th highest-grossing film in the US in 1999,[58] and has earned the reputation of becoming a sleeper hit.[59] In Italy it set an opening weekend record for a US film.[60]
Because the filming was done by the actors using hand-held cameras, much of the footage is shaky, especially the final sequence in which a character is running down a set of stairs with the camera. Some audience members experienced motion sickness and even vomited as a result.[61]
Television[edit]
In October 2017, co-director Eduardo Sánchez revealed that he and the rest of the film's creative team were developing a Blair Witch television series, though he clarified that any decisions would ultimately be up to Lionsgate now which owns the rights to it.[123][124] The series was later announced to be released on the studio's new subsidiary, Studio L, which specializes in digital releases.[125]