The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

Directors:

Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez (as Eduardo Sanchez)

Writers:

Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez (as Eduardo Sanchez)

Stars:

Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard

18 wins & 23 nominations.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Heather Donahue	...	Heather Donahue
Joshua Leonard	...	Joshua 'Josh' Leonard
Michael C. Williams	...	Michael 'Mike' Williams (as Michael Williams)
Bob Griffin	...	Short Fisherman
Jim King	...	Interviewee
Sandra Sánchez	...	Waitress (as Sandra Sanchez)
Ed Swanson	...	Fisherman With Glasses
Patricia DeCou	...	Mary Brown
Mark Mason	...	Man in Yellow Hat
Susie Gooch	...	Interviewee with Child (as Jackie Hallex)

Storyline

In search of a local legend, three bold amateur documentarians--director, Heather; cameraman, Josh; sound recorder, Mike--hike into Burkittsville's gloomy Black Hills Forest to find a shadow: the fabled Blair Witch. Now, one long year later--after that fateful October of 1994--there's still no sign of the student filmmakers, apart from the raw footage they left behind. Who knows what truly happened during their creepy five-day journey into the mouth of madness? Was there, indeed, an intangible supernatural presence in the dark woods that led to the team's disappearance? Either way, the missing trio must have seen something. Could the nightmarish myth be real?

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Plot Keywords:

found footage | lost in the woods | supernatural horror | ghost story | maryland | 

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Taglines:

Before Cloverfield... There was... The Blair Witch Project.

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 July 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Blair Witch Project

Filming Locations:

Maryland, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$60,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$1,512,054, 18 July 1999

Gross USA:

$140,539,099

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$248,639,099

Company Credits

Production Co:

Haxan Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min 88 min (Special Edition)

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Color:

Black and White Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

It took eight days to shoot the film, but eight months to edit it.

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Goofs

When Heather is showing off the contents of her pack there is a survival book on how to stay alive in the woods. It could have helped them, but they never used it. However, the reason they can't escape the woods is a supernatural one. The Blair Witch has control of the filmmakers and the woods, and a survival book would not have helped there.

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Quotes

[Josh and Heather are talking about "Gilligan's Island."]
Michael Williams: Let's not call him "the Captain," you illiterate TV people. It's "the Skipper."

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Crazy Credits

The beginning and end credits are designed in the style of a documentary, e.g. jumping slightly, static instead of rolling credits.

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Alternate Versions

"Newly discovered footage" was shown online on Amazon.com. It's basically Heather and Michael arguing more about the project. Amazon.com says the footage won't be available on the DVD or anywhere else.

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Connections

Referenced in Nostalgia Critic: Jem and the Holograms (2016)

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Soundtracks

The Ballad of Gilligan's Isle
(The Theme From Gilligan's Island"
Written by George Wyle and Sherwood Schwartz
Courtesy of EMI U Catalog Inc.

User Reviews

Not your average horror film

A film which fell foul of its own publicity machine, `The Blair Witch Project' was abhorred and derided by the mainstream film-going public which it became unfortunately directed at due to its extraordinary and outlandish marketing campaign. `The Blair Witch Project' is not a typical film that the typical cinema-going public would normally be exposed to. The camera-work is jerky, the dialogue repetitive and inane and the action virtually non-existent. At times confusing, annoying, irritating and tedious, this film is nonetheless a brilliant piece of arthouse experimental film-making. This movie is virtually all style-there's hardly any plot, no real action, no semblance of a real script-and one that works on a deeper psychological level than the standard mainstream horror film. Indeed, only the very last image in the film is truly frightening, and only if it can be correlated to an incident at the very beginning. The rest of it only becomes scary afterwards, when the audience has had time to consider what they've seen. It is groundbreaking, manipulative cinema made without a script, with an amateur cast and with little or no post-production values. This is a remarkable film which can only really be appreciated, if the accompanying hype is overlooked, as a unique, avant-garde art film and not the regular Hollywood stock it was presented as to the public.