The Blair Witch Project traumatised audiences upon its release in 1999 and it has continued to haunt horror fans for 25 years.
The supernatural mockumentary followed student filmmakers – Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard – who played fictional versions of themselves, as they embarked on a camping trip into the Maryland woods to investigate the local legend of the Blair Witch.
The students disappear, and their story is told via tapes ‘discovered’ with their equipment a year later.
The found footage style of the film coupled with a ground-breaking marketing campaign helped cement the realism of Blair Witch and terrify audiences in the process.
The film culminates in an abrupt yet haunting final scene in which Heather and Mike find an abandoned house, believing Joshua, who had been missing, is calling to them.
After becoming separated, Heather finds Mike in the basement of the house staring into the corner before she is attacked by an unseen force, dropping her camera to the floor which lingers on Mike before cutting to black.
It is one of the most sinister images in horror cinema despite the film reportedly being created on a budget of just $35,000 (£27,000) – but directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez believe if they had had more money, they would have ‘ruined’ their own film.
‘The whole movie was based on making something for cheap,’ Eduardo told Metro.
‘We were film students and we knew how expensive movies were, So we were like, “How do you make a horror movie – or any movie – for cheap?” and we came up with the idea we could do cheap because it didn’t have to be crazy lighting, sound, or anything like that.’
He reflected: ‘I think the limits of the budget were actually the strength of the movie. Dan and I have both said a million times if we had more money, we would have probably had some kind of crazy creature at the end of the movie attacking them and in the cellar, or something in that basement, and we would have ruined our own movie.
‘We struggled with that ending and we asked ourselves at the time “How are we going to end this movie?” And I always tell people, man, if we had an extra 20 or 30,000 bucks, we would have hired somebody to make some stupid suit.’
Daniel joked that had they had more money, there ‘definitely would have been an alien in there somewhere.’
‘The budget was just perfect looking back on it. It was a struggle because we were dirt poor, but it was very fortunate that we didn’t have more money because we would have probably ruined the movie,’ Eduardo continued.
While studying at the University of Central Florida, Daniel and Eduardo were inspired to create the film after they realised their fear of paranormal documentaries outweighed that of traditional horror films.
After putting together a 35-page screenplay with the idea much of the dialogue would be improvised, they found their cast following open auditions and began shooting The Blair Witch Project in Maryland over eight days.
‘There were moments in the production when things got really difficult,’ Daniel shared.
‘We got rained out one night and the actors kind of needed to be rescued because it became too much.
‘The whole shoot was like a 24/7 ongoing role-play game through the woods, so it was hard to keep track of where all the pieces (of the film) were.
‘We were reviewing footage from the actors a day or two after they shot it. We were doing everything we could just to keep up because it was moving so fast.’
He said that two days before they were scheduled to begin filming, they still didn’t know how they were going to end the movie.
‘We did all this build-up and had great scary moments. The film had to look and feel real, so we asked ourselves “How do you create that payoff at the end of the movie?” So it was a real dilemma for us,’ Daniel continued.
While it ‘threatened to derail’ the entire production, Eduardo and Daniel came up with the iconic final scenes right at the last moment.
Daniel said: ‘We had no real idea if any of what we were attempting was going to work. We knew that we were getting some good moments and stuff like that, but how that was all going to plug in, we just didn’t know.
‘Part of the beauty of it is that the low budget forced us to do creative things like Ben Rock (production designer) came up with the iconic stickman form. We had a version of the stick man who was more like a thatched-like big scarecrow, but we had to simplify that idea because of the budget.
‘Ben came up with this great little hanging rune that ended up being one of the most iconic things in the movie. Somehow it all just worked out.’
After horrifying audiences at its Sundance Film Festival premiere and causing people to vomit during cinema screenings, The Blair Witch Project was released on home video.
But the version we have watched from the comfort of our sofas ever since was not how the directors intended the film to be seen thanks to a transfer blunder.
‘We shot the movie on video and 16-millimetre film, and we had that film transferred to video so we could edit. So then when we went to Sundance [Film Festival] and when we released the movie, they took our video master,’ Eduardo said.
‘They transferred it to film because there was no digital distribution back then, so that was the version you saw in theatres. It’s a video transfer.
‘But then when they released the film on video, instead of going back to our master film, they just released the negative that they had used for theatres. So that original transfer and edit that we had has never seen the light of day.’
Second Sight Films acquired the original sources to release The Blair Witch Project how Eduardo and Daniel had always wanted, alongside a limited edition box set including bonus content such as a documentary directed by Jed Shepherd.
‘We’ve been trying to do this for a long time. Every special anniversary we’d contact Alliance a year and a half before, but they weren’t listening to us, unfortunately,’ Eduardo told us.
‘Then Second Sight reached out to us earlier last year. We were big fans of their earlier releases – they’re serious film enthusiasts and historians – so we knew that it was going to be done right.
‘We helped as much as we could and guided them to all this making of footage that had never been really shown.
‘The movie had never really been released in the original format that we shot it in, and they geeked out with us and created the definitive release of the movie we always wanted.’
The Blair Witch Project grossed nearly $250m (£191.5m) worldwide, becoming one of the most successful independent films of all time.
Two sequels followed as well as novels, comic books, and video games while the film inspired several found footage horror films released in the decades that followed including the Paranormal Activity franchise.
And Eduardo and Daniel believe the simple style of the film and its relatability even 25 years later have contributed to its continuing success.
‘I still think the film works on a primal level,’ Daniel explained. ‘I remember my son seeing it for the first time when he was about 15, and he really liked it. He wasn’t just saying it – he and his friends responded to the film. And that tells you that it’s still working on some fundamental level.
‘Not all films stand the test of time, even some of the classics show their age over time, but because Blair Witch and found footage films are so simple, in a lot of ways, it’s a modern movie because it is that first-person perspective that so many young people today are used to and are used to seeing on YouTube.
‘It’s a small independent movie that speaks to a modern aesthetic. If you’ve got a good idea, you can go out with an iPhone and get a million followers, and that’s something the kids today respond to.’
Earlier this year, horror institution Blumhouse announced they would be rebooting The Blair Witch Project with Saw director James Wan attached.
The news prompted a mixed reaction among fans while original cast member Leonard blasted the franchise and demanded ‘retroactive and future residual payments’ for their involvement as well as ‘meaningful consultation’ on any reboots and sequels.
Eduardo said it ‘would have been cool to have been part’ of the reboot and shared the full Blair Witch universe plans he and Daniel have.
‘It’s cool that this movie is still being thought of for a sequel or a reboot or whatever,’ he said.
(Picture: The Legacy Collection/THA/Shutterstock)
‘It would have been cool to have been part of it. Not that we expect to write or direct it or anything like that, but we are the guys that came up with it and we’ve been living in the Blair world for 25 years now.
‘It sucks, but it’s normal. With any reboot movies, they rarely go back to the original filmmakers. I understand that, but it would have been cool because we do have a lot of ideas that I think we could add.
‘I’m not sure if they’re going to reach out to us and include us in this version, but we would love to be a part of it. We’d love to revisit that world. We had a plan for a whole series of Blair Witch movies and TV shows, but unfortunately, they haven’t come to us for guidance.
‘But it’s Blumhouse and they’ve got James Wan so I think they’re gonna do something cool. So, you know, we’ll see what happens.’
The Blair Witch Project UK Limited Edition and Standard Blu-ray is available to pre-order now from Second Sight Films. It is released on Monday, November 11.
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