The Blair Witch Project (1999)
US (dir. Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez)
Cast: Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, Joshua Leonard
Synopsis: Three film students set out into the Black Hills Forest to make a documentary on the legendary Blair Witch. Armed with a 16mm camera, a Hi8 video camera, and a DAT recorder, every step, word and sound is captured. After wandering around the Black Hills Forest, Heather, Josh, and Mike are cold, lost and hunted. Finally, one night after the last ray of light had left the forest black, they were never to be seen again. Despite thousands of hours searching the Black Hills area, neither of the filmmakers or any trace of their gear was found, and the search was called off. One year later, a bag full of film cans, DAT tapes, and video tapes were found. The behind the scenes, video footage and the film, are cut together to make a fictional movie which seems more than real.
Review: Even as a 13 year old, watching “The Blair Witch Project” on a VHS copy with a troupe of giggling girlfriends, high on sugary treats and carbonated drinks, I found this supposedly “real” found footage film to be more than just a little disappointing and more blatantly and obviously fake than I (even at the tender age of 13) could have even fathomed. To put it bluntly, it was just plain bad. This was the film that duped North America, hell, the whole world, into believing it was real? This was the film that scared the pants off everybody, packed theatres to the brim and made a solid chunk of change ($248,639,099 to be exact) at the box office? WTF? And now, upon seeing it 10 years later, it’s still as bad as I remembered it to be, if not even worse. “The Blair Witch Project” amounts to nothing more than an over-rated mess of a film, with the only thing terrifying about it being the fact that so many people bought into its bullshit.
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