In 1999, it was THE movie everyone at school was talking about. It was a ride you had to get on, and get scared by it. The whole time you watched it, you had to determine whether or not it was real. Even if you knew it was just a movie, you felt it was real. The Blair With Project came out 20 years ago as a groundbreaking original horror film that gained momentum through word of mouth and speculation on this fairly new thing at the time called ‘the internet’. It was a monumental success with very little production value and launching a entire generation of other found footage inspired movies. This week the New York Times did a feature on how the movie inspired the Paranormal Activity series, numerous other knock-offs, and other elements of pop culture in general.
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez who directed the movie and ran it’s in-the-story faux web campaign, also produced this ‘documentar’ that ran on the SyFy channel shortly before the wide-release of the movie.
I can recall watching this years after it came out alone in the dark, and still being truly spooked. When you have a movie that can still have that impact years later, it’s a classic you can not deny.
Red Letter Media did a very fun look back at Blair Witch Project. If you love movie riffing, you will really appreciate this.
