I was twenty-five when The Blair Witch Project was released. I saw it one afternoon in a packed theater, in a seat too close to the screen. There were parts of the film that made me feel nauseous, which was a common complaint that came with seeing the shaky handheld camerawork projected onto the big screen. (This is not a common problem for watching at home.) 

I saw the movie very early in its theatrical run, but at that time the gig was already up. Newspapers and magazines were writing extensively about the indie film that had fooled a lot of people into believing it depicted something real and frightening. By the time I saw it, I knew it was fictional, but that didn’t stop me- or any of the others that came out- from wanting to see what the fuss was about. The word was that what directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez accomplished for under $60,000 (and that’s the upper-end production figure) was nothing short of a revolutionary cinematic experience too important to miss.

The Blair Witch Project would go on to gross $248 million at the worldwide box office. It was an indisputable financial success. A website was created to promote the film and it posted fictitious videos and newspaper clipping insisting that the film’s three young filmmakers were still, as IMDb would put it, “missing” and “presumed dead”. (To add to the illusion, the actors used their real names in the film and did not attend the film’s red-carpet premiere.) In retrospect, some consider the film’s online marketing campaign to be the first time something on the Internet went viral. The pieced-together-with-“found footage” format was fresh and unique and the marketing intentionally misled many early festival goers into thinking something really spooky was going on in those woods in Burkittsville, Maryland.

My point is that in 1999, a lot of eyeballs were on The Blair Witch Project and the response was…divisive. 

Its CinemaScore was only a pitiful C+. Some people started to discuss older, not-as-well-known “found footage”-style films to make the case that The Blair Witch Project was not really that unique. And actress Heather Donahue (who has since changed her name to Rei Hance) won a Razzie for her performance in the film, proving that Razzies are just mean, stupid or both. (Oh, the irony. An actress whose performance was believable enough to convince a lot of people into thinking they were actually watching footage of her last days alive got an award for the worst acting performance in 1999.) The backlash against The Blair Witch Project was as real as its success.

But why? 

If you have seen the film, you can probably guess. (Spoiler Alert) The absence of a single scene showing the Blair Witch- or even a special effect- even marred my own impressions of the film back in 1999. It made a lot of people feel duped into feeling the film was hyped for no reason and they took it out on other aspects of the film. 

And if I am being honest, I don’t even consider The Blair Witch Project the best film to incorporate the found footage technique in 1999. I reserve that honour for Daisuke Yamanouchi’s extreme, slightly pornographic, horror pseudo-documentary Celluloid Nightmares and its inclusion of “found” snuff film segments. 

But regardless of who wins the who-was-first-found-footage argument- which involves films like the controversial (poor turtle) Cannibal Holocaust, the freaky made-for-television BBC special Ghostwatch and the somewhat forgettable The Last Broadcast– The Blair Witch Project was the first found-footage film to become popular with mainstream audiences globally. It may not have created the genre, but it is the film that has had the most profound impact on it. Prior to The Blair Witch Project, young independent filmmakers were mostly trying their hand at imitating Tarantino-type crime films or creating misfit comedies for Gen Xers. But The Blair Witch Project showed budding young filmmakers that horror was perhaps a cheaper and quicker genre to make your mark. All you needed was the right idea. 

It could be an idea as simple as a filmmaker (Heather), a cameraman (Josh) and a sound technician (Mike) enter into a supposedly haunted forest while shooting a documentary about a legend of a witch that dates back to 1785. 

But before the film starts, we are told through a title card that we are seeing the actual footage shot by the crew that was recovered in 1995, a year after they mysteriously disappeared.

The film starts with the crew meeting, buying supplies and interviewing the members of the town of Burkittsville, formerly known as Blair, about the many local legends surrounding the witch. One older man tells the story of Rustin Parr, the abductor and murderer of seven children in 1940. Parr was eventually arrested by police in his house in the forest where they found seven bodies carved up with weird symbols. Another eccentric woman claims to have encountered the witch as a girl while she was fishing with her father. She describes her as being covered in fur.

I’d like to pause the summary here to state how much I appreciate this portion of the film. The locals tell stories that are conflicting and separated by decades. But Myrick and Sánchez actually shot other pseudo-documentary style footage that told the legend of the Blair Witch in greater detail and this could have been used in this movie, but it would have come at the expense of the film’s “found” authenticity. This additional, more polished, footage was eventually edited into a dvd extra called The Curse of the Blair Witch. Instead, the directors wisely made the decision to use only the “found” footage that would have been shot by Heather, Josh or Mike because they thought it was their most compelling footage. And, quite frankly, I really enjoy the disjointed fashion that information about the witch is doled out in these early scenes. It respects the audience’s intelligence and assumes that we can connect how Parr’s crimes parallel those of the witch on our own. Or that we have the listening skills required to remember how interviewees described what Parr did to kids in the basement. The 40-minute pseudo-documentary The Curse of the Blair Witch provides us much clearer details, even showing camera-reel footage of Parr in prison, but we don’t really need it to understand the gist of the witch’s disturbing presence in the community. Still, it’s kind of neat that more content is out there for anyone who wants to dive a bit deeper into the film’s lore.

When the crew does go into the forest planning on a three night stay, things start off fairly well. They find Coffin Rock and Heather narrates the century-old tale of how a search party went looking for a missing girl and were all found dead with their entrails out and strange symbols etched into their skin. Heather then pushes the group deeper into the woods to find an old burial ground, but it’s clear she is having trouble reading the map and the film shoot falls behind schedule. Eventually, they stumble upon a weird series of seven rock piles assumed to be the burial ground and Josh accidentally disturbs one of the piles while filming. 

And that puts an end to the quiet nights camping.

Admittedly, how scary you find the day scenes of The Blair Witch Project will largely depend on how frightening you find mysterious symbols made by sticks and rocks. But I can’t think of a single film that has made the trope of a lost group going around in circles seem so frightening in its implication. The film’s horror works mostly on a psychological level, which makes a lot of sense after you’ve seen the film. At its core, The Blair Witch Project is really more a film about the deteriorating mental states of its three cursed protagonists than it is its title character. And this is what caused a lot of the divisive opinions on the film over the years. The title implies that this will be a supernatural horror, but The Blair Witch Project really leans more into psychological horror, expecting viewers to use their imaginations to fill in many of the supernatural blanks. Myrick and Sánchez prove that you don’t need special effects to nail that feeling of impending doom.

The night scenes also reinforce this point, bombarding us with sounds that would bring anybody lost in a forest hiding in their tent to a panic. Here’s where the mental games the witch is playing are at their cruelest. As a fan of really nasty villains, I admire the way she toys with her prey. She’s pretty evil.

I’ve spoken in other reviews about the innate ability of found footage to terrify and I know I was scared sitting in the theater back in 1999. And though I have perspective on The Blair Witch Project‘s limitations, the film is on The Midnight Selections because I can still appreciate it for what it accomplishes. Sure, I am one of those people who wish there was at least one scene with a witch there to jump scare the Hell out of me. But damn, that very last image of the film is one of the most chilling and memorable endings I have ever seen in any movie. When I left that theater in 1999 I didn’t feel cheated, I felt in awe. But I also felt like The Blair Witch Project left some meat on the table that future directors would feast on, which is partially why I hold a film like [REC] in such high regard. 

Plus the often improvised acting in The Blair Witch Project is spot on. Donahue may have earned a Razzie, but she was also awarded Best Actress at the Chainsaw Awards. Her tent monologue is now seen as an iconic moment in the history of cinema. And the escalating fear she and her crewmates exhibit throughout the film feels genuine. 

And that knock I made earlier about The Blair Witch Project not being as good as Celluloid Nightmares left out some context. Anybody who has read my reviews knows that I have a bias towards extreme films and dark humour. And Celluloid Nightmares has two scenes that provide an almost unrivaled metacritique on society’s enjoyment of extreme and/or pornographic material. It’s alright to be second to Celluloid Nightmares because Celluloid Nightmares is brillant, over-the-top and absolutely insane in a way that was only being done at the time in Japan.

There are reasons why the two attempts to extend The Blair Witch Project franchise have both been considered failures. (Both sequels have even lower CinemaScores than the original.) They had much larger budgets, added special effects and even included their own interpretation of the witch, but they failed to capture on the hypnotic, atmospheric charm of the original. Still, if you enjoyed The Blair Witch Project you might want to check them out for curiosity’s sake. Just keep expectations low. 

For a rushed sequel, Joe Berlinger’s Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) is kind of bonkers in its obvious disdain for the source material. It completely sidelines the found footage format to tell a clunky meta-narrative about blindly trusting media. Realistic, relatable characters like Heather, Josh and Mike are completely tossed aside, replaced by Erica the wiccan, Kim the goth clairvoyant and a former asylum patient named Jeff. (No joke.) And more of this film takes place in an abandoned factory than it does in the forest outside of Burkittsville. There is ambition in the story Berlinger tries to tell, but it oozes of misguided conceit. 

On the other hand, Adam Wingard’s The Blair Witch (2016) actually does make the sequel I always thought I wanted- one that’s heavy on scares. This time the witch gets extra nasty in that Maryland forest, but it comes at the expense of character development and atmosphere. Wingard tries to make the film’s final act an intense balls-to-the-wall experience, but the shakey first-person camerawork and bizarre character choices make the chaos hard to follow. Sadly, this film’s pacing feels off and except for those two scenes where the witch appears, there really are no significant stand out moments- so it too falls short of recapturing the magic of the original.

It’s probably worth noting that both Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 and The Blair Witch were studio creations that got completed with little involvement from the original directors. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there somewhere for Blumhouse – as they soon will be trying their own hand at a Blair Witch reboot.

When people are able to shake off the disappointment of what The Blair Witch Project isn’t, then it’s easy to appreciate the film for what it is and the legacy it holds. The Blair Witch Project is one of the best examples of a film that relies solely on atmosphere, technique and a good awareness of audience psychology to create its scares. Its low budget and can-do attitude helped inspire a new generation of independent filmmakers and popularized found footage horror as a genre. It is a film that had a profound impact on the direction of horror, particularly modern horror, after the turn of the century. 

Decades removed from its true-story marketing gimmick, The Blair Witch still remains a film that all horror fans and cinephiles should see.