By 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.
Horror behemoth Blumhouse and old guard Lions Gate have announced they are teaming up to reimagine THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, the film credited with spawning a whole new horror genre and cottage industry: found footage. This announcement is part of a larger deal where Blumhouse will help breath new life into Lions Gate’s vault of horror classics, starting with Blair Witch. Color me interested.
It’s too soon to speculate about the project, so while this resurrection is getting sorted out, let me make good use of my time and put Blair Witch into the proper perspective, even if it’s only an exercise in providing you with trivia and talking point in advance of the new take on the content being released some time in the future. You have nothing to lose…
The plot, like most of the film, is simple enough: In 1994 three aspiring filmmakers (two camera ops and sound tech) trek into the woods to make a short-form documentary about a local legend and go missing; their footage is found a year later. That simple concept, coupled with the exaggerated hand-held cinéma-vérité approach later dubbed “shaky cam,” came together for a winning formula that far exceeded what the film’s creative brain-trusts, Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick, had ever imagined. And that’s an understatement.
Part of what attracted droves to want to watch Blair Witch was the novelty of seeming to experience the real-life documentation of the trio’s tragic end that can only be likened to the need to turn away from a horrific car accident with the innate desire to watch. Those diametrically opposing emotions are what propelled the gritty VHS docu-style movie as one of the highest grossing films of its kind, earning $249 million world wide—not a bad ROI on the initial 40K budget. Even after the news of the nauseating effects of the “shaky cam” got out (a movie-going experience that I cannot stomach to this day), patrons kept lining up to see it. Once the film made its way to VHS/DVD, most who had already seem the film hit the repeat button and rushed to their local video stores to reserve a hard-to-find rental copy, or purchased the film outright at “take-it-home” outlets (Blockbuster anyone?).
“A Timeline of Major Events in the History of The Blair Witch” – EXCLUSIVE
Another tool that exponentially expanded interest in Blair Witch was the companion website the filmmakers created, “Blairwitch.com” (which now points to the Mother Ship), that included a 200-year timeline that intricately laid out the history of “The Township of Blair was located in North Central Maryland, two hours from Washington, D.C.,” a publicity novelty at the time. This website helped create a mythos around the film that no marketing dollars would have delivered, and further blurred the lines between coordinated film commerce and tragic reality, the perfect car wreck for the curious morbid eye.
Take a peek at the original website. Thanks to the WayBack Machine Gods for having archived this content!
Jason Blum credits Blair Witch for laying the seminal groundwork that led to his own precedent-setting success and franchise that helped build his kingdom: “I don’t think there would have been a Paranormal Activity [2007] had there not first been a Blair Witch, so this feels like a truly special opportunity and I’m excited to see where it leads.”
While I have you in the throes of nostalgia, take a look back at the trailer for the original “shaky cam” footage that started it all in 1999 —
You’re welcome. 🙂
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