it's kinda sad kids today don't appreciate this film as much as we did. This was so crazy and innovative in 1999.. So many films have bit off of this film but in the end this was and is still the best found footage horror movie ever.
I remember when I was kid watched that movie in theater movies on 1999 and that made me very scared shitless then tonight I with my parents on the bed for a weeks. This movie are awesome than other horror movies. Blair witch sequels looks lame. First movie is a legend
I think Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 got an unfair beating because it wasn't supposed to be a paint by number rehash of the first movie. Director Joe Berlinger was best known as a documentary filmmaker, and the angle he took was exploring the power of belief and what exactly is reality. Once I accepted that, I found the biggest problem was having the script undecided as to whether Elly Kedward herself was history or hoax. If the first movie was fake, where did the couple from Boston get all this research from? They would then switch to going on about the hysteric aspect of belief as if there was nothing but TBWP to key off of. That kind of messed with my suspension of disbelief quite a bit. The newest Blair Witch started out okay; even with the introduction of Heather's younger brother from out of nowhere, but it soon fell into way too many jump scares toward the end. Still, I would like to see a prequel about Elly Kedward; since it was sort of promised since 1999. If done right, an origin story for the Blair Witch could be cool.
I feel like watching the mockmentarys and reading the website is a must do before you sit down and watch the film. It helps get your head into that time in history. Absolutely loved the movie, fucking terrifying.
@ED S I feel like watching the mockmentarys and reading the website is a must do before you sit down and watch the film. It helps get your head into that time in history. Absolutely loved the movie, fucking terrifying.
They're psychological character differences made it scary, how one would really feel if you were lost in the woods. No other film like this are as good as this film
It's a shame to see what these guys went through with the production company and post-release phase.. I'll always be awe-struck with their incredible performances in a movie that legitimately changed my life (became obsessed with horror mythology, now work in art direction). Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams are names I will always respect. I've followed their endeavors post-BWP and think they are capable, talented fucking artists. On a side note: Mary Brown always scared the shit out of me and completely set the tone for the rest of the film. She totally sold the mythology.
She looked like a real old school idea of a witch to me. I thought it was possibly her for a while until I kept watching. Mary Brown was a sweet person though and I think she really nailed her part. She did a lot with a little. She seemed totally authentic.
@@uNkLeRaRa4 You're right. I remembered that after making my comment, but didn't think it worth it to edit it. I should have said "very little blood," especially when compared with your run-of-the-mill horror film. My overall opinion about BWP remains the same.
what i love is that my uncle made me believe this was a real found footage movie in 2008 ( i was 14) that gave me the exprience that people had in the 90s
Lovely to see heather Mike and josh have retained how down to earth and genuine they all are, probably a blessing in disguise they steered clear of Hollywood
You can tell Mike is a really genuine and cool dude. It’s awesome that he is not bitter about anything and looks back and the experience with no regrets.
when I seen this alone in the theatres, I didnt know it was fake. the ending and the part with the kids really messed with me. at the time, my house was REALLY haunted. I remember sitting in my car for about a half hour contemplating whether to go in the house or sleep in my car. lol
And like Mike said, once you loose that, it's not as impactfull. I remember going to see this in the theaters and seeing a sign at the ticket booth saying " If you have any information on the whereabouts of Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Lenerd call you local police department" that made it real for me
No, it was genius because they made a huge ass profit off of it. I think the budget for this film was like 60,000 and they ended up making close to 300 million. That's genius.
Nah it wouldn't. It's how the internet was at the time. There wasn't really a website or a forum talking about this sort of thing. So...because this was a real sleeper of a movie, it ended up benefiting it.
The audiences that viewed the 1999 original fall into one of two categories - They either loved or hated it. I was one of the former, and definitely not the latter. This film turned my whole movie-going world completely upside down. To really make it even more intense for me, I have always loved (and still do) forest hiking. For that reason, it hit home even harder. What gets me with movies....any movie....isn't the big dramatic things, but the little things. The sorts of things that can almost seem dull and mundane, but have a sense of realism that you can identify with on a personal level. For me, the anger and frustration that Michael had towards Heather for getting them lost, and then finally losing his temper, with Josh trying to act as the calming intermediary the whole time....that really got to me. And the scene of finding Josh's teeth (if that's what they were?), wrapped up in some torn fabric....during the DAY. Then I knew this movie was something else....like nothing ever before. Hard to describe. Not just scary, but unsettling. Really got me to my bones. Like the interviewer said - 6:13 - the movie really was "lightning in a bottle".
..A revolutionary film that never really got the respect that it deserves. It will go down as one of the greatest Horror movies of all time and I don't care who you were....if you saw this back in 1999 and then had to go walking through a park at night to get home you were terrified.
Man, I had to go to one of those weird wilderness programs in high school not long after it came out. Had to camp out in WVA for a month. Just had that feeling of "when we gonna die?" the whole time
I remember seeing this movie with friends in Huntington Beach, CA on Main Street. It scared us all silent. We all left that theater and didn't say a word to each other the entire walk back to our cars. The film is part of my collection now and I obviously know the ending and the truth, but it's still pretty terrifying to this day. Good to see their faces again after all this time.
I saw this film when I was a kid like back in 2000 on VHS. I swear to god, I didn't sleep that night. The film truly haunted me for a week straight. This probably is still the scariest film i've ever experienced.
The Blair Witch Project is a monolith of a film in terms of what it did for horror, found footage and internet marketing. There will never, ever be a phenomenon quite like how BWP's hype was in 1999 leading up to the release.
i went to see this movie alone... I still remember sitting in the movie theatre being scared shit less ....very disappointed to find out the next day it was fake....LOL
Heather is hilarious! I love hearing what she has to say. It appears she has an upcoming acting credit on her IMDB for the first time since 2008. I hope this marks a successful return to the business for her.
Well, I just saw this movie for the first time a few weeks ago. I never read or saw any spoilers, didn't even know the premise. All I've known all this time was that it was a horror movie, and the title made me think it was going to be about witches...like, Salem witches. Having finally watched it this year, this film scared the shit out of me and I started sleeping with the light on. I guess I am a total puss, but I have seen many horror films before seeing TBWP which didn't scare me in the least. This one...as I was falling asleep, I kept seeing that parcel of blood, teeth, and hair and Mike standing in the corner. The atmosphere, suspense, and suggestion in this film was great, in my opinion. I am the sort of person who gets more frightened by internet creepypasta and a film like Blair Witch rather than overt or gory horrors about demons/ghosts running around someone's house that just don't seem believable. The thing about Blair Witch was that it hinted at something supernatural without ever coming out and really BEING supernatural. And for what it's worth, part of what makes the film so timeless is that none of them ARE famous actors. If I had gone into it and immediately been hit with someone who is now super-famous, that would have ruined my suspension of disbelief and I would have just been immediately aware that obviously this famous actor lives and the whole thing wasn't real. So while I do think that Heather, Mike, and Josh should have been paid better given the film's success, it is cool that I could watch it this many years after it was released and not have the realism disturbed by a famous face.
when I saw it first time I couldn't sleep about a week !! only sleeping in morning 🥲💔 , that was terrifying and I still love this movie , it 's looks like real amazing , and of course I've seen the 2nd one first and than after many year I saw the first one , and actually the first one mutch better than the 2nd one ! 👌💯
I saw it in 1999 when o was 10 and thinking that it was real and while it obviously scared me because of my age and what I thought, I didn't have to sleep with the lights on lol but never forgot it.
Congratulations my friend, you're one of few left with an imagination. I saw this film opening weekend but even now at age 41 it's still the only film to ever actually frighten me.
Very well-said. That's a good point about them not getting famous. I never considered that. Their subsequent lack of fame helps to insure this movie's future impact.
That was really nice to watch. One of the best panel discussions I've seen. What a bunch of shits the studios were. They should have given each of them a million bucks.
Couldn't agree more. A million apiece wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of millions the movie made. And the production company sent them a damn *fruit basket* when it hit $100 million. Especially considering how the company tormented them to get real reactions. This is capitalism at work.
@@blueberreez I haven’t finish the vid yet but wow none of them got even 1mill for the work they did???? Wtf. They spent 8 days in the woods (literally camping at specified locations via handheld GPS) and were literally deprived of food on purpose and also chased those one or two nights by the art director and crew. But otherwise for the most part they were basically alone and starved and forced to walk long distances to the next location. over $200mill and NONE of them got even 0.01% of the money THEY reeled in. That’s really disgusting and angering to know. Heather had major difficulty finding a role in anything afterwards because she was synonymous with the genre of this film. At least they all could have gotten the amount they deserved from the insane profits!!! Capitalism ya’ll. That’s sick
@@sylviabennan Exactly. These guys WERE the movie. They sold the fear, paranoia and insanity. Yeh the directors etc were the masterminds with the world building etc but it's Josh, Heather and Mike we all think about when looking back on this movie. I wonder how much both directors got?
I was 13 in the summer of 1999 and I remember that was the summer of Woodstock 99, columbine massacre had just happened it was the biggest story of the year...and I remember seeing the trailer to this movie and they were saying it was the scariest since the exorcist.
which is ironic as the actress of the possessed girl in The Exorcist is named Linda Blair, seriously no kidding, she had a tiny cameo as a reporter in the first Scream film
I was 13 in 1999 as well and the only thing I can add was all the fun times doing things with friends and playing PS1 together during the winter months. Good times. For me, it seems the world changed after 9/11.
To me. The feeling never changed. I still find it unsettling and real. But again, I grew up in a small town . With the woods completely around me. The acting comes off so real. That you forget every single time, that its a movie. And its not real.
In my opinion what makes the movie scary/ creepy wasn't the spiritual side of it for me it's that hopeless feeling of being completely lost in the woods and cut off from any help i can't speak for everyone but when they're all screaming and yelling that was what got me
that’s def what helped make it so effective: it’s eerily easy to get lost in a state park, with some parks being thousands of acres. I’ve heard stories from friends who were hiking who met lost hikers that got separated from their group, and I even got lost on a daytime hike with that same group of friends. It’s crazy because I was a novice hiker and I had the right trail/map in my mind, and they were way more experienced yet they got us all lost and had ignored me when I said “hey it looks like we just passed the right trail?”... then after two hours of hiking towards nowhere they finally went “oh” and we turned back. so yeah it’s scary knowing how even experienced hikers can get lost.
What an articulate, honest, intelligent, likable trio. I’m genuinely appreciative of this interview...especially fifteen years removed from this iconic film.
awesome video..thanks for posting it..The Blair Witch is my favorite movie of this type. I remember my wife and me going to see it in the theater..we instantly LOVED it..I still watch it about 2-3x a year..Just brilliant..too bad so many dont have the imagination to see it..
When I watch the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT for the first time there was one seen when you hear the children laughing and making noise outside the tent, that scared the HELL out of me
It's so weird watching them all talk 15 years later. It's like the characters from the movie in wacky costumes and wigs. I would have so many questions for them! Glad Josh got his teeth back.
Being A horror fanatic,I think the Blair Witch documentary was A great film. Ive seen it many times and everytime I watched it,I immersed myself in the movie to feel like I was actually their with Heather,Mike and Josh,being lost in the woods and getting stalked by elle the witch made for A creepy satisfying atmosphere.Truly A one of A kind fictional horror documentary.
I was 14 when this came out; I remember seeing it in theaters and loved it! There were woods behind where I lived and my house had a lot of windows; for a good while I was so scared to look out the windows at night after seeing the film!
I remember as a young teen in the summer of 2001 i worked my ass of by cutting the lawn from neighbours, delivering newspapers and washing trucks to save up money for a dvd player. But not much was left to buy any movies. So a friend gave me his dvd from the Blair Witch Project, since he wasn't that fascinated by the story. For an entire year this Movie was the only one i was able to watch, because i couldn't watch tv in my room. I watched it every night when i went to bed, making me remember every single sentence that was spoken in this movie. And still today i watch this movie at least once in a month and i still can speak the whole movie with the actors. The end though creeped me out back then and i always switched off before they entered the house. For this reason i fell in love with found footage movies of any kind, and its ignorant how many negative critics this genre gets. Especially the BWP deserves more respect. This is one, if not the best horror movie ever made, since most of us really thought it might be real and no other horror movie could scare me that much, because you always knew that right behind the camera stands an operator with his headset on. In the BWP you know that this is not the case. Allthough if the BWP would came out these days it wouldn't be the same, since everyone would instantly yell that it's fake ruining the immersion. And i think the immersion is what fascinated us the most back then. Today, if you had doubts at all, you would google on your smartphone while still being in the cinema and would know its not real in a matter of seconds. In 1999-2001 it was not that easy to fact check things online.
I am a huge horror movie buff. I’ve seen it all and nothing has scared me more than The Blair Witch. I have seen it over 50 times and it still gives me the chills. One of the best movies.
The first film which made smart use of the internet to generate a buzz. And unlike many films which have done so since, this one had something they didn't...MYSTIQUE!
I saw this film opening weekend when I believed it was 100% real. I've been a horror fanatic since I was in diapers so I thought there's no way this film will scare me. But holy shit...it did! The way it was shot and the realistic acting had me convinced this was actual found footage. I was literally in a state of shock when we left the theater; I couldn't talk, I could barely move and I had tears streaming down my face. I felt paralyzed. I will never forget that feeling so kudos to them for making a small project turn out to be the scariest movie in history (imo).
When Mike says "Oh sh*t, it's a house." the viewer is absolutely horrified for them. That house was the first sign of civilization in days and it looked like the most frightening place ever.
Man I was sooo creeped out when this came out... I'm 38 now and it's cool because my younger cousins and friends of my stepchildren aged 15 to 20 have virtually never heard of the original Blair Witch. So when they ask me for a horror movie I put this on and tell them it was real and watch them freak out til the end.
I can remember being in the theater...it was dead quite because everyone was so into what was happening. An experience I will never forget. This was a great horror movie!
I still never yet watched this movie. I stumbled onto this video and decided to watch. I very much enjoyed this video. One would think with the amount of money this movie made, all three of them would have been cut a decent sized cheque. I hate cheap people. The moderator James Wallace, very enjoyable.
Well, you get what you're contracted for like everybody else. $1000 a day in 1997 was great for young, unknown actors working on an indie project. And no one knew then it would be picked up for major release. Blame the studio if you like, but if you expect morals from those guys... hahaha
The Blair Witch was a perfect example of a particular kind of horror, in which what the viewer doesn't see is the center of the fear. 'The Haunting' of 1963 is another good example. You know something, potentially dangerous and even outright evil, is behind the phenomena portrayed in the story but you never truly see it. It takes fear of the unknown and unseen to that particular level that many would rather avoid.
That was GREAT...very informative and funny. LOVE the movie, still creeps me out and still get goosebumps. The movie has been playing for the last few days here...
What really drew me in, even before seeing the movie itself, was the amazingly inventive marketing campaign. The Blair Witch Project featured one of the first Internet viral campaigns for a movie, and that was a huge factor in making the movie into a sensation. It worked so well that _millions of people thought the movie footage was real._ For those who weren't around or were too young to remember, the movie "website" was purposely made to look amateurish, as if it had been created by search volunteers who weren't html-savvy. The main page was dominated by an image of the very official-looking Missing posters and included a plea for any information as to the whereabouts of the students. There were blurry scans of Heather's diary, with the early pages documenting her plans for the film project and the later pages revealing her increasingly panicked state as the film team finds themselves lost in the woods. Heather's research on the legend of the Blair Witch (itself a masterwork in building a convincing legend) were scanned from her messy handwritten notes on spiral notebook paper. You could find grainy Polaroid images of the filmmakers screwing around in Burkittsville before heading into the woods. Everything about that website looked *real.* It was carefully crafted to look like these campers were indeed lost and their families were desperate for any information. It made the experience of finally watching the movie that much more terrifying because it felt like this was actually some kind of snuff film and I was watching three young people get killed.
Poor kid seems so nervous interviewing these guys lol. Blair Witch to this day is one of my favorite movies of all time. Not just favorite horror. Favorite period.
great to see u guys alive- i remember driving home from cinema on my malaguti 50cc and fearing that everything I saw in the cinema was real- internet wasn a grown up thing at that time and I really felt unsave. My house is built on the edge of a big forrest...and I slept with my shotgun in my bed for 2 months.....and after that 2 months I slept with my shotgun 20 more years. thx for that. :D
Nice to see Heather Donahue there because I had kind of assumed that when she gave up Hollywood (and burned all her mementos of that career?), to become a pot farmer, she'd be like Christopher Lee with Dracula, like "Don't talk to me about it!!", and just distance herself. Nice to see she's still proud to be associated with it.
She should be. I get all the hype back when it came out and detractors… but I think, all these years later it’s amassed quite the cult following and many horror fans (myself included) consider it one of the most unique and frankly greatest horror films of all time.
@@SFforlife I seems, though, that she really has now distanced herself from the film. She was paid a big wad of money in 2016 to use her likeness in the sequel, Blair Witch, and she said that she used this money to basically go on one long bender. After getting sober she says that she moved to Maine, became a Buddhist and changed her name to Rei Hance. The name change being at least partly to get away from being known for this film.
I really appreciate what you guys did, and I loved this real interview, much like what you did with the film itself. I really thought it was true; my regret is that one day before I was going to see it, the myth had been dispelled by some thing I accidentally saw on the computer. I really thought it was real! And I am NOT that person; I am naturally cynical and not very trusting of people or things. Anyway, I still don't get why you didn't get parts after this film (I understand what you were saying and why it happened that way); I remember looking for you in other films or tv and was sad I never really got to see any of the 3 of you. Thank you so much for your performances, for the movie, and for this interview. :-) And thanks James Wallace! You are adorable and did a great job with this!
and now this year is coming up 20th anniversary from premiere in 99!! cant believe its been 20 years!! hope we will get even more Blair witch movies after 2016 one