10 Things You Didnt Know About Blair Witch Project

[Music] in 1999 there was a movie that hit theaters a movie that shocked movie audiences and left them in a profound state of terror and disbelief apart from that one there was one that was so shocking there are even stories of how it left people having seizures and even throwing up because of just how spine-tingling Lee terrifying it was this was in fact the story of the Blair Witch Project the premise was a simple yet brilliant one in 1994 three film students Heather Josh and Michael go into the middle of the woods in a town called Burkittsville Maryland to investigate and film a documentary about the legend of an old creepy witch only they never returned and now here is their footage that was recovered I can actually remember at the time many people thought that this was real and that we were watching a movie about three kids being hunted down by some strange supernatural force the Blair Witch Project gave birth to the modern found-footage craze a craze that is still going on even to this day and even though we all now know it was just a movie there are still great debates with many questions like is this the story about a witch or about paranoia and fear and frustration and vulnerability about being lost and out of your comfort zone could all the so called supernatural events in the movies be the work of one of the campers and just what enough was up with that eerie scene at the end well time to get out the tent along with the other camping gear as we check out ten things that you may not know about the Blair Witch Project we won't be roasting marshmallows by the fire in this expedition number 10 there was no script well yeah there was no script per se but rather an outline the idea of The Blair Witch Project was written in 1993 by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez but in order for the movie to feel real they wanted the dialogue to be improvised by the actors playing the parts so it was more of an idea of a script actress haven't Donahue said to her audition was a test to see how good she was at improvisation where she was told that she was a jail inmate who had been in jail for nine years and had to convince the parole board that she should be let out and it was her ability to not hesitate and to just naturally give her a dialogue that got her the part in fact not only was there very little script but also very little directing as the free main actors literally were camping in the middle of the woods and each day they would find their individual script with GPS trackers which instructed them what to do but once again no actual script as the dialogue was to be improvised and each actor couldn't see the other actors script in order to keep their reactions realistic and unexpected Wow it's no wonder the Blair Witch feels so shocking and realistic once you know this number 9 promoting the men one of the greatest aspects of the movie when it came out is that some people generally thought the movie was real and that we were actually watching lost footage of a small documentary film crew who had gone missing while being stalked by a mysterious supernatural force a saying that was being used at the time was that the movie was scarier than hell and was so scary and traumatic the movie was actually making people vomit because what they were watching was just so damn scary however something that people seem to have missed is the fact that the movies leading actress Heather Donahue actually went on a late-night chat show to promote the movie yeah this totally kills off any ideas or possibilities that the movie is real now granted the actors of the movies were largely kept away from the press and public Heights helped promote the idea that they were in fact all dead but still how did this interview slip by the radar with us still thinking that the movie was indeed real found footage in fact people were so sure that the movie was real Heather Donahue's mom had received sympathy cards from people who actually believed that her daughter had died I guess it's a shame that people didn't actually see this TV interview of heaven Donahue promoting the movie oh yeah and the claims that the movie was making people vomit was due to the shakiness of the hand-held camera footage not because it was just too scary for some people but hey news of moviegoers puking just helped the notorious marketing of the movie number 8 no help from a 1960s rock band so as we all know the movie starts off with our free Maine young leads hopping into a car to start the terrifying ordeal they unwittingly are aware that they're getting themselves in form and as a foreshadowing of their impending doom and being trapped in the woods Myrick and Sanchez wanted to have the animal song we've got to get out of this place playing in the car radio [Music] as a terrifying precursor that the students need to get out of the woods which although would have been clever I think might have just been a little bit too obvious by regardless the movies production couldn't get the rights to use the song so that idea was unavailable they were however able to use the rights to talk about Gilliam's Island for that scene where ever compares Josh and Michael to Gilliam and the captain yeah apparently you need permission to even talk about a movie or TV show number seven the movie was nominated for a Razzie although the Blair Witch Project seemed to be well received upon its release and is now considered a classic horror movie it didn't stop the Razzies from coming after the Blair Witch as the resi organization was so outraged by the Blair Witch Project it was nominated for worst picture Wow just wow so the same year the Phantom Menace comes out it's the Blair Witch Project that the raises go after well then again the Razzies also hated The Shining as well as it received several nominations including for worst director Stanley Kubrick so clearly the raises don't get it right all the time and the popular consensus clearly doesn't agree with the Razzies opinions on the Blair Witch Project as the movie currently holds a score of 87 percent on Rotten Tomatoes number 6 the movie did ridiculously well for its budget [Music] the movie was just shot in eight days and the three main actors were given $1,000 a day for their contributions to the project while they were filming in the woods where they were living on a diet of power bars and bananas which is hardly surprising I mean after all the movies entire budget was $60,000 which is insanely low when compared to mainstream Hollywood movies however the movie would go on to make a staggering 248 million proving that not all films have to have a big glossy Hollywood budget along with big special effects and actors all it took for the Blair Witch crew were some camcorders and three actors who are game enough to go camping in some creepy old woods and voila the movie became a financial mega giant and even earned itself a place in the Guinness World Records for highest-grossing movie with smallest budget speaking of the filming the shoot actually wrapped up on October the 31st 1997 the night of Halloween of all nights the film's gritty cheap camcorder approach somehow makes it scarier and adds to the gritty realism by the way the scene where we see a homemade basket made out of sticks with teeth and hair featured real teeth which were donated by director Eduardo Sanchez's dentist and the hair was well Josh's real hair of course number 5 the real terror of Burkittsville [Music] nope the real tariff Burkittsville marylande is not the Blair Witch but a herd of fans who flocked to the town when the movie reached huge popularity unfortunately this led to the town being trashed and vandalized the once quiet town was now plagued by an onslaught of enthusiastic fans who wanted to celebrate The Legend of The Blair Witch while also disrespecting the locals and destroying [ __ ] numerous times the town's sign had been stolen along with headstones from the graveyard proving that sometimes fans can just be the worst number for the infamous close-up shot was an accident [Music] we all know that chilling moment where just before the movies final act that have a character is talking in terror into the camera while copious amounts of tears and snot runs down her face what makes it so scary is that the heifer character is basically giving up and she's admitting that she knows she's going to suffer a terrible death and never get out of these woods along with that very uncomfortable closeup in fact that image is so iconic it even became the main focus on the movies poster in fact it might just be the first thing that pops into people's heads when they think about the Blair Witch Project however the shot was a complete accident never meant to get her full head into the camera but where she turned the camera around she accidentally pushed the zoom button creating this creepy and unique closeup so the most famous piece of imagery associated with the Blair Witch happen because ever accidentally press the button now that is what I call a happy accident number three the original movie was 19 hours long [Music] so after eight days of solid filming directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Meyer was left with a whopping 19 hours of footage which took them a painful eight months to edit along with deciding what scenes should stay and what scenes should go so what we see in the final film is just a tiny amount compared to the rest of the filming duration the footage was eventually cut down to a two-and-a-half-hour movie which Berber got edited down to a 90-minute theatrical running time however some of the footage cut from the two-and-a-half hour version of the movie did make it onto the Blair Witch mockumentary which was broadcast on TV to help promote the film number two the relationship of hover and Josh [Music] one of the most terrifying aspects of the movie is the tension that grows between its characters as the desperation of getting out the wood intensifies and something that may have been added to the awkward tension is the fact that in the original script Heather and Josh were originally ex-lovers I'm guessing this was done to add to the conflict that bruise when the main protagonist start to panic after being lost for a while but really the ex relationship thing isn't really needed I mean the kids are lost in the woods that's scary enough it doesn't need the added backstory of a failed relationship either way your ex is probably the last person you would want to get lost in the woods with yeah awkward number one appearance of the witch the Blair Witch Project is about the feeling of being hunted without actually seeing on knowing what is hunting you and sometimes not seeing is way more scarier than actually showing however originally the Blair Witch herself was going to appear in the movie she was to be a woman in a white gown and an actor was actually on the set and was meant to be filmed in a scene where we see the main characters running around in terror the cameraman was meant to pan to the left where he would get a brief glimpse of the Blair Witch but all because the cameraman forgot to pan left the shot was never filmed and I am so glad this was never filmed as it would have taken away the ambiguity of not knowing what exactly is going on in the Blair Witch some fans have claimed that the kids are just lost and it's about the increasing paranoia where there are other claims where the events were planned by Michael and Josh to torment and kill Heather but either way not knowing and not seeing is way more scarier than if we actually saw a witch and I like the idea that maybe the story isn't even supernatural in the 2016 direct sequel Blair Witch which by the way is awful we do get glimpses of the Blair Witch at the end which I think kind of ruins it and just makes it something cliche and generic but thanks to the cameraman forgetting to pan left what would have already been a creepy movie was then made into a memorable classic one well guys that was my look into the Blair Witch Project and although there have been many movies like its sense like Cloverfield and Paranormal Activity I still think that the Blair Witch Project is the best of the bunch as it was ambitious and unique for its time and took risks and proved that you don't need a huge budget in order for a movie to do really really well and I still generally think it's a really creepy movie anyway I'm minty and I won't be filming in the woods anytime soon see ya [Music] [Music]

Channel: Minty Comedic Arts

Views: 263,455

Rating: 4.8720002 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: AftINvV3gX8

Length: 14min 50sec (890 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 27 2018