THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999): 25 YEARS IN THE WOODS!!!

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) d. Daniel Myrick/Ed Sanchez (USA)
BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 (2000) d. Joe Berlinger (USA)
BLAIR WITCH (2016) d. Adam Wingard (USA)

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Low-budget horror filmmakers take note: You can make an original and frightening film for barely any money; it simply requires a fresh approach and more imagination than Karo syrup. Witness 1999’s groundbreaking sensation from co-creators Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, The Blair Witch Project. The slender premise sees three college students go into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland in October 1994 to record footage for their documentary about the mythical Blair Witch. They are never heard from again. One year later, their footage is discovered, and later assembled by authorities in an attempt to learn their fate and potential whereabouts. What we are presented... is that footage.

EXISTS (2014) movie review

Exists (2014) d. Eduardo Sanchez (USA) 86 min.

“Since 1967, there have been over 3,000 Bigfoot encounters in the U.S. alone. Experts agree the creatures are only violent if provoked.”

So begins Exists, which marks Sanchez’s noteworthy return to the “found footage” format that he and co-director Daniel Myrick helped popularize in the summer of 1999 with their wildly successful indie venture The Blair Witch Project. But what a difference a decade and a half can make; in the age of the iPhone, the faux documentary style that was once a novelty has become a Hollywood-adopted subgenre, and the question of “Why would they keep filming?” has been answered a billion times over by countless YouTube video subjects far less interesting than mysterious dangling stick figures or hairy missing links.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) movie review

Blair Witch Project, The (1999) d. Myrick, Daniel/Sanchez, Eduardo (USA)

(I also invite everyone to check out our heated 2011 round table discussion over on Kitley's Krypt as part of the Cinematic Crossroads program.)

All you low-budget horror filmmakers out there take note: You can make an astonishingly original and frightening film for barely any money at all; it simply requires a fresh approach and more imagination than Karo syrup. Witness this groundbreaking and box office shattering sensation from first timers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, which takes the premise of a trio of student documentarians wandering around a forested area of Maryland and manifests a shining example of minimalist “theatre of the mind.”

V/H/S/2 (2013) movie review

V/H/S/2 (2013) (1st viewing) d. Barrett, Eisener, Evans, Tjahjanto, Sanchez, Hale, Wingard (USA)

In the ongoing anthology sweepstakes spawned by 2011’s The Theatre Bizarre, wherein skilled independent directors pool their talents by tying individually created short films together with a central conceit, last year’s V/H/S was certainly one of the more successful examples of the realized portmanteau. Assembling a dream team of Ti West, Adam Wingard, Joe Swanberg, Glenn McQuaid and film collective Radio Silence to each create a first person POV “found footage” piece, it served as both a commentary on the subgenre as well as an opportunity for filmmakers to unite their efforts toward a common artistic – and financially rewarding – goal. (Shorts generally don’t generate income for their creators. Here they do.)