Blair Witch (film series)

In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary... A year later their footage was found

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (15)

D: Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez

Pathé/Haxan/Artisan (Gregg Hale & Robin Cowie)

USA 🇺🇸 1999

81 mins

Horror/Documentary

W: Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez

Ed: Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sanchez

Heather Donahue (Heather), Michael Williams (Michael), Joshua Leonard (Joshua)

***SPOILER WARNING***

As the film begins, a title card informs the audience that following story is true: A ghost story about three students who film a documentary in the woods of a town with a fabled legend about a witch who haunts the area. They document their findings but are never found again following a series of strange, eerie events. The footage they filmed was recovered a year after they disappeared.

Conceptually, The Blair Witch Project has to be heralded as one of the most spectular phenomenons in movie history. A simple story which doesn't really go anywhere beyond a legend which is completely fictional. Filmed on a shoestring and forgoeing any expensive makeup effects or creepy bogeyman costumes. Using a bare minimum of scare tactics, the Blair Witch Project WORKED... At least until it was revealed that the story was not actually true (sorry folks, I did warn you).

Still, you cannot deny its brilliance that a movie that cost 1/100th the cost of most modern horror pictures managed to put so many bums on seats, actually making a huge profit of $248m at a massive ratio of 10,931:1 against its production budget.

It's a shame that it also opened the trapdoor for so many also-rans, parodies and wannabes.

7/10

Did You Know:

It only took eight days to shoot this film, all on a lowly budget of $60,000

BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 (18)

D: Joe Berlinger

Artisan/Haxan (Bill Carraro)

USA 🇺🇸 2000

90 mins

Horror

W: Dick Beebe & Joe Berlinger

DP: Nancy Schreiber

Ed: Sarah Flack

Mus: Carter Burwell

Kim Director (Kim Diamond), Jeffrey Donovan (Jeffrey Patterson), Erica Leerhsen (Erica Geersom), Tristen Skyler (Tristan Ryler), Stephen Turner (Stephen Ryan Parker)

Pointless sequel to capitalise on the success of The Blair Witch Project (qv), released just a year earlier.

It's practically the same story but without the 'found footage/documentary style' angle which the original film built its marketing around, with the usual poorly-written characters who walk from place to place, providing exposition as they wait for imminent death.

Terrible, lazy filmmaking. A quick cash-grab and nothing more.

2/10

Did You Know:

Unhappy with Joe Berlinger's version of the film, the production company (Artisan) opted to re-shoot certain scenes to add more "traditional" horror movie elements and re-cut the movie to make it more commercial. Berlinger stated on the DVD commentary that he didn't like the changes that were made and how they ruined the ambiguous tone of the plot.

BLAIR WITCH (15)

D: Adam Wingard

Lionsgate/Vertigo/Room 101/Snoot (Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Keith Calder & Jess Calder)

US/Canada 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 2016

89 mins

Horror

W: Simon Barrett

DP: Robby Baumgartner

Ed: Louis Cioffi

Mus: Adam Wingard

James Allen McCune (James), Callie Hernandez (Lisa), Brandon Scott (Peter), Corbin Reid (Ashley), Wes Robinson (Lane), Valorie Curry (Talia)

*SPOILER WARNING*

This 2016 film is both a sequel to and a remake of The Blair Witch Project, completely retconning the 2000 film Blair Witch: Book of Shadows in favour of a carbon copy of the original film.

James Allen McCune plays the brother of Heather, the documentary filmmaker who went missing 17 years prior, and he and his group of friends follow in the same footsteps as they investigate the disappearances deep in the haunted woods.

For me, the reason The Blair Witch Project worked in the first place was due to the marketing that the film was legitimately found footage, which has since been debunked.

This is pretty much exactly the same film, without the marketing to work in its favour. Lazy filmmaking at its worst and nothing but a blatant cash-in. The fact that it's over a decade too late makes it even worse. It's better than Blair Witch: Book of Shadows, but that's hardly an achievement.

3/10

Did You Know:

Unlike The Blair Witch Project (1999), this movie was completely scripted.