[Early Access + Uncut] The Blair Witch Project - Group Reaction

Came here to see much of what Ash said, so I'll just add: On the marketing side, the creators did a lot of outreach to colleges and universities. Campus reps were encouraged to show their friends the "documentary" website like it was legit, and then were given advance copies for on-campus showings. We had a showing on my campus, after dark, after the building was supposed to be closed. Nobody wanted to walk home alone lol. The organic buzz just built and built from college kids out into the wider world, so once this movie was in wide release, *everyone* wanted to see it. And that's when the divisive reactions started. But for a while there, it had a certain magic to it that I don't think could ever be replicated. That movie could only have been what it was during the late 90s.

R

I remember coming back to school from Spring Break and the first thing out of everyone's mouths was "Did you see the Matrix?!" Run Lola Run, The Iron Giant, Magnolia, Fight Club, The Sixth Sense, South Park, Eyes Wide Shut, American Beauty, The Green Mile, The Mummy... so many good movies came out that year. Oh and then there was The Phantom Menace.

R

Curse of the Blair Witch is so good. A great way to get yourself in the headspace for the movie.

R

Growing up in Maryland, this movie is a rite of passage- especially when you’re still at a young enough age to not know whether to believe it. 😂

LeafShinoB

This is a nice surprise. I love this movie. The subtlety of the horror is nice. It also really hits home for me being lost in the woods. I still live next to the woods and I've gotten lost a few times as a kid. I'm lucky I never ran into any wild or dangerous animals. Stephen King also has a short story kid's picture book about a girl getting lost in the woods. It's not extremely scary, but she does encounter a bear.

Poke Your Eye Man

thank you!

bailey

Word of mouth was huge with this film. In high school everyone was talking about "The Blaire Witch Project" and I had to see it. The marketing for films in this era is some of the best I've ever seen.

Chaos T

I remember going to theaters for this movie because of student word of mouth. This is pre-commercial internet, so marketing was very different from today and it's perfectly reasonable to believe the premise that this was a documentary of actual victims. The same way the first the Ring film was marketed with a website of fake 1st hand accounts of victims that saw copies of the cursed VHS tape. I'm not a huge fan of the found-footage genre, but this film set a precedent of low budget high profit horror films.

Johnny Blue

Red Letter Media did a good analysis of Blair Witch back in 2016, examining the film within the larger context of the "found footage" genre that proliferated across mainstream horror in the wake of the movie's success: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCjbevNlLXE

Gaius Frakking Baltar

The PR campaign around this movie definitely boosted its spooky quotient by 1000 but as one of the first movie of its kind it still holds up over time. I think people who dismiss it now are probably coming from a jaded perspective after watching too many found footage movies, forgetting that Blair Witch really was the movie that started that trend which amazingly to this day is still on going. It truly deserves some respect for what it accomplished, not to mention there are some genuinely effective scares in the movie.

Sickleweed

It was all part of the allure and lore tbh. You had to be there 😂

The Normies

I really enjoy both this film and REC, I feel like they’re the best the found footage genre has to offer (and maybe also Noroi: The Curse, depending if you’d count that), but I think comparing the two is kind of apples and oranges. The way Blair Witch gets under your skin and is all about what you don’t see is a far cry from the effective, visceral shocks and panic of REC, but I think they’re both equally successful in what they attempt to accomplish. For the record I didn’t see this movie until way after ‘99, so I wasn’t really caught up in the hype of the time either. But for whatever reason I thought it held up really well. Just my opinion though.

Derek Jolstead

I love this movie. The atmosphere of dread and the sense of claustrophobia it creates all from being lost in the woods with “something” and its lack of concrete answers is what makes it one of my favorites, in addition to the fact that the film itself and its marketing strategy were incredibly innovative and effective. On that note, it’s too bad you guys didn’t also react to the fake documentary they aired around the time it came out (you briefly read about it in the Wikipedia article). It tells the history of the Blair Witch, of the serial killer Rustin Parr, and treats the lore, as well as the disappearance of the characters, as if they were all completely real. It’s a fantastic watch and increases enjoyment of the main film exponentially, as well as gives you more to theorize with about what really happened in the movie.

Derek Jolstead

The Blair Witch Project being advertised as real was a huge thing. As a stupid teen seeing this film for the first time, my dumb ass went into the film thinking it could have been real 🤣

Chaos T

This entire film is annoying and garbage

L.C.

I think Chris was talking about the Dyatlov Pass incident towards the end

Stealth_

Nice legs and when are y’all gonna watch Kung Fu Panda 3?

MisRule

After watching this reaction i think some of this crew would cry or faint if they saw the original [spanish movie] Rec or Rec2.

Rnd1000

I loved this movie so much when it came out. It was so different and new. And fascinating, because I was hooked, I had to know more about the "meta" story. All you really had back then was the marketing material to go on, and they were (rightfully) keeping the "truth" zipped up super tight.

Matt Flanagan

I always felt this movie was overrated. Ever since I saw it in theaters back in 99, I never saw what the hype was all about. If you want to see some really good movies from the found footage genre, I recommend rec and rec 2. Even the Paranormal Activity films, the first three anyway.

Stanley Etienne

now to watch the scooby doo parody :P

Eduardo Zatarain

Very strange to hear this I’m sorry! I believe that we watched on Amazon. Maybe there is a frame rate difference between HD and standard definition?

The Normies

You guys gotta understand that the genius part of the thrill when this came out was that it was kinda advertised as "real". After they filmed the movie, the three main actors basically went into hiding for about a year or so before the film was released. They had create a website for the film where there were realistic (fake) news stories about these very real people going missing in the woods while filming about The Blair Witch. It think it even had some fictional lore about "The Blair Witch". Word go around and with the main people in the film kinda in hiding, it sold it idea to the masses that this was real found footage about 3 young adults about a Blair Witch in Maryland. Remember, this was the internet in the late 90s and the mockumentary found footage genre wasn't reallu a thing at the time (at least not a mainstream thing) and found footage of some horrible tragedy being released in the theaters was really a thing lol. Hell, some people would probably buy it if it was done now if they went even harder with the promotional advertisement lowkey. "The Blair Witch Project" is basically the OG mainstream one. Also, part of why the acting feels is because it's not scripted. Basically what would happen was they'd follow a gps to a certain areas, where they'd each get a note with their intials on it and each note would conflict with the others. It's was all basically very method. They just go through the day in character and just go through the woods. They genuinely never knew what was going to happen. Josh got a note that told him to stay awake and just leave the tent while the other were sleeping. When he left, they told him his character disappeared in the middle of the night, so Mike & Heather's reactions the next are they're very real reactions. Mike was the one who was supposed to go first, but Josh & Heather had been fighting a lot (I think I read there was originally meant to be a romantic storyline, but they changed it because of the fighting), so they took Josh out. They didn't know that the directior was sending them to a house when they got their instructions for their directions. When the three were running into the woods and Heather screamed "what the fuck was that?!", but we didn't see anything when she panned the camera at it? If I'm not mistaken, they had someone standing in the woods wearing all whote, so that was their real reactions too. The scene where Josh goes in on Heather was real. They really were because they had limited food supply, so they really were hungry and agitated. The cast did create codewords to help them know when they were or weren't in character, so it wouldn't get confusing, but they had to stay in character as much as possible while fillming 24/7... There's a lot of fun facts about the movie honestly. It's so simple on how it was done. They didn't have money for special affects, so that's how they got ending they ended up with. For a film that kinda make you feel just as intense and immersed with the realism of it all, I honestly think it works. If the film is good enough, you can do a lot without even have to show anything. Like The Haunting (1963) compared to The Haunting (1999). The former, a black & white film that barely showed anything and even more accurate to the book, is a much better film than the latter film with special effects and a well known cast the film (the recent Netflix miniseries is REALLY good too, even if it's only loosely based on the book, so you don't need to read/see those to watch it, made it it's own thing, but they've done it very well)...

Ash Lee Can

i just watched it, Barbarian (2022)

Lea.Helcate

sorry guys but what uncut version did you use? its impossible to match the speed of your uncut reaction, its literally playing in 98% speed, my Amazon Prime Version and my Moviecult version both are multiple seconds ahead after like 2 minutes watchtime

Nermin Selimovic

You guys should react to some Passions clips

Calvin Allen

I was one of those that thought this was real when I first saw it, it scared the living shit out of me because I thought I was watching a real life supernatural phenomena caught on camera, I was like…those poor kids, that had to be so terrifying for them, then my dumb ass saw the actors that portrayed them on the MTV Movie Awards, but in my defense, the internet wasn’t really a thing yet. 😂

Keenan White

Evil dead rise this October plz

MarcusDiggler

i even bought that movie lol definitely underrated

Philbo

Chronicle is such a criminally underrated movie. I hope the Normies react to it 1 day.

Captain K'nuckles

Damn yall got Rana AND Pat in this reaction! We're definitely in for a treat then 😈

Captain K'nuckles

The hype around this movie before it came out was insane. The disappointment in this movie after it came out was insane to see.

Solebat

1999 was an amazing year in movie marketing. Nobody knew what "The Matrix" and "The Blaire Witch Project" was when they were first introduced to the public. The marketing around those films made both "The Matrix" and "The Blair Witch Project" a mystery until people saw the films in theaters.

Chaos T

It's up

Michael Jefferson

Oh boy best found footage...wait this isn't Chronicle

HouseDogget

Jayla

This is actually my favorite movie

Matthew Kaufman

Saw this when it first came out with people who actually thought it was real but it's pretty tame by today's standards. And yes watch "Talk to Me", the best horror film this year.

Husk

For its time, this film was groundbreaking. It was an event watching "The Blair Witch Project" in theaters.

Chaos T

Yessss. Great way to start it.

Champion Bescos

Please watch Talk to me

Quzga

Ahhh yes torture Rana and Pat season my favorite

Trey Milliner-Williams