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SPOOKY SZN - The Blair Witch Project 1999
18 Plays7 months ago
The year is 1999. Three younglings watch possibly one of the most frightening movies made in the history of Cinema.
Have you ever seen The Blair Witch Project? What were your thoughts on it? Do you like found footage films? Does found footage make you dizzy? Do you know of the theories behind The Blair Witch Project? Were Mike and Josh in cahoots? Was Heather the mastermind killer? Was Heather dumb? Is kicking a map into the river stupid since you could have just tossed it into the river? Was the marketing the "Holy Grail" of marketing? Did you think this was real when you saw it? Did Enrique really research "woods" as a kid to see if this is real?
Thank you for listening! Watch The Blair Witch Project and enjoy!
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Transcript
The Blair Witch Project's Cultural Impact
00:00:00
Speaker
All right, Pat, let's roll. All right, cool. Another episode of what we saw last night, because of our inability to communicate properly, we're doing a throwback to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Blair Witch Project, a movie that kind of changed.
1999 Box Office Warm-Up Question
00:00:21
Speaker
Well, it was a first for a lot of things and a culturally important horror movie and a movie we like.
00:00:27
Speaker
And as always, we got a warm up question. Um, I was going to do a quiz for you guys, but I don't think you would have gotten any of the questions right. That's so I just, it like everything, and everything was like super. Like I just couldn't see anyone getting any questions
Exploration of 1999's Box Office Hits
00:00:45
Speaker
right. So here's the question. Let's see if you guys, how many of you guys can get the domestic box office for 1999. So a lot of hits Blair, which project finished 10th on the year?
00:00:58
Speaker
Can you name movies that finished before the mummy? Mummy's eight. Okay. So that counts. Yeah. a I would say this would be a good year for Enrique. Oh, 99 was the fucking year. I'm fan of menace. I think was up there. Yep. That was number one. Mm-hmm.
Communication Hiccups and Episode Purpose
00:01:25
Speaker
that's That's the only movie that I know that came out that year. So I don't know what else came out in 1999. A couple of good movies, but I don't think they... I'm so i' still stuck on the fact that you said that we can't communicate. Yeah. Because I don't think that's why we're doing this episode. I think we just... Now, let's go. All right. All right. So Phantom Menace. I knew that was up there and I knew the mommy was up there. Those two. Yeah.
00:01:53
Speaker
um
00:01:56
Speaker
99. I want to say failure of the launch, I think came out in 99, but I could be wrong. I could be 2003. It might've been out. It didn't get in the top 20 because I'm looking at the top 20.
Top Films of 1999 and Their Performance
00:02:10
Speaker
Um, man, you would, I'll give you, I'll give you a hint. So an actor from a movie that you watch all the time. So, okay. 99 I think was good daddy.
00:02:27
Speaker
Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Big Daddy. i'm yeah you know Big Daddy. 90, that's number seven. Big Daddy. Why the fuck did I say Good Daddy? I used to watch that all the time. Yeah, Big Daddy. First of all, that movie, like it's wild that that plays seventh overall. i was a I thought it would have been Waterboy, but that was 98. Yeah, 98. I had that on VHS, and I would watch it like every day. So what was that? You said seventh?
00:02:54
Speaker
Yeah. So we got seven, eight, and one. Six is an animated film. Six and four are animated films. Call me crazy, but I think the Prince of Egypt came out that year. Oh, did it? If it didn't, it was not in the top. OK. Both, I think, are the Disney Pixar kind of collabs. Man, so that was 98.
00:03:26
Speaker
One's a sequel. ah It wasn't Toy Story. Yes, it was Toy Story 2. Toy Story came out in 95, so that makes sense. That's four.
00:03:43
Speaker
um What's a good movie that wasn't that good to make pass top eight? All right, so the other animated movie, if it was 99, are they both like Disney kind of movies? Yeah. Phil Collins did the song. Tarzan. Tarzan, yep. Because I wanted to go see that with my sister, Tarzan. um And that was six. That's six.
The Matrix and 1999's Comedy Sequels
00:04:12
Speaker
Five. I'll give you a hint. It's a movie that had two options. Was it Ants or A Bug's Knife?
00:04:21
Speaker
All right, so five is not animated. There's no more animated. Oh, okay. um It's a trans allegory. The Matrix. Yes. Oh, damn, that was not nine. Holy shit. Yeah, that came in fifth. And like, it it did so well, but the other ones just like, um, three is, uh,
00:04:47
Speaker
is ah the second in a trilogy and it's comedy. The second in the... Comedies that came out in 1999.
00:04:58
Speaker
ah Wow, comedies from 1999. One actor played a couple of roles in it. Not Hot Chicks, was it? Oh, no. I don't think there's a sequel to that. As much as I would love... A sequel, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:05:16
Speaker
I was, would have loved for hot chicks to gross over 200 million. A sequel comedy with an actor. Oh, um, the clumps too. Oh no. Oh, so not the car. Um, is it an Eddie Murphy movie? No, unfortunately no. Um, it's at all the, the lead actor is named after a a slasher movie. And it's a comedy in 99. It's a sequel comedy, plays multiple parts. Is it Austin Powers? Yes. Oh God.
Horror Films in 1999's Top 10
00:06:05
Speaker
That was a lot of. What a great movie.
00:06:08
Speaker
Yeah. I was like, it's gotta be Mike Myers. And then I was like, yeah. that's And then I was trying to think, what is, I almost said the cat in the hat movie. ah but there and equalque I just couldn't think of what else he's in. He, he, it does have a sequel, but it's like not real. All right. So we have Phantom Menace. We're missing number two. Um, Austin Powers number three, right?
00:06:38
Speaker
Number two, it's a horror mystery directed by M. Night Shyamalan. Ink Roast, hold on, close to 400 million. This is 1999. Close to 300 million. The Sixth Sense? Yep. Okay. All right, so Phantom Menace? That's all 10. Is it really? Oh, sorry, nine. Honestly, nine, I don't think you guys are gonna get. I forgot this movie existed.
00:07:09
Speaker
What is it? Runaway bride. I know the wood came out in 1999 and that with the sandlot put together is a great coming to age movie night. But I know that did not make the top 10. It made my job. Sleepy Hollow came in 20th and American Pie was in 17th, which is, those are just fun.
00:07:35
Speaker
that sharon So talking like a massive year for movies and Blair Witch came in 10.
Blair Witch Project's Life-Changing Impact
00:07:44
Speaker
That's impressive though. Yeah. i The fact that there is two horror movies in the top 10, like that doesn't happen very often. Um, I don't know when that's happened again. If it's happened recently, that might've been the last time it happened. So that's really cool. So we're going through the one through 10 for me.
00:08:03
Speaker
One was Star Wars A Phantom Menace, obviously. Sixth Sense at Two, Austin Powers, Spy Who Shagged Me, Toy Story 2, The Matrix, Tarzan, Big Daddy, The Mummy, Runaway Bride, and The Blair Witch Project. Wow. What a fucking combination of movies. Yeah. Very wild all over the place. People are laughing. They're going to space. They're being scared. Great. But we're we're here to talk about The Blair Witch Project.
00:08:32
Speaker
before we totally get into it. What are your general thoughts on the Blair Witch Project? Do you guys like the movie? This is one of my favorite movies and I haven't watched it in a minute, so I wanted to revisit it. But this is one of my top, probably my favorite movie. There's some movies that I've seen in my life.
00:08:57
Speaker
that have saved my life, and then there are some movies that I've seen that have changed my life. um Empire Strikes Back is one of the movies that changed my life. The Blair Witch Project is another one that changed my life. That's my general thought. Quickly, because I know I usually ramble. Those are my general thoughts.
00:09:18
Speaker
thoughts on it. I loved it. And I was under the impression that, and like, it is, it's, it's got good ratings on like rotten tomato and IMDB and letterbox. It's, it's, it's well received. And I feel like well received amongst the, the hard community, there's, uh, they're, they're doing like a Blair Witch weekend at the Mahoney drive-in and that's really cool.
00:09:43
Speaker
But like I went around and I asked a bunch of people who saw the Blair Witch Project on when when it was in theaters in its peak, because it it didn't do too well when it first
Audience Reactions and Perceptions of Blair Witch
00:09:56
Speaker
opened. you know We'll get into that later. um so i asked my So my aunt took my sister to see it. And my aunt said she hated it. She said it was not that scary, the buildup.
00:10:09
Speaker
The buildup was ah for the movie that was going to be the scariest movie of all time. It did not live live up to the buildup. My sister said, very briefly, we thought it was kind of dumb. And um I asked my sister, did you think it was real going into it? and She said, nobody thought it was real. How old was she at the time? She was a freshman in high school. but My cousin Mark, who is less of a downer, said,
00:10:35
Speaker
He saw it in Disney. He said that the crowd um the crowd and lines were wrapped around the building. It was a great movie experience to be part of. The movie scared them. It was fun. People who didn't like it are like people who don't like sports. They just don't like to have real joy or love or a good time. I appreciate that, Mark. Yeah, I mean, that's how I feel about it. I mean, I hate sports, but I also feel like if you don't like this movie, you don't like to have a good time. Yeah.
00:11:05
Speaker
If you don't appreciate fun or joy. Then, um, Joe chimed in with, I saw it with friends. It was garbage. It was not scary or all that interesting. It was a passion project done by people who were a little older than me and I didn't hold a candle to the ring or other better horror movies. Um, she didn't mention the sixth sense in her rant.
00:11:29
Speaker
she could see She also goes on to say, I could see how middle school people thought it was scary. it's not It wasn't worth a watch then, not worth a rewatch now. So I'm curious, because I did look at these beforehand and I was just like, stupid, stupid, awesome, i'm stupid, right? Remarks. Right. So I'm curious how like age has a lot to do with it because you're either old enough to be like, you're you're either young enough to believe it, which I was probably turning 10 when I saw it. I obviously hadn't seen it in theaters, no one was gonna take me to see it. But, you know, at that age, you're gullible, you know? And i you're either too young and believe it or you're either
00:12:24
Speaker
too old and are ashamed to say you may have probably believed it, because you were too old at the time. You could have been 13, you could have been 20, 30, whatever.
Horror Film Scare Factors
00:12:38
Speaker
Personally, I wonder how much that has to play into it, and I wonder how much the casual movie fan versus like a horror fan um has a lot to do with this movie because I can see where you can say not worth the watch and not worth the rewatch. I can see where you can say that because you might not be... Well, one those just do you think a horror fan or a regular fan would say not worth the watch?
00:13:13
Speaker
So am I going off of the three people that didn't like it? In general, just in general. Oh, I think I think a non horror fan would say it's not worth the watch. Right. I agree. i So I want to say I want to take it from the opposite and we'll get into it when I talk about marketing. And I think in the time the marketing of this was so big that for some horror fans, like kind of like the way that we we not that necessarily that we fall for it, but they will build up a movie and then you go in and like the expectations are almost too high. When people are saying that this is the scariest movie of all time or people were so scared that they walked out of the theater or threw up because people did walk out of the theater and play a witch project and the motion sickness um they got from the first person point of view made people throw up. There's documentation on this. And I think that for horror fans,
00:14:11
Speaker
oh They were like absolutely so pumped about it. And I think some were like let let down. the The thing is the movie, maybe now, maybe now, because there's a lot of them and, you know, and I'm not even going to go into like the cultural importance of it, but the back in that time there wasn't movies like this so i guess as a horror fan there was but there wasn't like any a lot of mainstream movies like this so i guess if you are a horror fan who didn't like it and said it sucked and whatever whatever whatever one that's wild but two
00:14:58
Speaker
It makes sense because it was new. So I can see where it throws you off. Whereas you had all your old school movies, you know, on screen was out and like slashers yeah kind of made a comeback. The thing is a lot of people just hate found footage. A lot of people, it's just not yeah for them. And if you, if there's a new horror movie coming out and you're a big horror fan, everybody's hyping it up, you're going to be really excited. And then found footage wasn't really a thing at the time.
00:15:28
Speaker
Maybe you don't know you hate found footage yet and you see this and you're like, what the hell is this? I could see that. Like, you know, yeah you just don't like that style of movie. It's shaky. It's grainy. Yeah. Like if, if you don't like that, it is what it is. I'm not going to fight you on it, but I, I, what I don't understand is people that say it's not scary because, and again, this isn't a flex, but like movies do not scare me. I'm not like.
00:15:58
Speaker
I'm not like shaking and terrified when I watch a movie on on a screen. It's fake. It's not real. Movies don't scare me. I don't understand where like scariness comes in to reading a movie. like What's that got to do with anything? like It wasn't scary. And I'm like, OK. What does that mean? and that's why i And that's why horror is one of the hardest genres to to rate, I feel like, in one of the hardest genres when it comes to getting accolade. Yeah, there's just so many horror movies that I really love. And people will say to me like, oh my god, you thought that was scary? And i was and I'm like, no, not at all, not remotely. It was not scary. I said I liked the movie. like It's a good film. like I was yeah genuinely scared watching Hell House, the Carmichael Manor.
Blair Witch Project's Budget and Legal Battles
00:16:54
Speaker
That's like a modern masterpiece though. like There was something, the thing is, I don't know about you, I do begin to scare sometimes. We also watched that in a building that at one point was believed to be haunted. Well debatable, I still think it is, but. I know, that's why I say, but. So I feel like that added to like the ambiance because just strictly for me, like watching something on a screen is not ever going to make me feel physically yeah might be It might be disturbing. I might be able to think, oh, wow, if that was happening to me, that would be scary. But there's nothing you can really put on a screen that's going to scare me if it's fake. Yeah. And it was very different. For context, there were found footage films before it. The first found footage film happened almost was like in the early 80s with Cannibal Holocaust. And and you know and that movie was banned.
00:17:52
Speaker
and not not allowed to be shown in this country, like in most countries. So we weren't at familiar with found footage films. This movie was kind of lightning in a bottle as far as its success. And I think that that just made people, you know, like if people were divided on it, just like they were divided on every every major horror movie. You know, some people looked at like Midsommar and Hereditary as terrifying and other people were like, these are dumb. Uh, and although hereditary was more, everyone thought it was scary, but I think it's, it's super interesting because looking back on it, like we have this, this debate all the time. When a ah really scary movie comes out that does well in the box office that people like my cousin Mark doesn't want, he just watched movies. He's a big movie guy, but he doesn't watch heart. He's not a hard like nerd. If it's in the theaters, he'll go see it.
00:18:51
Speaker
He just likes to have fun. And he was the one that loved, like, he loved it. He didn't ask any questions. I think it goes back to what we were saying. Well, now I guess you make a lot of, you you make a good point with the hype. And if you really were a hardcore horror, you're watching it like this was kind of whack. I guess that makes sense, but it's, I mean, he kind of put it,
00:19:18
Speaker
He kind of put it the right way. Like, if you didn't have fun, you just don't like fun, you know? Yeah. I can see where, you know, if you do get motion sickness from movies, I could see why you wouldn't like this. That, personally, has never happened to me. I get motion sickness a lot in real life, but just for some reason, it doesn't affect me in, like... We're not dorks. No, like, and I don't want to be like... No, I'm just joking.
00:19:48
Speaker
yeah I'm trying to specifically not do that. I'm just saying. No, I'm joking. I'm sorry if that affects you. yeah How much would that suck though? like you go to you' like You're relatively excited to see a movie and like they you know the the way that this was marketed was it's scary. People are talking about it. It's getting crazy reviews from big name films. And then you throw up, not because you're scared because the camera angle. That would be so awful. And this is my favorite genre of movie. Yeah. I guess you don't take like drama meme, but I don't know. You would have to know. You wouldn't know to go into it to take drama. Right. um Like I get really, really bad car sickness, but I just take drama meme for it because I know when I'm going to be in a car.
00:20:40
Speaker
I'll do some production notes and feel free to chime in along the way. So the budget for this was $60,000 and it grossed 248.6 million. So like in a massive like i've come up. The actors were paid $1,000 for the shoot and they had to threaten several times to sue suing Lionsgate and Artisan Films to get 300,000. They each ended up getting 300,000 each.
00:21:09
Speaker
because they they weren't paid. They weren't paid the thousand that they were owed. And in their contracts, it was if this movie makes any money, they were all supposed to receive a percentage of it. What they all settled for out of court was significantly less than what they were going they should have been owed. But they were all just really happy to get a good chunk of money. And they all kind of were hoping that this would launch their careers.
00:21:38
Speaker
The opening weekend for this ah movie, only 27 theaters, but it took home $1.5 million. dollars Then the next week they they realized how big it was that they just had to keep yeah expanding. The original release was a midnight release at Sundance Film Festival, January 99. For some reason, there was more people in this movie, like more film critics than they normally for a midnight film.
00:22:06
Speaker
And they loved it and were scared and like it caught everyone off guard. So like it starts to gain momentum. All the reviews are coming in in January. It was set to be released in July. An executive at Sci-Fi was in theaters and was like, I got something. So instantly contacts the people and they make a mockumentary that dropped a week, a 45 minute mockumentary about like the Blair Witch lore. It just kind of like build the momentum.
00:22:36
Speaker
So yeah, if anyone has anything to like say on that, and if not, I'll get into the ah marketing. Well, I got something to say about the marketing. I gotta go. Well, I'll get into that after you go and talk about it. I think it's crazy that they only got $300,000. I did see recently... um They're suing them again. They're suing them again. Yeah, because they they they're still making a shit ton of money from this.
00:23:05
Speaker
Yeah, it's nire they they they're not the actors aren't seeing residuals, but also there's going to be a new like kind of like TV show or movie that's going to come out and they're using their likeness and they're not seeing anything. Yeah, I saw that you put down that they used their likeness for Blair Witch 2, which I remember that because contrary to everybody's popular opinion, I liked the Blair Witch 2, the original 2. It probably wasn't good. i just I love Burn Notice and before Burn Notice, Jeffrey Donald was in this movie, so maybe it was just Destiny, but I do remember they mentioned them and I think they even showed like a photo or like clips or something. so They showed clips. Right, right. They are in the movie. Well, now I know, like that's crazy. That's another movie you're in that you're getting nothing from and they're making, well, they probably didn't make that that movie. They didn't make that much, but the other one still made
00:24:04
Speaker
and makes a lot of money. It made a lot of money and they didn't they purposely didn't disclose how much it made on VHS and DVD sales to like avoid paying. them One of the issues is this was an independently produced film.
Blair Witch's Marketing and Distribution Strategy
00:24:19
Speaker
So it wast it wasn't SAG. So they didn't have any representation to help them get paid. These were all just like common actors. What happened next was it got picked up by Lionsgate and Artisan Films.
00:24:34
Speaker
to help distribute it. And they were like, shit, where they're rolling in money. We're getting nothing. And they were all kind of fine with 300,000 to begin with, but they that they were they were expecting more down the line and residual checks that never came. So they're still in a legal battle. Yeah, that's crazy to even think about. Yeah. But like everything that happened to get it to be released in a lot of theaters is super, I mean, it's a testament to the movie, but it's also a testament to like kind of how lucky, like a few big names, the biggest name, like Robert Eager just happened to be, he normally doesn't go to the midnight releases at Sundance and he just happened to go and was like, holy shit. And then other other people were in there and a sci-fi, so it's like crazy. They basically, all of the um money that went hid into the film
00:25:29
Speaker
went into the marketing scheme. um They hired Klein and Walker, a PR firm. Harry Klein was the guy assigned to it. Harry Klein did the original Star Wars trilogy. He was like one of the up and comers, but he was like on on the team. And he has a lot of Hollywood experience and he's made a lot of movies, a lot of money. He had the idea to make this an online mystery campaign. He had the idea of like releasing weird short reels and like handing out missing teen posters. he refused he He convinced the director to go to like a lot of film festivals but not show the film. Only show reels that made it look like kind of real and hand out like posters. And people like ate this shit up. He convinced the IMDB and all the actors to
00:26:26
Speaker
changed their thing to like presume dead. I think it was like, he died of COVID in 2020, but Harry Klein gave me an interview in 2019 where he said, this is the holy grail of marketing. So yeah, he was really into this. And he also noted, he kept saying, because Sixth Sense was supposed to release around the same time, but Sixth Sense got moved to a later release.
00:26:55
Speaker
And he said that he thanked every day that six cents got moved because that would have killed Blair Witch. That's fair. I mean, those yeah my two favorite two of my favorite movies probably at least in my top five. for them themselves I remember when this movie came out.
00:27:21
Speaker
Again, I didn't go to theaters because absolutely no one was going to take me to go see this. So, you know, we we rented it. My my dad's and I remember perfectly my my dad um was dating this one lady and she had kids around my age. So we hung out all the time. And, you know, we were really close. So because my dad knew that he knew that we would leave him alone. So we went to the theater and I was like, hey, you know, there's this movie.
00:27:51
Speaker
called the Blair Witch Project that everybody's talking about. It was like they killed the kids that was filming it. And that's just, that's how I convinced them to want to watch it. Cause I was like, they killed the kids that were watching this movie. Like it's a, this shit's real. Like, ah cause I thought it was, you know, that's what I kept hearing. And you know, we saw it, we finally saw it and I was like, holy shit. We just like, we're all kind of like kind of scared. Cause we're like, we just seen people die on my TV kind of thing, you know?
00:28:21
Speaker
and oh And I'm not gonna, listen, I'm not even joking. I was probably like 22 when I finally realized like, those were just actors. Like I know, but I'm just saying I was 22 and it finally dawned in my head that I was like, those were just actors, you know? Like it never really clicked. It never came back around. But like during that time, I remember I so i used to ask my sister like,
00:28:50
Speaker
i would I would hide the fact that I thought this was real. And I would just say, hey, Laura, um could three kids go missing in the woods? And could they die? And I would just ask her questions like that. And we would just go to the library. And she'd be like, go look it up. And at the time, you had to you had to had to like um you had to pay for the internet. So you would put quotas and shit. And you would get like X amount of time on the internet.
00:29:18
Speaker
So I was like fucking getting encyclopedias. And I just looked this up because I was like, these fucking kids are dead. I mean, I feel like you're asking the wrong question because there's could it happen versus did it happen?
Research and Perception of Blair Witch's Reality
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah. She knew what I was asking. That absolutely could have happened. I mean, it did happen just not to them. I think your sister just wanted you to stop by other. repairs So she just took me to the library. Probably. We we did. we The thing is, I knew she knew.
00:29:48
Speaker
She was like, here's 75 cents, leave me alone. I think I was just like i think i was just afraid to admit things. But for real, like we like the marketing the thing about the marketing is oh there was another place we would go on the internet downtown, ah down back back home downtown, they think they would always call it go-go surfer. I don't know if that was like the business or I don't know what the fuck, but they had computers in there. and Occasionally we'd run up in there and and use the computers and that's what I would search. I would like, I was super curious because I'm like, this is, this is crazy. Like I just saw this really scary fucking movie. And I need to, we got to find these kids, man, because Maryland is not that far from us. It's three fucking hours. But someone was like, that's by Delaware. And I knew Delaware was close. So yeah, it is by Delaware.
00:30:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, it's not that close. There was no fucking way we were going to ever get there because of one who the fuck was going to take me to to Maryland. But I, I just, I just, I remember those times and I never, it never clicked until I was about 22. And I knew that it was a movie when I got older as you know, teenager, um, you know, 18, 19, 20 and shit.
00:31:09
Speaker
but it just never clicked in my head until I was probably like 22. And I was like, holy shit, this was just a fucking movie. This whole fucking time I thought these kids were like really dead. You know, so the marketing itself was great. I wish I were just a little older so that I could have experienced it a little differently. Because I experienced it as, I basically, remember I was always a year younger than every everyone. So I was like sixth grade or something when I experienced it. So had I been in like eighth or ninth grade, like if I was like Lauren's age, maybe I think I would have probably felt a little different, but knowing me, I probably would have thought that shit was still real. I mean, and yeah, you thought it was real to till you were 22. So roughly 22, I could have been maybe turning 22, maybe 20, 23.
00:32:09
Speaker
So between like September. Did you ever come across like the actual website and like backward? Okay. yeah Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what we will look up at. Cause websites, some websites were blocked at the library. Um, so I've just imagined like, you think these kids are really missing and the library is like blocking language.net. You're like, I gotta to see it. One time. I'm not even being funny. One time.
00:32:38
Speaker
I looked up woods. I swear, I looked up, I looked in like an encyclopedia. I remember I was looking through books of woods. I remember I would like just go on the internet and I would just you should't research woods. You should have got the book she reads in the movie, How to Survive in the Woods. I was young. I wasn't thinking that thoroughly.
00:33:06
Speaker
I thought I could solve all my problems through science. But then again, I don't even know what science was at that time. well so How to Survive in the Woods is like... There's scientific means to that. this At this point, I did read books, so I could have... Google Search Woods. but Yeah, no, I swear. I lied to you not. I had like books and books on the... There was like a little section in the library where they had just tables where all the older kids would go to, like the dogs and stuff.
00:33:36
Speaker
Like the kids section, they would have fucking stupid shit, like just stupid kid books. So I would have to go sit over there and look up books. And it was just all kinds of books about woods. So the marketing was great because it got a young kid fucking for probably three months, man. I was trying to figure this this out. And people were like, it's just a movie. I was like, it's not a fucking movie. It's a documentary. That's what she said in the movie. So it was like,
00:34:06
Speaker
I was just confused. I can't imagine. I'm sure there were people at the time when this came out that were probably like, you can't show this in a movie. Like it's disrespectful to the families. And it, I do feel really, really bad for the actors because it had to have sucked because I just imagine that like, there's gotta to be like a hundred or so people that I like went to high school with that probably know my name or know my face.
00:34:33
Speaker
but don't know like where I am or what I'm doing. And if they saw this movie of me, they'd be like, oh my God, she's dead. Cause like they use their real names. So people were watching this movie and being like, oh my God, that's Heather. Like I went to school with Heather. Like what the fuck's going
Filming Techniques and Actors' Experiences
00:34:52
Speaker
on? I tell her to the prom and she was like, fuck no dork. No, so I did see something though. I didn't know it was all improvised. I think that's really cool.
00:35:02
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I get and into that on the production side. But I did. um I don't know. I made a came across it on um on Amazon. Sometimes they have like the notes. I did see that they would they gave them. I think I read they gave them walkie talkies to kind of guide them so they wouldn't get lost. And they still got lost. Like I think it was like three or six times it said anything like I think that's cool.
00:35:30
Speaker
But also, like for $300,000 and I'm really getting lost in the fucking woods, like I don't know, man. I think that's like the most disrespectful. Well, this was just $1,000. That's all they signed on. Oh, yeah. My bad. Yeah. For $1,000? I mean, I get it. You're young. You're up and coming. You're supposed to- Not even up and coming. You're just up. Right, right. This is supposed to be an investment. And the next thing you know, like you're really lost in the woods. and Yeah, I'll go over some production notes of the actual filming. Eight days shooting. and So there was ads in the in the ah newspaper and that's how they found all the actors. Eight days shooting in October of 97. They were to report. They all met together and they went into the woods.
00:36:23
Speaker
um Heather said that like her family was super worried about her. they They literally thought they were just going to kill her in the woods. um their mom Her mom, her boyfriend at the time and dad all were very strongly against her doing this. She had to kind of reassure him that this was a legitimate movie because everything about it seemed super fishy. um It was the actors were doing all the filming and camping in the woods. They were not giving a script. It was all improvised. um They were giving clues and hidden 35 millimeter canisters of what to do and what they care like their should be doing. But all the dialogue and actions was up to them.
00:37:14
Speaker
Um, they were all handed old, um, cameras. And so all of the, uh, filming is done by a, uh, by the actors, the three actors, the actors were given a two hour crash course on how to use a camera. And then we're sent into the woods. They were given GPS and walkie talkies and the walkie talkies barely worked and the GPS was hard to navigate because they never used a GPS before.
00:37:43
Speaker
And it probably wasn't good because it was 1999. And there in it was like a trail master GPS, like not like a car, so like... Right. You got to navigate like which hill looks like this hill. um They ended up filming over 20 hours of film. And another cool note, a dentist gave them real teeth um for props. So all the teeth in the movies, like in the woods, um there's a lot of them. That's a teeth from dentists, dental patients. And like we said earlier, the actors all use their real names and they all regretted it.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I mean, going into this, if you think it's going to be a really small independent film, a thousand dollars back then is not bad. That's, that's like 1900 today. It's closer to two grand. So imagine making almost two grand for an eight day job. That's pretty good. yeah and Yeah. Oh, no one's ever going to see this who even watches horror movies, especially janky ones like this.
00:38:49
Speaker
What the hell is a mockumentary? Sounds pretty sweet, but so you should have been paid. They were they were all well, yeah, they should have been all given their thousand at the bare minimum because they didn't when it was kind of like, hey, like here's some pizza. We're going to have a nice little party. And then everyone was so over the shoot. They were like, all right, you're going to send a check on the mail. Right. And they were like, yep.
00:39:14
Speaker
And then they all, they had their like staff meal together at a restaurant. Everyone went home, showered, went about their lives, never got the check. So they were like, damn. adam Yeah. the The director, he's, he's, you know, he kind of like I took away all accountability and kind of put it on everybody else. But he did like, this was his brainchild. So I imagine he's pretty responsible.
00:39:43
Speaker
when they were filming and getting lost, he also didn't seem to care. like everything that All this stuff was like, we're just kind of roaming around the woods. They were terrified because they were lost. Yeah, so the the conditions in which they filmed we were we're like really crazy. And everyone kind of went into this. Like Julia, you said, like that was their thought, was like, shit, I'm going to get two grand basically.
00:40:10
Speaker
they They're like, I'm going to have two months rent and off of eight days work and maybe some more money if this gets picked up by a distribution. And then everyone also thought like, well, if we get paid here, maybe this director, well you know like they'll keep us in mind and throw us some jobs later or they might know someone.
00:40:30
Speaker
right Yeah, they all thought they were going to like it was going to be like a little launching pad and at least cover a few months rent. Everyone was super excited about it. And it went south pretty quickly, north and south. And east. They went east. Yeah. Yeah. I did read also in the notes that Amazon gives you when you watch on Prime that
00:41:01
Speaker
There's a scene where I think Josh Rose, like down the hill, he actually broke the real camera. Nice. Yeah. I did. He broke
00:41:17
Speaker
But good for him because, fuck, you didn't pay him his $1,000, so good for him. Yeah, I mean. He also wasn't a trained cameraman. Like, they were like, all right, this is how you point and shoot. Go at it. And it's like,
00:41:30
Speaker
Maybe they would have done better if they were given more time to learn how to use cameras. Yeah, and they got to carry all this shit. like It's one thing to use a camera. It's another thing to like have to like walk across a log over a stream with a camera on your back. That's a little bit different. Yeah. And you're um and the film and all that stuff. like Yeah. i I think it's a wild shoot. Yeah. it's Now that I think about it, I think I would have probably done the same thing. Somebody right now says, yo, I'll give you $2,500. If you go stay in the woods for a couple of days and just make this a documentary, I'll probably be like, true. I would do it, but I would go about it differently. There's more technology too, because i realistically, all they could do was be like, mom, dad, and I'm doing this.
00:42:26
Speaker
Uh, here's the location where I'm going to be. And they were like, well, if you're not back on the eighth day, we're going in the woods after you. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. julia Do you want to get into the plot notes? Yeah, I wrote a lot, but I'll try to. So my main reason for doing this episode or rewatching this is I always, this is one of my favorite movies and I always hear like crazy theories about it.
00:42:56
Speaker
And a lot of people have the theory that like Josh and Mike all did this as like a plot to kill Heather, and or other people say there's like time travel is a theory I don't know about.
Plot Overview: The Blair Witch Project
00:43:13
Speaker
But the main question I had going into it was, is Heather actually lost or not? Because that is one thing I always go back and forth on, is like I can't tell if she was like lost from the very beginning or if losing the map really did throw her off. So that's why I took like super, super detailed notes watching it this time. But it starts, we get text on screen that says, in October of 1994, three film student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Birketsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was found.
00:43:54
Speaker
So Heather, she's like the main character. It's basically her documentary she's doing for a school project. Her friend Josh is helping her, and then I guess it's his friend Mike. Because we see her meeting Mike, so I guess she didn't know Mike prior to this. He might he must just be like a friend of Josh. And they recruit him to help. But they have They set out, they have two different cameras, one that's like a black and white film camera. They have like a handheld digital camera and just an audio recorder. And on the first day, they just go around the town of Burkittsville basically and interview all of the residents and ask them about like local legends. Some of them talk about the witch, but some of them also talk about other stuff that happened in the area, like different murders and stuff.
00:44:51
Speaker
They interview this crazy old lady who said she saw the witch before and it looked like a woman that was covered in like fur, like a horse. So in my mind, I always like, when I think of the Blair Witch, I always like believe that version of it. I always picture it as the woman with horse hair. Even though you don't see it in this movie, they come out with like other stuff later where you see it and it doesn't look like that, but I always think of like the horse hair lady.
00:45:22
Speaker
So they finish interviewing people in town and they stay at a hotel for one night. And then the next day they go out hiking into the woods and they're going to hit a couple different spots in the woods, film some stuff there, and then hike back. So they're going to like Coffin Rock, which is a place where there was some like ritual murder sacrifice. There's this cemetery they're going to stop at. So the first day they make it to Coffin Rock, they record their little thing.
00:45:52
Speaker
They talk to some guys that are out there fishing. They interview them. Everything's kind of normal for the first day. And then that night they just make camp and they plan to camp in the woods for two nights. So they're going to stay there like this night and the next night. So in the morning, third' like it opens and we see Josh is talking about, he heard some like crazy shit in the woods last night.
00:46:20
Speaker
And Heather's like, yeah, no, I sleep like a rock. I didn't hear anything. But he's like, yeah, I heard like, sounded like an owl and a cat. And the other ones are kind of just like, damn, that's crazy. We didn't hear anything. So they start hiking again for the day. And they're kind of going back and forth. You see them discussing like, they got lost yesterday for a little bit. And Heather's like, yeah, but for a very brief amount of time, like, we weren't lost, lost. We were just like a little bit lost.
00:46:50
Speaker
And you can see that the guys are like a little bit frustrated with Heather. They didn't really realize this hike was going to be this serious. They thought it was going to be all like a smooth trail. And it's hurting out to be a much longer and more difficult hike. And this is where like it it kind of starts brewing and the guys like, you know, we think you're lost Heather. Like we don't, we're not buying this. Mike starts to get a little bit aggressive.
00:47:19
Speaker
And Heather's like, look, we haven't been lost at all today. I was lost a little bit yesterday. Today's different. We're not lost. I've known where we are this entire day. So during this time, Mike drops a comment and he's just like, cause they're like, Oh, let's all sit down and check the map. And when Mike's looking at the map, he goes, I don't know what any of this says. This is Greek to me. Like this map is useless.
00:47:46
Speaker
and Heather's like, yeah, okay, like you can't read a map, that's fine, but like I know what it says. We'll put a pin in that, that comes back later. Heather says they're like super, super close to the cemetery and they find all of these little, they're basically at the cemetery and there's all these little rock piles, like weird ritual like stacks of rocks.
00:48:15
Speaker
So this is kind of like the first artifact that they find. They're going to find a lot of weird stuff in the woods. And then they camp again and they stay the night. This is night two, supposed to be the last night. During the night, they hear more noises outside the tent. They all hear them this time. Mike is like, nah, I don't fuck with that. I don't care what it is. I don't want to know.
00:48:40
Speaker
In the morning, we see them talking about what they heard last night and the guys are like, yeah, it's whatever. They're like, it's kind of annoying that Heather was filming the whole thing. And she's like, why wouldn't I? Like I'm making a documentary. I didn't come here to film weird noises, but if they're happening, why wouldn't I film them? Like obviously. So they start hiking again for the day and this is supposed to be their last day. They're literally, everything's done.
00:49:08
Speaker
all the filming is pretty much done. They're just walking straight back to the car. And the guys start saying like, hey, Heather, this doesn't look familiar. I don't think this is the way we came. And Heather is like, yeah, because we had to hit three different points on our way out here. And to come back, we're just going straight back to the car. That's why it's a different roof, which when she says that, that makes perfect sense to me. I feel like a lot of people hear that and they're like,
00:49:37
Speaker
That sounds like bullshit and I'm like, no, that's how like space works. Cause I'm really trying to focus and figure out like, is Heather lost? And she does not sound confident most of the time, but when she makes that comment, I'm like, no, that makes a lot of sense. And she also says it very quickly, which leads me to believe that she believes that they are not lost at this specific point.
00:50:04
Speaker
But regardless, they end up not finding the car that day and it starts to get dark. So they have to make camp for another night that they did not plan to be there. So this is the third night that they're camping. It was only supposed to be two nights. Yet again, they hear more noises outside the tent. The guys are like a little bit more scared because they're like, all right, what's this about? In the morning they find like those same kind of piles of rocks they saw earlier, like right outside of their tent. And it's like someone clearly put them there in the night because they weren't there the night before. So Heather's like filming the rocks and the guys are kind of like, come on, we got to get home. Like I have work. I have to return this camera. And Heather's documenting everything that's happening, filming the rocks. The guys are getting a little bit pissed off. um They go to start their hike for the day again.
00:51:00
Speaker
And they realize the map is missing. Josh and Heather start fighting and he's like, what the fuck Heather? Like, I can't believe you're so irresponsible. I can't believe you lost the map. That kind of starts a fight between them, but they keep walking and they just keep heading south. So things cool off. Everyone seems kind of like happy and in a good mood at this point.
00:51:24
Speaker
And then Heather like falls in the creek and gets her shoes wet and she's like upset and that kind of like restarts the fight. She starts arguing. She's like, don't laugh at me. My shoes are wet. Like don't make fun of me. I'm uncomfortable. Like, and Mike just keeps laughing and eventually he tells her like, Oh, by the way, I threw the map in the creek yesterday. So you kicked it.
00:51:49
Speaker
Yeah, he's like, I kicked it in the creek. So at this point, obviously both Heather and Josh freak the fuck out. They're both screaming. Josh tries to fight Mike. Like this is where like it really, really escalates. They're like, cause Josh is like, he definitely already thought they were lost. He did not trust Heather to begin with, but he's like, I still think we needed that map. Like even though we were lost, like.
00:52:18
Speaker
we should have a map. And Mike is just like, oh, but like, the map wasn't helping. And they're like, you idiot, you just don't know how to read a map. So they fight, they keep walking. Heather's like, yeah, we are lost. She finally admits it. And then this is where they find those stick people in the trees. They find like hundreds and hundreds of stick figures like tied up in the trees hanging all over the place.
00:52:47
Speaker
And they're like, what the fuck is this? This is some witch shit. They call it voodoo. There's some kind of like witchcraft, like weird stuff going on. This is the scene with the teeth. No, not yet. Not yet. It's coming up. But yeah, like the stick people, it's almost like a weird. So I'm also questioning like what or who is the Blair Witch and it's it almost feels like it's more than one entity because there are so many stick people that it's like one person couldn't have even made them but anyway it gets dark again they have to camp again for yet another night that they didn't plan to be there and they hear like they hear crazy noises outside the tent this time it's like stuff's popping off out there something starts shaking the tent it looks like someone
00:53:41
Speaker
I mean, in real life, it's the director shaking the tent. like It's like someone's just like banging on the side of their tent and shaking it. So it gets so crazy that they all get out of the tent and just take off running. And this is when Heather sees a figure in the woods. Again, it's one of like the crew members. So we don't see anything because it's from her We just see like the camera pointed at the ground, but Heather's just like, what the fuck is that? So you know that she sees a figure in the woods. They hear like weird, weird sounds. There's like a baby screaming, different animal noises. So they kind of just wait till the sun comes up and then they go back to camp. And Josh's stuff is thrown everywhere and it has like blue slime on it. like
00:54:30
Speaker
some kind of weird blue jelly is just all on Josh's belongings specifically. So he's like, what the fuck? That's weird. And they're like, whatever, they're over it. They just continue hiking. They just go straight south all day long. They follow the compass. There's no map. They just follow the compass and just keep walking south. And after they walk south for like 15 hours straight,
00:54:56
Speaker
They come across this exact same log that they crossed early in the morning, so they're like, how did we just walk south for 12 hours and go in a circle? At this point, Heather breaks down crying. They're like, really, really lost, lost for real now. And it's getting serious, because they've been out here like three days longer than they meant to be. It's getting dark again, so they have to camp again for another night.
00:55:25
Speaker
so When they wake up in the morning this time, Josh is gone, disappeared. Mike and Heather are like screaming for him. They weren't ever supposed to go out of earshot of each other, but they just keep screaming and screaming, and Josh does not answer. They keep trying, and they just cannot find Josh, and they decide to keep hiking. And they went south all day yesterday, so they try going east this time, because they're like south didn't work, let's just walk east all day.
00:55:56
Speaker
And they're not fighting or anything at this point. Heather and Mike, they're kind of just bonding over the fact that they're so tired and hungry. Like they talk about food, what they want to eat. They hike east all day and then it gets dark again and they have to camp again. And then this night they wake up in the middle of the night and hear Josh's voice like screaming. But they're both like at this point they've seen and heard enough stuff to know like something she needs going on.
00:56:27
Speaker
And they're like, I don't think that's Josh. It's a trick. I don't know what's going on. They they just hear his voice.
00:56:37
Speaker
And then that morning, that's when they find the bundle. There's a ton more bundles of sticks outside of 10. Like every morning when they wake up, there's all these like weird artifacts. But Heather comes across one that has what looks like Josh's shirt wrapped around it, like a piece cut from his shirt.
00:56:55
Speaker
from the flannel he was wearing. So she opens it and she's like, oh, this looks like Josh's shirt. And she finds blood and teeth inside. So she freaks out and has a panic attack and is hyperventilating. She's like frantically trying to wash the blood off her hands. And Mike's just like, hey, what's going on? You okay? And she's like, nothing, nothing, I'm fine. I'm just washing my hands. For whatever reason, she decides not to tell Mike, but Mike can clearly see that something is up.
00:57:27
Speaker
but they kind of brush it off, they go about their day, they keep hiking east. Then we cut to the classic scene where it's night again and it's the basically the picture from the cover of the movie or the poster of Heather's like face close up talking to the camera. Basically saying everything was her fault and she apologizes to Josh and Mike in their family and her parents saying that everything was her fault, they're gonna die out there and it's all because she made them go out there and all the mistakes that she made.
00:58:10
Speaker
And then we cut to later that night where Heather and like hear Josh's voice again, but this time he's not just like, they don't just hear his voice, he's like screaming for help. So they're like,
00:58:24
Speaker
whatever at this point they think it it's probably a trick it might not be josh but i think they're just at the point where like does it matter what happens we've been out here like five days we're starving we're gonna die anyway so like if it's not josh whatever we're just gonna follow his voice so they're like running in the woods at night following the sound of josh's voice and all of a sudden like really quickly it seems like super close by to where their tent was they find this house which if the house was that close you would think they would have found it earlier but it's kind of strange that like it seems like it's almost as if they like step out of the tent towards where they hear the voice in the house is just there but it's this old abandoned house. Mike immediately runs inside and is like searching everywhere but Heather is like I think just way too scared to go in but she also
00:59:19
Speaker
is way scared to be alone. So she starts like screaming hysterically for Mike to like, I guess to stay with her. And he's just running around the house and Heather's like freaking out screaming at this point. And all around the house, you see like little kid handprints on all of the walls for some reason. I never understood that part. That's been debated because like a lot of people get thrown off by that.
00:59:49
Speaker
saying that that the kid handprints doesn't make sense. Yeah, I always think of like the serial killer they talk about in the very beginning when they interview a guy and say, there was like a local serial killer that would bring kids to this house in the woods. I always kind of connected with that. Because that's kind of what the ending scene reminds you of. But
01:00:15
Speaker
Finally Mike tracks down Josh's voice and follows it into the basement and Heather's again Freaking out cuz she can't find Mike and she doesn't want to be by herself in this place But she finally follows him to the basement and we have the camera from Heather's point of view and when she gets down into the basement I Think it's it's Mike standing there, right? Or is it Josh? That's the one that you see Right at the end. He's the one standing. That's my and okay That's what I thought. I just wanted to make sure. but So she gets to Mike and he's and it's strange because he was just acting normal like two seconds ago, but now Mike is just standing silently facing against this wall in the corner of the room, not responding to her at all.
01:01:03
Speaker
And it's like super eerie. It would almost be less eerie if it were Josh doing that, because we haven't seen him in a couple days. But the fact that Mike was just being normal and now he's being like very not normal, the vibes are off. Heather just keeps screaming. Like we don't know what's going on. Mike is just standing there. And then all of a sudden something like gets Heather or something causes her to drop the camera and the camera just drops and it just goes silent. And that's all we see.
01:01:33
Speaker
here And then that's the end. What a great movie. Yeah. So I guess my questions are, well, one, does this come off as something paranormal or does it come off as something people just messing with them?
Paranormal vs. Human Interference Debate
01:01:52
Speaker
I know in the sequels, it's known to be paranormal, but if you don't consider the sequels, I feel like it's debatable. I mean, I always thought it was paranormal.
01:02:03
Speaker
Oh, it's to me, it's 100% paranormal. Yeah, and I think I feel like a lot of people would agree with that. I've always thought it was and this is this is one of my favorite movies because it kind of introduced me to like a lot of tropes that I really like and like the kind of genre of like mind bending like my favorite scene was always when they come across the log when they're like, we went south all day, how did we go in a circle?
01:02:31
Speaker
And it's very much like, like I love any time in a movie where they're like, oh, it's 8 a.m., why isn't the sun coming up? Oh yeah, I love this. easy And they do that in the sequel, I think, but in the 2016 sequel and just like stuff like As Above, So Below, like that movie where they have a lot of like the mind bending reality. this This movie was kind of like my introduction to that. So I always viewed it as like,
01:02:59
Speaker
Strictly paranormal like there's something wrong with the woods. It's not just that there's a witch. It's like the woods are like shifting In a way that doesn't allow them to be found Yeah, I always I always thought that too. It's like making the compass not work or it's like moving the woods around them like I always thought it was like that like i and I wrote it down as a note because the the the one thing and i't bring my notes obviously as you can see but the one thing that really stands out in the movie is the scary part is two, or three minutes when they're running into the cabin. That's like the scary part. Obviously there's frightening parts in the movie because
01:03:48
Speaker
what's more frightening than being lost in the woods but the the the whole movie is basically them is is trekking the right word i'm looking for them trekking in the woods is the basically that's that's what the whole movie is but when i was when i first saw it and then like the 20 other times i've seen it i never I never thought differently about like the woods itself. is kind of and i can't i took I wrote down a movie that it reminded me of. but
01:04:30
Speaker
So like they're walking, they've already walked three hours. And because then a remember they kept saying, that's not the law. That can't be the law. They're like freaking out because and Heather's just like, that's not, that that's not Mike. I'm trying to tell you, that's not the law. That's not the law. But she knew ah yeah cause it. boys Yeah. She actually says like after a minute, she's like, that is the law. And so I always thought of it as like, you cannot escape the woods. Like once you're in there, that's it. Right. And you know, what's funny is.
01:04:59
Speaker
um Watchers kind of stole that concept of it. Yeah, I was going to say it reminds you of the Watchers. See, I always thought of it as paranormal also. Then I started reading the theories when I got older. Right. I think the main theory that you see is that Josh and Mike were in cahoots and they did it to murder Heather.
01:05:22
Speaker
um And I, when I heard that, I was like, that's bullshit, but I wanted to really sit down and investigate. hey And after um several rewatches and taking all these notes, I don't think that's the case. I used to think that Mike was kind of sketchy. Now I think Josh is kind of sketchy, but I don't think that they're, I don't think either of them did anything. I just,
01:05:48
Speaker
what would I think it was strictly paranormal. I don't think either of them, besides kicking the map into the creek, which maybe the woods manipulated Mike into doing that. We don't know. So I always thought Mike was Josh's friend only. And i so I've seen the Blair Witch three times since Tuesday, just a heads up to people. I've seen this Yeah. Cause we see Heather meet him in the beginning for the first time. But right before then she talks about Mike to Josh, which this has nothing really to do with anything, but I always kind of thought like she had just met Josh. I mean, it just met Mike. So I'm like, Ooh, this makes a lot of, cause she's right. Right. Right. But a little bit, a little bit before that, cause I just, like I said, I've seen it a few times since Tuesday.
01:06:40
Speaker
And ah Tuesday I was washing clothes, so I heard just the audio. Well, because, you know, it's hard to watch it, but I did have my headphones on. And that's when it's that's when this specifically popped up in my head, because she said something like.
01:06:58
Speaker
Oh, so yeah. So did Mike agree? And he's like, yeah, Mike agreed to it. So I always thought that she just had no clue who he was at all. Cause it was like, Oh, hi, you're, you must be, um, you know, Mike, his friend. And again, I don't think she did really know who Mike was, but in the the theory that they, you know, we're basically in cahoots, you know, makes a lot of sense because She doesn't really know this dude. This dude just agreed to come onto this project that they were shooting. it It is a little bit weird, like the combination of people, but I kind of just chalk it up to like, this is a project I would have very much been into at that age, but I wouldn't have had a lot of friends that would be down. So I'm just taking it as like, you had to find these random guys cause like you're
01:07:54
Speaker
closest best friends are like not interested in this type of shit. They don't want to go in the woods and film your little movie with you. And the thing is kind of have to find like who you can find. And that's why they got my like she knew Josh, I think Josh was also a film student.
01:08:08
Speaker
Yeah. Mike was just some guy who was willing to go camping. Right. I was going to say that is Josh, um, Josh and, um, uh, like they, they aren't campers. None of these guys are campers. Right. They don't even know how to camp. That was the thing too. Cause they didn't know how to set up the camp. They're not doing the other stuff. And the, the thing that I noticed too, rewatching this movie, you know, specifically for this,
01:08:38
Speaker
I don't think she was that good of friends with Josh either. I think they just kind of knew each other. Like it wasn't like you and me. It was like me and... I thought I remember like reading somewhere one time that like Josh was her ex and I was like looking for that context when I rewatched it. And I also rewatched it like three times this week and that's not a thing. So I don't know why I heard that.
01:09:04
Speaker
um
01:09:07
Speaker
I, I thought, I thought they had something like a past relationship, but they, they didn't. Um, I couldn't find anything in every, I watched a few interviews with her and she was like, everything she said was like, man, I gotta, ah these guys are, are like, like everyone was worried because it's a woman going into the woods with two strange men and that she had no clue who they were.
01:09:37
Speaker
Right. See, that's interesting because I know in the movie, she's like, this is Josh. This is my friend. This is my friend. Yeah. I thought like in the context of the movie that that was her ex and now they're just friends. But I guess I think someone just made that up and I read it yeah because that's never, I mean, maybe it could be the case, but it's never explicitly stated. So I think that they are just, it seems like they're friends from school. Like they probably have a film class together. That's how they know each other. He's got the equipment.
01:10:07
Speaker
I was going to say, i think I think they're friends from like college, not even high school. Yeah, because yeah they're in college. But I'm saying, like I think they probably just kind of knew each other. like Right. They've known each other for like a semester or two. Which which makes the theory always interesting, because it's like... Yeah, I think it's a valid theory in the beginning that you could say. like um
01:10:35
Speaker
What's it called? Like just situationally? Like, because then i like circumstantial. You could say like, okay, maybe Josh and Mike did want to murder her. But then if you watch the entire rest of the movie, you're like, that's very clearly not what was happening here. Cause the, the, the thing about them, the thing about them is with the theory, if we're talking about the theory is now why.
01:11:03
Speaker
Why are you trying to kill her? Is it a crit thing? Is it satanic? Is it like, we killed witchcraft, right? Yeah, I think I've seen, I have seen a theory that's like, oh, they, they did it as like a ritual sacrifice, which makes even less sense to me. I think, I feel like it would make more sense if you just said they just wanted to like regular murder her for whatever reason that like men murder women because they don't, they don't really seem like the witchcraft type.
Theory Plausibility: Witchcraft and Manipulation
01:11:34
Speaker
I'm going to be completely honest. like mike this if Mike's not giving ritual sacrifice to me. I just got to be honest. I can see Mike as like the hired assistant to the killer, but like that theory, although it makes a lot of sense, you know I started thinking, like why? what what What purpose do you need to kill her? Because she's annoying? She wasn't really that annoying.
01:12:01
Speaker
you know and and like like I was thinking throughout. i'm like And it's like it was her idea to go out there. She dragged them. Right, right, right. So it's like, did you find like, oh my God, this is the perfect situation. Let's go kill her. It's like, well, why? like what what I did start to think that maybe she was the one trying to kill them. Because I don't know if she i don't know she was really even lost. I think she was lost and under the spell of a witch.
01:12:31
Speaker
That could be it too. Yeah. Cause we do get the context that like Heather is a hiker. She goes hiking every weekend. She drives to the woods and you know, she does this all the time. She knows how to read a map. So she really shouldn't be lost. So I think, yeah.
01:12:50
Speaker
Right. and Who knows? the the I think the important part is that this movie was able to generate a lot of like fan theories that stick to a point until you like start to dig deep into it. Because cause I just think so many people say that nothing happens in this movie. And I'm like, if you say that, you're so boring because we're here 30 years later.
01:13:16
Speaker
And we're like, man, what happened in this movie? like So much stuff is going on. We still don't know. And there's people still sitting there that are like, oh, they're just in the woods with a shaky camera. Nothing happens. If you're boring, just say that. True. What's everybody's favorite part of the movie?
01:13:40
Speaker
Like I don't have a favorite part because like it's such a buildup. So like if I were to isolate a moment, it would be hard. I love, I love every time that they feel like some, someone's fucking with them, like them coming out of the tents and being like, Oh shit, there's all these, like those moments stuck out the most to me because when you rewatch it, like I remember watching it for the first time and it was terrifying.
Favorite Film Moments and Realism
01:14:13
Speaker
So I'm going to tell you mine real quick, and I'm going to explain to you why, because it's not a goofy, and it might sound like one, but it's not. When she's interviewing the mom, and the little girl's kind of telling the mom to shut up, and she's like, oh, no, it's OK. Ingrid, why would you even fucking daughter that? But it's she's like, it's OK. It's OK. It's fake. She's like, oh, it's not really fake. You know, I think that's probably one of the most important parts of the movie, not It's one of the most important parts of the movie because remember, this is supposed to be real. The whole point of this movie is- I do love how they show, they interview people on both sides. There's a lot of people, they're like, oh, the witch is real. And then their buddy's like, man, shut the hell up. And the thing is, if you didn't have that lady and her daughter, it's just like, OK, they're interviewing people.
01:15:09
Speaker
you know But the fact that this this lady looks like she was leaving the store, and she looks like she's like kind of in a rush, but like, oh, I'm so excited. I really want to tell you this this story. Yeah. it's like She's like, I'm leaving the grocery store, but you want to talk about the witch bed. Right. But the little girl is genuinely scared, because one, she's a little fucking girl. And two, it just I know they didn't tell her to be scared. like She's probably genuinely scared. And that's my favorite part in the movie,
01:15:40
Speaker
because it to me, it's like that is so real, right? And this movie was basically marketed and and and forced down your throat that this is real. This really happened. It starts off with basically, this is real, you know? And that part, I think, is one of the most important parts of the movie because a like It really shows a genuine fear that this little girl has, which makes it seem like it's an actual, like a real documentary. um there's I mean, there's obviously great scenes. I mean, who doesn't like her crying? you know Who doesn't like them running? like I think one of the scariest scenes, well, I might've said earlier, but one of the scariest scenes is when they're running to the fucking house.
01:16:34
Speaker
because the whole time you're like, why are you running to a fucking house? You know? yeah And I think that's like, and on this watch, like I noticed like the way Heather is screaming in that part is like worse than she screams in the entire movie. And I think it's literally because she's afraid to go in, but she's also afraid to be alone. And Mike immediately runs in the house and she's like, do not fucking leave me here.
01:17:02
Speaker
but I also don't want to go inside so I can't follow you. So Heather is like completely like broken. Yeah. Yeah. And that's terrifying because it's like, I don't want to go in this house either. I don't want you to take the camera into this house, drop the camera. I don't, I don't want to know what's inside of this house, you know, and back to the theory of that they were into it.
01:17:24
Speaker
It's like, how the fuck they might know Joshua had been in there? How does he know that the screens is coming from in the house? You know, there's a lot of that stuff too, if you want to watch it and think about these things that they set her up. It's like, he just immediately knew, Oh, we run this way. Something can happen. Oh, what do you know? There's a house, you know? It's like, to me, that's terrifying. Cause maybe not even the theory part.
01:17:51
Speaker
you know, scratch that part. But maybe like Pat said, maybe the witch lured him into the house. So maybe it was the witch who put him on there. I think you have to. I mean, it's a pair. For me, it's a paranormal movie. So you have to assume paranormal and. But some that a witch would do, yes, they would test smells. Yeah. Want to get you confused and guide you to a place where they could do harm to you.
01:18:21
Speaker
Cause don't at the end, they even mentioned that they went back and the house wasn't there. yeah There was no house. You know, so yeah like they searched the woods and couldn't find the house. Right. Right. So they found the thing is the cameras would have been found where the house was. Cause that's where they dropped the camera. Right. Right. Right. So the house disappeared. Like how do you, how does the house disappear from under the camera? Right. Right. So that's, that's the thing, you know, like even that in itself is frightening. Cause it's like,
01:18:50
Speaker
the camera was in the basement or wherever they were that that that they got killed at. So, you know, when you find the film, it's like you found it where she left it nine times out of 10. Well, that's where the house is. But where's the house? Maybe the house moves. I mean, maybe the house never existed.
01:19:15
Speaker
If it's, look, i'm I'm going off of that. There's some kind of devilish trickery. Right, right. That's what I'm saying. What what if the house just never existed? What if it's just like an illusion to lure them into wherever you're going? you know like that's that's a That's the beauty of this movie is, like you said, fucking almost 30 years later, we're still like, who did what? What did what?
01:19:45
Speaker
Where is the house? Was there even a house? you know And I saw this the sequel too.
Blair Witch Sequels and Their Impact
01:19:52
Speaker
Well, I saw the original sequel. That was kind of not really. ah The Book of Shadows? Yeah, I saw the Book of Shadows um ah like when it came out. good i like you I like it better than the average person, but it is not.
01:20:11
Speaker
It's no it's no it doesn't compare to the first one and also like and and I don't I don't want to talk too much about it because we' we're talking about the original but it doesn't expand on the lore that much. Right and then but that's kind of where I'm going with like the 2016 version kind of does the same thing that the Book of Shadow does it's like it's fun it's kind of cool it's a cool like in the universe of the Blair Witch but it doesn't also doesn't touch up on, you know, much of it. So like, I think like the Blair Witch should have just been left alone as obviously it made a shit ton of money. So like, let's make some more. But that's, this is a movie you make one and that's it. Nothing else.
01:20:59
Speaker
It was a it was like like some of the quotes said, even though they were negative, this was a passion project. It wasn't expected to get picked up. It wasn't expected to make money. And, you know, the person, the the team of people, they were really into it. And um I think that showed every now and then we get movies where this happens. So the the ah head, the director, the writers are like the same person and they They're also the producer and we get these like wild passion projects. Yeah. i This movie is truly, I'm telling you, it it changed my life because it I saw a lot of things differently. One, I saw that I'm easily manipulated. When I got older, I'm like, holy shit, that's crazy that I believed it for so long. And then two,
01:21:57
Speaker
It's one of those, it's just one of those films that I saw growing up that just really made me see things differently. Kind of like I said, I mentioned with the Empire Strikes Back, like I saw A New Hope, I was like, this is pretty cool. And then they put on Empire Strikes Back and like that movie, I said, I have to, I need to, I cannot go to sleep, I will not go to sleep until I see what happens next.
01:22:26
Speaker
You know, and this movie gave me kind of the same effect, not like I want to know what happens next, but that like immediately, holy fucking shit, these kids are dead. This has to be real. You know, like that whole process of it as a kid and then even now as an adult watching it, because I can see me as an adult thinking like, let me Google you, let me Google this and make sure this is fucking fake, you know?
Found Footage Genre and Blair Witch's Influence
01:22:56
Speaker
like i will search woods Yeah, I'll just dig up woods and look look at what the woods could do but no like this is yeah g p t Oh No, don't give me all kinds of weird shit about woods But yeah, this this is one of those movies that like it changed me you know the way it it it changed my life in the sense of like movies and I fantastic movie. Yeah, still my favorite. I will not accept criticism on that. um I'm sorry for whoever saw this at any point in their life and thought this was bad. You know, I get it. I do understand, but I was like, I totally get it. Yeah, it's a terrible and great thing. It just comes down to for me. Some things I don't think are can be an opinion and
01:23:52
Speaker
Just because something's good doesn't mean you have to like it. Just because you like something doesn't mean it's good. like I think objectively, this film was groundbreaking and created like a new genre. like We had found footage before this, but this really gave us like this style of footage. I would say what we would call now real found footage. Right. So wrap this up because we're going on.
01:24:21
Speaker
an hour and a half. Guys, we all like this movie. What are Julia's recommendation to found footage movies? That isn't Blair Witch Project. It's not found footage, but Skinnaburr Inc. and Paranormal Activity, which is another one of my, those are all like some of my favorite. um But if you don't like this style of movie, like if you hate Blair Witch,
01:24:52
Speaker
you will also hate those other two. But if you liked it, watch paranormal activity and watch skinnomer ink. Yeah, paranormal activity and probably because of the time we're living in dash cam. I what i would say the paranormal activity is also groundbreaking because I thought that was fucking real too. I'm not even going to say a lot of you guys.
01:25:20
Speaker
I fucking thought that was real until I saw the alternative ending. I was like, how the fuck do you have an alternative ending to a real story? you know I'm just probably a fucking idiot, but I truly thought paranormal activity was real too. And I think that's when I realized, oh my God, Blair Witch must have been fake. But anyways, that's neither here nor there. um I would have went with with Hell House Carmichael Manor, but that's for like horror heads. you know um I feel like dash cam because it's like funny enough It's more relatable to people now. So like I would say dash cam and um Paranormal activity those two I think and earlier I mentioned as above so below. That's a great. That's a another one. It's so good Yeah, that that was gonna be the one that I one of the ones that I recommend. Sorry Oh, no. No, it's great. It's as above so below to me is like the continuation on a Blair Witch and It kind of evolves the found footage thing and the found footage genre. Love it. I hope more people see it. And if I had to pick one more, uh, dead stream, you know, you go with the comedy horror. Yeah. I always get as below so above or however that movie is called.
01:26:40
Speaker
I always hid that and the Liam Neesons, a walk amongst the tombstones, confused. um never heard of that before my life It's not even a scary movie, but for whatever reason, I'll be like, oh, I'm about to put this on. I need a good, scary movie. And it's a Liam Neeson movie about him being a drunk, which a great movie, but it's not what I was looking for. Or I'm just like, oh, I need a good Liam Neeson action movie. And I put it on like, fuck, it's a horror movie. Well, got to watch it now because it's a good one. But Pat, do you agree with Paranormal Activity? would Would that have been your second one?
01:27:15
Speaker
Yeah, I mean like it's the easy. It's an easy choice. So I wanted to go a little like different Paranormal activities great it Paranormal activity it built a formula and then they just replicated it. I they're unmoved I think paranormal activity could have stayed as one also, but I enjoy the other ones But I think had it just been one movie, I think it would have been great also. and like It's a great standalone movie. Paranormal Activity is 100% jump scares with a small... The thing is, if you go across like all the movies, you get like one decent story, continuous storyline, and that's impressive. See, but the thing about paramonal Paranormal Activity is... it See, this movie is relatable.
01:28:09
Speaker
uh, paranormal activity because it's basically your cameras in your house. Right. So everybody has cameras in their house now, but back at that time, it was like, who the fuck has a camera in their house? But now everybody has ring cameras and shit. So, you know, that movie, besides it being such a great movie and at the time being like the revival, you know, kind of the genre.
01:28:34
Speaker
That movie is way more relatable now than Blair Witch is now, you know, but also dash cam is way more relatable now because everybody like a movie like dash cam or spree. That's relatable because everybody's going live. Everybody's got like videos of them driving. You know, these are more relatable. These movies I think will help get you interested in found footage because it's not too goofy. It's not goofy like carrying this big fucking bulky camera with a leather strap that you got to slide your hand through it and your thumbs got to be under the camera because if not, it's too much weight. Like these movies are more realistic nowadays. This isday is vaguely off topic, but did you know in the show, iCarly,
01:29:29
Speaker
the physical camera that they show Freddie filming iCarly with is like videotape like it's not a digital camera like they filmed iCarly canonically on like VHS tapes and then converted it and then uploaded it to and canonically in the show they explain somehow that like the way that they're able to record iCarly on VHS tapes and then convert it is that they there's this like attachment that they put on the
Modern Technology's Impact on Film Magic
01:30:01
Speaker
camera. And in the show, it's literally just like a glow stick that they slap on the side and they say it's like Bluetooth technology. And now they can upload like VHS tapes to YouTube. Bluetooth is a wild thing. Do you think this movie, the Blair Witch, do you think it would work if it were being today? But we like with today's technology, like live streaming,
01:30:26
Speaker
Well, I like if I'm going off of like the kind of the magic or or not magic like witchcraft aspect, I'm assuming the live stream wouldn't work or something like that. Or it could be like a dead stream where they're like people who are live streaming or helping. They're like doing research for them. I'm thinking of like the movie Oculus where like technology can fail or you can have like, you can get like fake phone calls. It's like your friend calls you on the phone and you talk to them and you realize it wasn't really them. It was just the the woods manipulating you. I think it could.
01:31:10
Speaker
It could work. It really depends on how well like it's produced. I think what made this work was so many factors lined up for it, the marketing, the act. They got lucky because improv is a big risk. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think that was crazy. Listen, I want to see the 20 hour cut. So do I. Release it. I don't even think and it it exists. I think I saw somewhere that like The actors themselves edited some of the footage, so they only handed over so much of it. like They filmed 20 hours, but...
01:31:47
Speaker
They had 20 hours of fun. It took months yeah and stuff that got cut, got physically cut and thrown away. There were a few added, like some of the stuff stayed for the DVD um release and a handful of scenes, like two scenes were added in when FX debuted it almost a year after its theatrical run. They added in two scenes that weren't in the movies, which made it fun for the viewer.
01:32:16
Speaker
good times Yeah. Anyone else have any final thoughts? Nope. You should, if you didn't like this movie, you should try to rewatch it with a crowd of people that did just to see if you really didn't like it or not, or if you're just trying to be unique.
The Value of Second Chances in Film Viewing
01:32:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I um disagree. I think you don't need to watch this. If you don't think you like it, leave it alone. Well, I mean, more so. No, no, I don't. I think everything deserves a second chance. I just feel like that that opens it up for people to like double down and be like, no, I really hate it. And then and then. um And that's OK. Yeah, but then I'm just frustrated and I'm like, OK, be quiet. then Anyway.
01:33:14
Speaker
Yeah, whether you liked it or not, whatever. The 12th and the 13th of August, they're showing that at Mahoning. So I may have to go. And it's the first movie shown, so you don't got to be there that late. Yeah, I'm in. But yeah, that's a conversation for another time.
01:33:38
Speaker
yep All right, the only, nope, no more final thoughts. All right. Everybody's good? Yep. All right.