The filmmakers sent Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Joshua Leonard into the woods for a week in October 1997, with only the bare necessities, recording equipment, and instructions to film each other no matter what happened. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez auditioned prospects for a year before settling down on three actors to play the roles of… well, themselves. The “real” story is that five graduates of the University of Central Florida conc octed the idea to film a phony documentary using limited finances and a cast of unknown actors. They entered the forest just outside the town of Burkittsville, planning to film a documentary about the legendary Blair Witch, but wind up in the middle of nowhere, never to be seen again, except in the footage which makes up this movie about their disappearance, making audiences everywhere wonder if it was all true, if some evidence of the supernatural was finally caught on tape. Heather Donahue, the main character of The Blair Witch Project, says this, not only knowing that it’s false, but after she and her two-man film crew have already gotten themselves hopelessly lost in the woods of Maryland. ![]() “It’s hard to get lost in America, and it’s even harder to stay lost.” The experience is disorienting and frightening as well as the most rewarding horror film experience to come along in many years, as it wisely chooses to prey on our vulnerable imaginations rather than bombard us with graphic images.Ī Horror Film that Redefined the Genre, the Medium, and Our Popular Culture It begins with footage of the crew leaving their homes and testing their equipment, but before we know it, they are lost deep in the endless woods, with the voices of screaming children piercing the blackness from off in the distance. The film is composed entirely of reportedly "found" footage shot by three missing college students who made a journey to the woods of Western Maryland in 1994 with the purpose of making a documentary about a "witch" of local legend who is linked to murders and mysterious occurrences spanning 200 years. It is an ingenious creation which makes effective use of its lack of budget and cast of unknowns. Made for $30,000 by two young filmmakers from Florida, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT wowed festival audiences for several months before finding distribution at the 1999 Sundance Festival.He said the creek was “this forbidden thing” because his mother didn’t want him to get wet or dirty playing in it. His family also went camping in the Shenandoah National Park, and he said that helped inspire the decision to have the student filmmakers camp in the woods.Ī lot of the scary moments the students in the film experience in the woods - like noises outsides of tents and the idea that “something is hanging around” - came from Sanchez being scared as a kid, he said. “There’s this dark, natural world that’s out there,” Sanchez said. Sanchez’s girlfriend at the time (now his wife), Stefanie De Cassan, lived a few miles from Seneca Creek State Park, so it was a “totally pragmatic decision” to shoot the majority of the film there, he said. Sanchez and De Cassan also used to hike and picnic in the park. It had everything we were looking for,” said Sanchez. Seneca Creek has grown to embrace the film’s popularity. ![]() Park Ranger Erik Ledbetter led a Blair Witch Heritage Hike Oct. 8 at Seneca Creek, leading fans to some of the film’s iconic locations and explaining their significance. The hike included a visit to the famous “Coffin Rock.” In the film, the filmmakers travel to the massive rock formation after hearing stories of fur trappers who were supposedly mutilated there. One of the hikers, Kelsey Stanford, 27, from Upper Marlboro, Maryland, said that after seeing the filming locations, he wanted to watch the movie again. “When I first saw the movie (10 years ago) it was pretty scary,” he said. Williams remembered that although they were supposed to be isolated in the woods, “some mornings we would wake up and there would be a jogger running by or a family.” “I was pleasantly surprised by the inside scoop we learned on the hike,” Debbie Kaplan, 54, of Germantown, Maryland, wrote in an email.“The hike was well-led, well-attended, and a great way to spend a dreary Sunday afternoon.”Īctor Michael C.
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