Product Details

• Actors: Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, Joshua Leonard, Bob Griffith, Jim King
• Directors: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
• Writers: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez
• Producers: Bob Eick, Gregg Hale, Kevin J. Foxe, Michael Monello, Robin Cowie
• Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Live / Artisan
• VHS Release Date: October 22, 1999
• Run Time: 81 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1,863 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00001QGUK
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #16,497 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Anyone who has even the slightest trouble with insomnia after seeing a horror movie should stay away from The Blair Witch Project--this film will creep under your skin and stay there for days. Credit for the effectiveness of this mock documentary goes to filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who armed three actors (Heather Donahue, Michael Williams, and Josh Leonard) with video equipment, camping supplies, and rough plot outlines. They then let the trio loose into the Maryland woods to improvise and shoot the entire film themselves as the filmmakers attempted to scare the crap out of them. Gimmicky, yes, but it worked--to the wildly successful tune of $130 million at the box office upon its initial release (the budget was a mere $40,000).

For those of you who were under a rock when it first hit the theaters, The Blair Witch Project tracks the doomed quest of three film students shooting a documentary on the Burkittsville, Maryland, legend of the Blair Witch. After filming some local yokels (and providing only scant background on the witch herself), the three, led by Heather (something of a witch herself), head into the woods for some on-location shooting. They're never seen again. What we see is a reconstruction of their "found" footage, edited to make a barely coherent narrative. After losing their way in the forest, whining soon gives way to real terror as the three find themselves stalked by unknown forces that leave piles of rocks outside their campsite and stick-figure art projects in the woods. (As Michael succinctly puts it, "No redneck is this clever!") The masterstroke of the film is that you never actually see what's menacing them; everything is implied, and there's no terror worse than that of the unknown. If you can wade through the tedious arguing--and the shaky, motion-sickness-inducing camerawork--you'll be rewarded with an oppressively sinister atmosphere and one of the most frightening denouements in horror-film history. Even after you take away the monstrous hype, The Blair Witch Project remains a genuine, effective original. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker

A cunningly conceived and crafted exercise in suggestibility and terror. A student film crew, led by a determined young woman named Heather Donahue, goes out into the Maryland woods, attempting to record traces of a predatory witch who has, according to legend, held sway in the area for two hundred years. What we see is presented to us as the remnants of the project after the crew has disappeared. The footage has the haphazard continuity of tormented fragments; it's all handheld stuff, caught on the run. Tents, woods, isolation, increASINg fear, and then ambiguous terrors suggested by such commonplace materials as some sticks tied together or rocks placed outside the crew's tent. The documentary project is, of course, fiction, created by five film nuts from Orlando, headed by Eduardo Sanchez, Dan Myrick, and Gregg Hale. If it doesn't play at midnight on every college-campus theatre in the country, then midnight isn't what it used to be. In black-and-white and color. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

80 of 97 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Give Credit Where Credit's Due, March 29, 2005

By	Graboidz (Westminster, Maryland) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: The Blair Witch Project (DVD)

It seems like everyone now enjoy's ripping on "The Blair Witch Project", and I don't get it?! It's almost like when you scare the hell out of that kid when you are in 6th grade, and he might have been screaming wide-eyed with fright, only to tell you a couple minutes later "Hey, You Didn't Scare Me", just to repair his pride or ego. When I first saw "Blair Witch", it did scare me, and left me a little rattled at the end.....why? Because when I went to see it in the theater, there was still a strong buzz about the movie that it was either really an aborted documentary, or was a film based on true events...we were supposedly seeing the genuine article. Sure, I may have been duped by a clever marketing campaign that involved TV mocumentaries, internet gossip and radio buzz.....and looking back I think that was great. "Blair Witch" if nothing else, is a wonderful homage to William Castle, who back in the day of "The Tingler" would wire theater seats to shock select members of the audience to induce a well timed scream, or his film "The House on Haunted Hill", where skeletons would buzz the audience, or his movie "Straight Jacket" in which he offered the audience a chance to buy life insurance in case the film scared them to death. That is great stuff that put butts in the theater seats, and with the advances in technology, and modern communication, "Blair Witch" and it's marketing campaign did the same thing, only the updated version. It worked, the movie made a ton of dough and was the water-cooler talk around theoffice for weeks. Did I feel let down when I learned "Blair Witch" was just a movie? No. I applauded the idea behind the movie, and only wish more films would do the same. As far as the actual movie goes when I watch it on dvd....well it doesn't pack the same punch as when you might think these were actual events, but I still get a kick out of it. And it's obvious this film hit's a nerve with quite a few people, I mean at this time there are over 1700 reviews posted here at Amazon about this movie...most are ripping the film apart....but there just seems to be a hint of that 6th grader saying "Yeah....you didn't scare me" as they rush over to turn on the lights after the movie ends.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gave Me The Creeps, January 7, 2000

By	rrrrob (Wixom, MI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Blair Witch Project (DVD)

I really don't care for modern horror movies....they seem so stupid nowadays (Scream was a recent exception). But I really liked this.

If you like Hollywood cookie-cutter horror movies, this is definitely NOT for you. It's a very unique, experimental movie, one which had elements from my childhood nightmares (getting lost, being in a strange house, etc.).

Why it works, I think, is because so much is unseen or vague, leaving much of what is going on to your own imagination, sort of like Jaws, where the most intense scenes are those where the shark isn't even in sight. Hitchcock understood this concept, that less is more.

Unfortunately, today's viewers (especially younger ones) are jaded by the glut of gore and special effects in modern Hollywood horror movies, which may explain the negative reviews (worst movie ever? Not by a long-shot). Gore is almost non-existent in this movie...but be warned, I believe the "R" rating comes from the use of the "F" word, which becomes more and more prevalent as the three filmmakers get more and more lost/scared/frustrated.

I was a little disappointed at the ending initially, but the movie stuck with me for weeks after (I also had trouble falling asleep the night I saw it)....give it a shot.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Try to ignore the hype & just keep an open mind if you can., October 11, 2000

By	Kitten With a Whip "kittenwithawhip" (The Hellmouth) - See all my reviews

First, I feel like I have to address the buzz surrounding the movie. I am at the same time disgusted and sort of impressed with the hype. It is pretty clever when you think about it. No trailers (well, they did have some eventually, but still, it took them long enough) no cast members doing the rounds on talk shows, no big budget, etc. Just the website, the documentary on the SciFi channel, and big-time word of mouth. Apparently worked. I feel for those actors, since they got paid about what I make in 2 weeks for 3 weeks of hell. I hope to God the filmmakers were generous and gave them points in the film.

I am also hearing that at most theaters, they pay the manager, etc to get up before the showing and get the crowd all hyped up, which is kind of lame. When we saw it Saturday, the owner (before she threatened people who had laser pointers) got up and yelled, "Hey, welcome to Crossroads theater, and ARE YA READY FOR THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT? Whooooo-hoooo! Everyone READY TO BE SCARED?" I was like, oh please. I also heard these girls in front of me asking someone next to them if **this was a real documentary**. We got up and moved because I did not want to spend the movie sitting behind someone so incredibly stupid and naive. But I guess that's what a good job they did marketing it, because I heard there are plenty of stupid people out there who think the thing is real. I also grudgingly admire whoever decided to market it initially as a 'hard ticket', meaning they wanted to have it only at one theater or so per city for a few weeks. I'm sure that helped the buzz. Hyping it as the scariest movie of all time (though maybe this is more word of mouth than the filmmakers doing it) is kind of dumb, though, because people are just going to be disappointed, unless all they've seen are "Scream" and "I Know What You Did Last Summer". I heard kids talking after the movie who were let down because they was very little gore, no monster, and no real pay-off.

I had a good time because I told myself not to expect anything. I guess if you go, just keep an open mind, and don't think, "This better be the scariest movie of all time after all the hype, or I'll be p**sed". I do think it's kind of funny how the big studios spend millions of dollars marketing their lame summer 'event' pics, but this is the one most people are talking about wanting to see.

So, that's my 2 cents as far as the hype goes. Went and saw BWP for myself a few weeks after in came out. Inside the theater manager had to come make an announcement about laser pointers, she said if anyone used them during the movie she'd take them away and kick them out. She was this huge, burly, tough woman who looked like a prison warden so people calmed down after that and shut up. Anyway, I loved it. Not the scariest movie I've ever seen, but if you asked me what the scariest movie I've ever seen was, I wouldn't be able to name it. I would saw BWP, the Exorcist, Henry Portrait of a Serial Killer, Last House on the Left (and a couple more I can't think of right now) are like the top scariest. I was really impressed though. Very realistic, the way it was shot and put together, and the character's reactions to stuff. My spouse said it really scared him, which he hardly ever says, because he's been camping and that's like your worst nightmare. The whole movie was very creepy and spooky but the last 5 minutes REALLY scared the crap out of me.

It's funny, the audience started out very rowdy, and I thought I'd have to "shhh" people the whole movie. But after the first 5 minutes, people were engrossed. As the film got more and more tense and scary, there were no screams. Instead, the whole audience just sat there cowering quietly in fear. Not a lot of talking back to the screen, etc like there is in most horror movies, and the audience was full of teenagers. That speaks for itself, I think.

I read a review in which they said that the movie was all about panic, and I agree. One of the most upsetting things is the way the characters go from calm, controlled, and joking, to nervously joking and then arguing, to trying desperately to hold it together, to understandable total freaked out panic by the last reel. As the film draws to a close they just give up all pretenses of composure and control and just panic and run around like maniacs screaming incoherently at the top of their lungs. Usually when characters in a movie do that you feel like slapping them, but the film draws you in so much that you do not blame them, one bit. You know you would probably act the same way if you were in their shoes, and the way the movie is filmed, you are pretty much in their shoes.

Bottom line regarding how scary it is: If I'd been watching it by myself at home at night I probably would have started crying.