The Blair Witch Project (1999): The Movie That Fooled a Generation

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[00:00:30] In 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland. A year later, their footage was found. More than 25 years later, we're still arguing over whether it was terrifying, boring, or the greatest marketing trick the internet ever pulled. This week, we are revisiting The Blair Witch Project.

[00:01:03] Welcome to the No More Late Fees podcast. I'm Jackie. And I'm Danielle. And we're just two best friends and ex-blockbuster employees rewatching some of the best. Stenworth's movies from the late 90s and early 2000s. This week, we're grabbing a camcorder, throwing away the map, and making every possible wrong decision in the Maryland woods with 1999's The Blair Witch Project. But before we dive in, let's get into some housekeeping. Housekeeping.

[00:01:35] I need to wear diapers, throwing spooky season. I make you tinkle a little bit. A little. If you love the podcast and you want to support us, here's how you can. Never miss an episode. Subscribe or follow the show on your favorite podcasting app and YouTube. We are trying desperately to get to 1,000 followers on YouTube. Do us a solid. Go subscribe to our channel. Please and thank you. We love you. He's back.

[00:02:07] And in order for me to endure the absolute insanity that is The Blair Witch Project, we obviously had to bring my ray of sunshine, Johnny, a.k.a. Jackie's brother. Johnny. And if you want to get to know... Hello. Welcome. Sorry. You're good. I was all business for a second. I'm sorry.

[00:02:33] If you want to get to know Johnny better, check out this week's bonus episode as well as our episodes on Napoleon Dynamite, A Knight's Tale, Urban Legend, and The Faculty. Well, you guys ready to hear about what this movie is about? Please tell us. Uh-huh. Three film students traveled to Burkittsville, Maryland to make a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. After interviewing residents and hiking into the Black Hills, Heather, Josh, and Mike become lost.

[00:03:03] Their supplies disappear, strange sounds surround their tent, and mysterious bundles and symbols appear as the group realizes something may be stalking them. The movie stars Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams appearing under their real names. The movie was written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. You can currently watch it on HBO Max. But before we get started, let's get into our ratings rewind.

[00:03:33] So you know the drill. Before we get into the movie, we'll reveal the rating our Y2K versions of ourselves would give. Then at the end, we'll see if our current selves agree with our initial rating. Our scale consists of would buy it, would buy it again. The best would play on repeat. Five-day rental. Would watch again. Two-day rental. Ah, okay, but nothing to write home about. And same-day rental. Leave that shit in the woods because it's trash.

[00:04:04] Johnny, what is your Y2K rating of the Blair Witch Project? So I was, this came out in 1999, is that right? Mm-hmm. So I was 11. Yep. Saw this movie and I was absolutely terrifying, right? So I think probably at the time, maybe like a two-day rental only because I don't think I could watch it a second time. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, two-day rental. I fell for all of the propaganda.

[00:04:34] Like the marketing campaign worked on me. I was the right age. I was a dumb teenager. I think probably 17 at the time. I, we went to see this with Liz and Nick and a big group of their friends in California. And then the next day we went camping in Big Sur. So we very much were like, oh my God, it was the scariest thing we've ever seen.

[00:05:00] So I did not own it, but I guess five-day because I'm sure I went back and told everyone I could how scary this movie was. And I'm sure you told me and I said, I'm keeping my black ass at home. So this was never seen. This was my first time watching this movie.

[00:05:20] I, all, like since we had it on the calendar and I think, I think in some, some recess of your mind is like, maybe if we need to skip an episode, we'll skip the Blair Witch. I was just glad to get it over and done with. Because every time I mentioned it, you're just like, oh no. This, I would say the Saw movies were higher in my must avoid list.

[00:05:46] But now like, as we're going through some of these movies, I'm like, this is what this was. Y'all crazy. I, there just, there is definitely an element of space and time. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I give it that grace for sure. Okay. So the box office, this movie came out officially July 14th, 1999. It had a budget of like 200,000, 750,000. They're not quite sure.

[00:06:16] It might've, they might've put more money in it once it started to like grow. And the worldwide gross for this movie is $248 million. That is, that's crazy. It's, it's definitely in, I would say it's probably top 10 of like the ratio of smallest budget to highest grossing film. You have a fact down here about it, which contradicts your budget. I, I'm aware.

[00:06:47] Okay. I saw it, but that's what they have out there. I don't know what to say. Oh, the film cost $60,000. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. But that's everywhere is different budgets. I don't know. Sometimes maybe that's what it started off with, but you have to imagine like once it started to pick up steam, they. They hired another agency and they started to put some ads and stuff towards it. So who knows?

[00:07:15] Still not a terrible return. No, not at all. Not in the slightest. So in the theater at this time, we had American pie. Number one, big daddy at number two, wild, wild west at number three, Tarzan at number four and star Wars episode one, the phantom, phantom menace at number five is a banger of a top five list. Except for wild, wild west.

[00:08:00] Wild, wild west. Five day rental. Five day rental. And the Blair Witch Project came in at number 20, which, you know, considering that nobody knew what the hell this was. So it earned about 1.5 million from 27 theaters in its opening weekend. Wow.

[00:08:24] And it originally premiered January 23rd of 1999 at a midnight screening at the Sundance Film Festival. And let's see. It was the 10 highest grossing film of 1999, which is wild. It was really spectacular, considering that as the book that you've told me about says 19, everyone says 1999. Best movie year ever. Yeah. So it did pretty damn well.

[00:08:53] And like I was saying about the ratio. This film was in the Guinness Book of World Records for the top budget box office ratio for a mainstream feature film. The film cost, as it's stated here, $60,000 to make and made back $248 million. A ratio of $1 spent for every $10,931 made.

[00:09:16] And the thing about the budget that I just want you guys to keep in mind is that sometimes it's not accurate because there's a set budget of how much it took to make the movie. And then there is a marketing budget sometimes on top, usually on top. So sometimes the numbers can fluctuate. So not that we're making up nonsense. Speaking of nonsense, let's see what Lil Raj had to say.

[00:09:43] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the movie four stars. We're not even going to say anything. And called it an extraordinary effective horror film. Peter Travers of the Rolling Stone called it a groundbreaker in fright that reinvents scary for the new millennium.

[00:10:03] And Andrew Saras of the New York Observer deemed it overrated, as well as a rendition of the ultimate triumph of the Sundance scam. Make a heartless home movie. Get enough critics to blurb in near unison scary. And watch the suckers flock to be fleeced. Damn. Tell us what you really feel, Andrew. Snaps.

[00:10:29] Well, before we get into the cast and crew, let's hear a message from our pod pals. Sharks of the Corn? Virus Shark? Cocaine Shark? Sharktopus? Yeah. Those are all real movies. Join me, Steve Coates, as each week I take a comedic look at the bizarre world of shark exploitation cinema on Bucket of Chum, the shark movie podcast.

[00:10:57] All right, so as for like casting, I didn't find a whole lot of information about that, but I did find information about what the cast endured making this film. I have a fun fact about when they were auditioning. Oh, okay, let's hear.

[00:11:15] So apparently when they were casting the movie during the casting process, they would ask each person, you're sentenced to 25 years in prison. Right. It's been 10 years. Is that enough time to be up for parole?

[00:11:37] And then if people took too much time to answer, they were immediately like, man, because they have to, you know, you have to, this whole thing was improv. So, and Heather Donahue responded. I wouldn't want to be up for parole. Like, like if I'm sentenced to something like that means. I need to be sentenced for the full max amount of time. So that's how she got that role. That was my fun fact.

[00:12:07] Well, I'm, I pulled from all the right movies, the new book. You can see it. And there is an entire chapter based on the Blair Witch Project. And one thing that I found interesting is that there was no script that existed. There was just an outline and daily instructions designed to create tension. The directors orchestrated conflict. The cast was underfed, disoriented, and experienced real trauma.

[00:12:37] So this was a filmmaking. This was filmmaking as experiment. Yes. And my understanding is that they would tell the group where they should end up for the day, like on the map. And then once they got there and went to sleep, the production would go in. And there was like a little basket or something that they would put out with all of the footage that they shot for the day and the batteries.

[00:13:05] And the production crew would go in at night and swap them out for fresh batteries and fresh film. And so that's how they kind of limited their interaction with the trio as the movie went along. So they were truly just the three of them for eight days. And they got less and less food each day. And so they were hangry.

[00:13:33] Like all of those noises and everything that was being made by production, they had no clue any of that was going to happen. So they were truly in like this heightened sense of fright by the end of the AD filming process. And Heather had a knife. She said sleeping with two men she was scared. And I think that feeds into another fun fact in all the right movies.

[00:14:00] It said that after she was cast, a concerned Donahue asked the directors if they were making a snuff movie because her loved ones weren't taking any chances. So that her mother demanded the filmmakers social security numbers. Because if you think about it, like no studio was behind this really. They were really making this movie. So shout out to John Barker and the All the Right Movies podcast.

[00:14:26] You definitely should check out the book if you're going to be thirsty for more info on the Blair Witch Project and many other movies. They feature 25 iconic films in the book. It's a really fun read. What else do we got? The story was originally intended to be three male filmmakers lost in the woods. However, Eduardo and Daniel were so impressed with Heather's audition for the role, they decided to cast her as the lead filmmaker with two male assistants.

[00:14:57] Which, that's pretty bold, to be honest. The directors kept in touch with the actors. They used walkie-talkies to make sure the three would not get lost during their trek. But reportedly they got lost at least three times. One of those times being when they leave the car on the side of the road, they started heading in the wrong direction.

[00:15:22] And the directors were just like, we're already fucking boned because they can't even get the right directions. They haven't even lost sight of the car yet. Oh my god. So to maintain the film's fear factor, the three main actors agreed to stay in character for the entire eight days of filming.

[00:15:47] Periodically, if an actor had to break from character, then the remaining two actors also had to break from character. But only after collectively reciting their safety word, taco. Hmm. They have a safety word. Yeah. It reminds me of like an escape room where they're like, everyone has to agree before you get a clue. And so everyone has to be like, clue please. The actors were given more than a 35-page outline, like I was saying. So all lines were improvised.

[00:16:17] And nearly all the events in the film were unknown to the three actors. So that is kind of wild. It really is. Yeah. I wonder why they decided to use all their real names. Oh, I'll talk about it later when we start talking about the marketing. Yeah. Okay, cool. Because that was kind of interesting how the mom, because it was found footage, right? It's like the first of its kind. Yeah.

[00:16:46] Well, not the first of its kind. There was other movies that had like, but it was like the most, the one that popularized it. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't widely done. Right. So people saw it. The mom got, the mom of the main actress got sympathy cards because they thought her daughter was murdered in the woods. I'm sorry, your daughter is missing. I love this fact.

[00:17:09] The woman on the street telling her account of the Blair Witch and the events in Burkittsville was just a random woman the actors came across on the street. She made up the entire story on the spot. And after filming, the directors tried with no success to find the woman to get her to sign a release form. I think this is the lady that's holding the kid. That's freaking the fuck out. Oh, yes. And eating his boogers.

[00:17:34] Which I'm like, it only adds to the heightened sense of the movie is like the kid is like, essentially like mom shut the fuck up about this. Right. And the lady is into it. She's like, let me tell you about the Blair Witch. And to know that it was just like completely made up on the spot. Kudos. I thought she did a really good job. I thought she did. I thought all the people that they like interviewed did a really good job of being real.

[00:18:01] My other favorite were the two guys fishing. Where they're like arguing about the story. And they're like, no, we don't believe it. And then go into like the entire lore and are correcting each other. I'm like, I just want a movie with these two just yelling at each other the whole time. Well, the directors, they went to a local college and they put up posters. They were trying to recruit students to help.

[00:18:31] Obviously, it's a low budget production. They only got one person that responded. Patricia Deku. She portrayed Mary Brown and also helped with the art department. So she was the older lady. Yeah. Interesting. Heather Donahue told Fangoria Magazine that the final scene was so terrifying for her, she kept hyperventilating and crying long after the shoot was over.

[00:19:01] I can't even imagine. Literally, what I hear about this movie is the basis of Survivor and Love Island. Because these tactics are what used on those reality shows to get those people crazy. Yeah. Yeah, like isolation, no food. Messing with the food. Yeah. Wild. Around 53 minutes, the reactions from Heather, Mike, and Josh when they discovered that they

[00:19:30] walked south all day and ended up in the same spot are actually real. They were genuinely upset that they had walked all day for nothing. Girl, day one, out of beast mode. Okay, I don't care if it's a movie. I am out of here playing with me. I would be so mad. I'd start tearing up the set. Be like, I'm fucking done.

[00:20:00] Get me out of this shit. Taco, taco, taco. We're not doing this anymore. And I don't mean gringo fucking taco either. I do want to point out that Eduardo Sanchez is a UCF grad. Oh, shout out Trojans. Nope. What are you guys? I mean, what is Ken? Fuck are the Trojans. No, what are you? What are you guys, Johnny? We're the Knights. We're the Knights.

[00:20:29] So who's a Trojan? I don't know. USC or someone? I think. Yes. Shout out Knights. Go condoms. It felt right. They have that gold label. Such confidence. Which is what you need if you're grabbing a Trojan. Maybe I'm just thinking of a man or something.

[00:20:58] I don't know. I saw a man with gold on. Okay. Are we ready to get into the movie? I mean, what is there really? I agree. That's a good point. Yeah. What is there really except bad decisions left to right to left? Bad decisions. Screaming and hooting and hollering. Arguing. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[00:21:27] And the film, the film capabilities of my grandma holding the damn phone trying to do a FaceTime. What is that? What is that? I don't know. Can you point the camera to it so I can see? Like, nothing pisses me off more than that except when there is a video of people fighting in the parking lot or at a store or something and somebody is recording it and then you're watching.

[00:21:56] You're like so invested and all of a sudden then they just do this. Where are they? Catch the action. You have one job. I love when there's a beautifully done TikTok where, like, stays on target the whole time and then the comment section is just like, you're the real one for, like, shooting. Right. Like, steady hand. Followed the action. Never deviated.

[00:22:25] Like, you're the real one for this. For sure. I, cause, cause like, cause why? Cause why? It's like having a grainy picture on a dating app in 2026. Why? What is, what's wrong with your face that you had to get a grainy photo? Anywho. So high level. Yeah. They decide to make this documentary. It's Heather and these two guys and nothing is explained.

[00:22:52] You just jump right into Heather's apartment and she's like, we're doing this. And here's Matt, I think. And Josh. Mike and Josh. Mike and Josh. Yeah. We don't know who these men are. She doesn't seem to know Josh at the beginning, but he's, he's along for the ride. Yes. Cause it's like, she hired them. She brought cameras. I don't know if she's from this town. I. Nothing. I got nothing.

[00:23:21] It feels very nineties. It feels like I just picked up, like it is found footage. It's like, I just picked up the tape and now watching this girl, just taking videos in a bedroom with two randos that she met on Craig's list. If that's existing, I don't know. And now they're going into the woods, but first thing, actually they interview a bunch of townspeople once they've reached the, I think it used to be called Blair. Yeah. The town of Blair. The town of Blair.

[00:23:50] Now it's. What I don't understand is, so they go and interview all these people and the people were planted by the directors, like unbeknownst to the trio, they were planted by the directors to give like this lore about the Blair witch, but none of it is congruent with one another. Which I think isn't so bad because I think those kinds of urban legends are all over the place.

[00:24:18] Sometimes the only thing that's keeping it together is that there's a witch. Because we get like, later on we get the story of Coffin Rock. So we're like, okay, she steals children two at a time and like puts one in the corner while she kills the other one. But then also she disembowels men and ties them hand to feet as some sort of human ladder situation in the woods.

[00:24:46] But she also idle hands, you know, so she'd be whittling the and tying up these little stick figures to be hanging from the trees and piling rocks. Those are wards or stuff. I don't know what she'd be doing. She'd be doing stuff. And I don't have to know. She's a busy lady. She does what she feels. She really does. Women in STEM. Literal STEM.

[00:25:12] Blair Witch was the original woman in STEM. Everybody just stay the fuck out of the woods and mind of their business. If minding your business can keep you alive, my God, white people would never make it. My gosh. But you know what? To a certain extent, because you always have the tea. So you mind some of other people's business.

[00:25:43] I guess it's just the approach. I can't help. If there's a job to be done, there's the people who go and get the tea and the people who collect the tea. Those are different jobs. I'm not on site getting the information. I can't help that people can't keep the tea to themselves and they got to pour it out for me. I'm just saying. Yeah.

[00:26:10] So now that they've gathered all the lore from the town, they go into the Black Hills and they're going to go. I don't know. I guess to just get footage of like that coffin rock and I guess try to find the Blair Witch's house. I don't know what the direction was once they got into the woods. Yeah. I don't know what was the point. It's a documentary. I can see like they want to like, you know, they're exploring the lore of this documentary, right?

[00:26:38] So they're just going in to see if they can, what they can find. So I get the, I get the philosophy here. I understand it. This coming from the man that like, likes to take spooky walks in the dark and scary podcasts. I do. Yeah. I'm very upset that the part of the neighborhood that used to be just wooden frames of houses are complete now. Cause I liked walking down the road, listening to my scary stories and looking inside these,

[00:27:07] the bones of these houses. You're only flawed, Johnny. A white man in America. Just hoping, hoping that I would see something like just see some two eyes or something. What in the freak are you talking about? Really Johnny? Yeah. I'm at my grandmother's house in a residential area and I run from the car at night. To the house.

[00:27:32] I have to make sure I have the keys outside of my purse in the car to make sure I make it alive. When I gotta go put my mu mu on and my slippers to go throw out the trash at night around the side of the house, I'm terrified. And you walking around houses. Yeah. Listening to scary songs. I love it. So they go to the woods. Yes. Oh, one of the, so I think we mentioned the two stories.

[00:27:58] They also go to the cemetery and they're like, sure are a lot of babies in the cemetery. Well, let's keep going. All killed around the same time. That's suspicious. Oh. So yes. Now we're in the woods and we're just walking. They're lost. They get lost. Immediately. But they don't know they're lost yet. And then they don't know until the next day. They get in the tent. And Heather's like, it's fine. It's fine.

[00:28:27] Like, it's just always fine. Heather needed to be punched. I'm sorry. I've never, I never truly feel empathy for the men in these movies. But I was feeling it for them. Because Heather, bitch, what did you do? When she did that sorry ass, like, apology. Bitch. We're all dead because of your nonsense. And you have the audacity to be apologizing to my mama. Girl. That's true.

[00:28:57] Yeah. So as they go through their hike, yeah. Little, little side quests get lost for a little while. But then we get back on track. She gets real psyched that she finds Coffin Rock, though. And is real excited to tell us the story about the men's entrails. Yeah. And she, like, does, like, this dramatic reading from a book about it. Hmm.

[00:29:27] And I'm like, okay, Heather. I'm just, like, I'm watching her on my iPad. And there's so many moments where it's just black. I don't know what, I can't see nothing. I was watching it on my 80-inch TV. And I'm like, we're just jostling. Like, there's nothing happening. There's just screaming at each other and arguing. And camera jostling as we are walking through the woods. And leaves. A lot of leaves. A lot of leaves. A lot of sticks.

[00:29:57] A lot of, like, the side of the tent. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I do know one argument was that they weren't going to light the fire one night. Because the first night they didn't light the fire and they didn't hear things that night. Yeah. The next night when they lit the fire, they heard things that night. And I'm just like... But by that time, Josh had already knocked over the rocks that she tried to fix, but it didn't work.

[00:30:23] Do you think that's what was, like, the catalyst to everything going down that I'm knocking down the rocks? Don't touch her shit. I just think they're dumb as fuck. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Blair Witch. Jeez Louise.

[00:30:52] It pissed me the hell off. Blair Witch recognized that they had had enough suffering. They didn't need it anymore. They shall pass. Through Black Hills. Just stupidity all around. Because y'all with your three brains couldn't figure this out. Yeah. Or, like... Nobody could wrap something around a tree so they knew if they were... Come on, now. Come on.

[00:31:18] And if we're crossing the same log back and forth, obviously you're in the same location. Follow the fucking river. Like, that is like Lost in the Woods 101. Follow the river downstream. Like, and then at least you know you're not walking in circles. Or don't go in the woods. We're already in the woods. We're already in the woods, Danielle. We have to work with what we have here.

[00:31:46] Or take the Danielle approach and just at some point say, I'm just laying here until nature takes me. I'm glad you already know. My mom keeps yelling at me. The starfish. Talking about I can't just give up. What? Me, Christine? We would have gotten... She would have... Danielle would have found out that the map was gone and we had walked 15 hours in circles and she'd be like, take me, Jesus. Let me just tell you.

[00:32:12] There was a part of this movie that I immediately had PTSD and I said, Heather is Jackie because I have been on a trek. She has taken me a yonder. It was an urban forest. And Danielle went home. Danielle got up from the table at Junior's in Grand Central Station and she said, I'm going home. I've had enough.

[00:32:41] I've had enough. And Heather and I looked at each other because it was only like five. Heather and I looked at each other and I was like, I guess we'll see her back at Greg's apartment this evening. And Heather and I stayed in the city and Danielle went back to Queens. Oh, so was in New York. It was fun. So yeah, Danielle and I are never... Well, we're not hikers to begin with, but we're definitely not hiking in the woods together because... We're not in the woods.

[00:33:13] How many camping trips have I gone on? Exactly. And I'm camping to the extent of I'm bringing a comfy chair and my book and some sunflower seeds and I'm not moving. The most was that natural pool we went to in Austin. You did good there. It was nice. Which one? Hamilton pool. Hamilton pool. Okay, cool. Yeah. With the turtles. Yeah. So we have...

[00:33:42] I think it was... Yeah, the second night, like you said, Johnny, because the fire was roaring, little tinkling giggles of children around the tent. I'm out. I'm freaking out. No way. It's my worst nightmare. I just feel like I would... I think they should have separated. Somebody's got to get out. That's like the number one rule, don't separate. Yeah. Well, the number one rule is don't go to the goddamn woods.

[00:34:12] And you've already broken it. So what's the problem? They already ended up with... I don't know. I know it's not good to separate, but I just feel like they were in some sort of maze or something. Yeah. They probably would have all ended up back where they were. What if it was the Blair Witch, like, switching up the woods? Yeah. Maybe it was like a liminal woods type of situation. Like a back room's woods. Do we ever see the witch? No. No. And that one lady was like... She had hair...

[00:34:39] She had horse hair all over her body. That's such a weird detail. Did you maybe just see a horse? Horse hair is beautiful, so I'm not opposed. Yeah. Just saying. I'm picturing like Chewbacca. Like that style hair all the way down. Did she just see Bigfoot in the woods and assume that it's the Blair Witch? Yeah, someone was saying that the witch like levitated too.

[00:35:08] So just a Wookiee just levitating everywhere. No Wookiee. Yeah. She probably just has a really good jacket on. They're right on Mary Brown and the reason why they went to see Mary Brown and interview her was because she survived an encounter with the Blair Witch. And she talks about how she was fishing with her dad when she was little in the woods and then she saw the horse hair lady. And then she was able to like... I don't even know how she escaped. It was all very odd.

[00:35:36] Also in that scene, like it shot the footage is worse than the rest of the movie, which is not saying much. Because the guy, Mike, didn't know how to use the camera yet. And so it was like out of focus and grainy and stuff. And they're like, oh, I guess we have to use it because that was... I'm assuming their only take with that lady. Yeah. It took them a long time to edit.

[00:36:05] Like, I think it took them... Eight months, I think. Yeah. But it only took a few days to film. Wow. Eight days to shoot and then eight months to edit. Very interesting. My favorite fun fact about this whole movie is that one of the video cameras used by them, by the actors, was brought back to Circuit City where they bought it.

[00:36:33] But after they filmed, they returned the camera for a refund so that their budget, their money could go back to the budget. Which there's a documentary called My Date with Drew. Oh, right. And he does the same thing. It's in our time frame. I think it'll be super fun to do because I just really enjoy it. Like, it's just an upbeat film. But he did the same thing. Like, he didn't really have the money to shoot the movie.

[00:37:01] So he went and bought a camcorder from Best Buy and then returned it at the end of shooting. So his time frame had to be like 29 days because he needed that 30th day to go and return the camera. Hey, you got to be scrappy. You got to be scrappy. So they're in this damn woods. They're fighting. They're hungry. Children. The children are crying, happy, laughing. I don't fucking know. Stacks of rocks.

[00:37:28] Then the weird stick figures start to show up. At one point, they're like scared out of their tent. And they go back and Josh, is that the? Yeah. Josh's backpack is covered in some sort of goo. Yeah. It was really KY jelly. Okay. Like a reality? That's what it was? That's what they smeared on his backpack. I mean. But he didn't know what it was. No.

[00:37:56] And then he's like, why? Why my backpack? Why not yours? And then like Josh soon thereafter disappears. And we're like, you kicked that pile of rocks. You fucked around and found out. Sorry, Josh. And so now Heather and Mike are like super frazzled. Oh, but that was. Josh disappears after the whole eating of the map. Yeah. The dumbest part of the entire movie. The absolute stupidest thing that.

[00:38:26] But the map wasn't helping them anyways at this point. But still. Maybe. So let's get rid of it. Maybe. Why not? Like, hey, give it to someone else to try and figure out. Heather. Heather. Yeah. Heather was quite controlling. Yes. Quite controlling. Which I. Whiny. She. I did not like her. No. At all. Like we love. An independent woman that's out making a documentary and has men as her assistants. But girl.

[00:38:57] Well, I always appreciate men who make space for a woman having autonomy to be a leader. Yes. That is what I appreciated. I didn't appreciate that she was a horrible leader. You know, I support women, but I don't support them being absolutely insufferable. Like, don't make me side with the man. Yes. And I was.

[00:39:25] And that's a good point. I mean, none of the characters I felt like were very likable. No. You know what I'm saying? They were all pretty shitty. Yeah. This rewatch, I'm like, I really don't care if the Blair Witch gets you. Like, I could care less at this point. I've never wanted death more. I was like, get him, girl. Maybe she's a good guy. She's just getting rid of all the shitty people who come into her woods. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck her around and find out.

[00:39:55] Bring her on to retirement. Don't turn into my woods. Bring her to DC real quick. Let her do a sweep. Marilyn's close enough. Yeah. So they hear like, at night, they'll hear branches breaking and stuff. And yeah, weird shit starts to happen. Then Josh goes missing. And then they're kind of just spiraling into psychosis at this point. They're just out of their mind with panic. They hear Josh screaming at night. And they're like, do we go look for him?

[00:40:25] Like, what do we do? I'm not friends with this man. I just met you. I'm sorry if you did something to piss her off, but I'm going to try and find my way home. I'm going to go the other way. I just met you. This is crazy. Maybe. Call me maybe. Blair Witch got you. Bye bye, baby. Yeah.

[00:40:54] So, yeah. Now they're another night or two of like hearing Josh screaming and not being able to find him and still being lost and like screaming at each other. And then it all culminates into they stumble upon this cabin. Or the like. Mansion. Wrecks of. Yeah. It was a fucking mansion. It had like three stories. It had a basement. I know that. It seemed out of place to me. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:24] Like, I feel like it should have been like a cabin, right? Like that seems the appropriate type of building that would be in the middle of the woods. Not like some, not like a suburban, like upper middle class abandoned building in the middle of the woods. I know that building is got, it's got, it's in the records at the set of town. Exactly.

[00:42:10] Yeah. The frames were dark. Some of it was leaves. I said, I got tired for this shit. So I was watching videos of bunnies. I'm not going to lie. There was one scene. There was one scene when they were, when, when the tent, something was rustling their tent. So they ran out just into the middle of the woods and she's running, she's running, she's running with the camera filming. And she said, what was that? I rewound, I rewound, I rewound it like 10 times, just trying to figure out what she saw.

[00:42:41] Like there was nothing on the camera to be like, wait, what? Apparently. Apparently. So I, I did listen to, re-listen to the chapter from best movie year ever that covers the Blair Witch project. And so I got some insight. I don't know if it was from this or just my other kind of poking around research, but one of the production assistants dressed in all white, like he had like white long johns on and like put white pantyhose over his head. And was just running around the woods in the dark.

[00:43:10] So they scared them out of the tent and then this man in all white. And so I think that's when she was like, what the fuck is that? Because really there was like an apparition in the woods. We could have, I would have loved for the camera to have caught that because it's, it gives the movie signs where you, you're like mentally fucked until you see that thing. And you're like, well, exactly. Like in that science fashion where it's just like a sweeping camera shot. Yeah.

[00:43:39] And you're just like, I saw that fucking white blob too, Heather. I'm with you. Yeah. I think it would have added some more fear into the, into the audience's psyche. I think a lot, a movie can be done really well where like the unknown or the unseen really elevates the fear of the audience.

[00:43:59] I think the way this is shot and the way it was kind of just improv and there was just a lot of hooting and hollering really detracted from it. And so I think being able to visually see some of the things they were seeing would have been helpful to maintain that heightened sense of fear. I do truly think that what really made this movie was the lore and the psychology of it.

[00:44:29] And so when I was watching it, I had to really like put myself in that. And I kind of was sad that I didn't get to have that like mass hysteria when the movie came out to be caught up in it. And because the, the promotion for this movie started a year before it came out. And so you would see little things.

[00:44:50] There was a website that like told the story of these three filmmakers and how it's found footage and the Blair Witch Project and all of this to kind of feed into that. And so then you're going, you've been hearing about this movie for a year. You finally get to go see it. And it's like a packed theater with people that are experiencing it with you. And I think that's what led into that, like coming away, like, oh my God, it was so amazing. Because you're like feeding off of the energy in the room.

[00:45:19] Right. When you're just sitting at home watching it and watching bunny movies. You really do. You have the same effect. I, I, I look at this movie and I credit it to just like an amazing marketing campaign. The Blair Witch Project really elevated what you could do with the internet for movies.

[00:45:40] Because this was a brand new campaign that they hadn't, yeah, they hadn't used, utilized this platform before. Right. They didn't know that they could, the internet was still so new at that time. So to be able to spread rumors, have the website, it was just. Like put up missing flyers. Right.

[00:46:03] And during like promotion of this movie, the actors were not allowed to promote it because they wanted to maintain the illusion that they were missing. Like that was part of the lore. And so like it was frustrating for the actors. Like, yeah, we're in this like blockbuster movie.

[00:46:20] We want to get more work, but we can't because they assume we're dead to the extent where they had, the studio had changed their IMDb profiles to show that they had died in October of 1994. So even if like casting directors were like perusing IMDb, they weren't calling them for jobs because they assumed they were dead.

[00:46:44] And that's why Johnny, when you ask like why their names were changed originally in the script, they just had regular, regular names. And when they decided to do this entire campaign, they kept their real names so that it could all kind of tie in together. And what I love about this is that this was done before anybody else could do it. Right.

[00:47:07] And now I find something that they're doing really cool on social media for a lot of TV shows and movies is that they're making Instagram accounts. And you're, for example, adults is doing this, the TV show. So they had somebody who is this guy who's supposed to work on set. Apparently he got fired, but he had like all this video content of him being really weird with the cast in real life. And so the, his Instagram has like all this content of that.

[00:47:37] And so people were believing this is real and we're finding out that it's actually like a marketing campaign. So a lot of, they're doing a lot of character stuff and making characters have like their own Instagram page, which it makes me think of how they hyped up this movie, which is just from a marketing standpoint, brilliant.

[00:47:58] And I remember, I remember after when we went to the, when we went camping after y'all saw it at Big Sur in California, people were stacking rocks. Yes. And then in the campground. Because of this movie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I remember seeing that and being freaked, freaked the hell out as a little kid. So yeah, that, that was really cool. It was just really, really smart. Cause I remember thinking this was a real thing. Yes. Cause that's all we heard.

[00:48:28] And the film's website had materials of the actors posing as police and investigations, giving testimony about their casework and share childhood photos of the actors to add a sense of realism. So by 1999, the website had received 160 million hits on this site, which is unheard, especially in that time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:49:03] Yeah. So now we're kind of at the culmination of the movie. And then that ties back to the lore where the Blair Witch would take two children at a time, make one stand in the corner while she murders the other one.

[00:49:30] And then you see the camera fall to the ground and that is the end of Blair Witch. Although we did not talk about the nose snot. The most iconic scene. Shot right before she goes into the haunted house. That's when she's apologizing to her mama, his mama, the other guy's mama. Sorry. I brought them into it. Right.

[00:49:55] But she wrote her own Heather Donahue wrote her own monologue for the initial scenes and nice in the documentary. So good job to her. And I just like, I'm always curious, like about this movie made a ton of money. I do remember that there was, I think they sued or something must have happened because they didn't make the money back from how successful it was.

[00:50:22] And like you said, Jackie, they didn't get the opportunity to, to really launch their careers after this because of having to really be committed to the bit. So I know there was definitely some controversy for that as well, which really sucks.

[00:50:41] So it seems like initial pay a thousand dollars per actor for the shoot plus a weekly rate of around $500 during the initial production phase, which was only eight days. Right. They also received a cheap fruit basket instead of box office bonuses after the film crossed a hundred million. That's greedy. Their non-union contract included a 1% profit, profit sharing clause.

[00:51:08] If net profits exceeded 1 million, which yielded little initially due to Hollywood accounting and studio buyouts. And so, as you had mentioned, Danielle, they sued, the actor sued artists and entertainment in 2000 and eventually settled for about $300,000 each in 2004. That's still fucked up. Yeah. Yeah. For the amount of money that that movie generated. And, and it was all them.

[00:51:33] Like, yes, the directors had this idea and yes, they, they instilled the sense of fear within these actors, but they went through the mental anguish. They created all of the dialogue. They held, they fucking shot the entire, almost the entire movie. Yeah. They were cast, crew, production. That's crazy. Crafty. Like they were doing it all.

[00:52:00] Jackie, see if the writer, writer and director, if they did anything else after this, because I'm curious. I think they did. Going back to the final scene, Josh shouts in the, like all his shouts from that scene were prerecorded and played through the speakers hidden away in the woods. So they really were doing a lot of stuff to these people. They were. And each of the three leads were required to sign a release, granting the production permission to mess with their heads.

[00:52:29] In a scene where the main actors are sleeping in a tent at night, the tent suddenly shakes violently and they all get scared. This was unscripted and the director shook the tent. And the actors actually were scared as they should be because you're still in the woods. Yeah. Huh. One of the directors, who are you? Eduardo Sanchez. Bringing it back to Supernatural, Daniel. Mm-hmm. Excuse me. He directed five episodes of Supernatural. Mm-hmm.

[00:52:59] One episode of Yellow Jacket. So it looks like he mostly did TV directing after that. The backstory for the film is a legend fabricated by Sanchez and Myrick, which is detailed. They did a mockumentary broadcast on SyFy in July of 1999. And it was called Curse of the Blair Witch. I remember when that came out.

[00:53:24] Sanchez and Myrick also maintained the website for further details to the legend. Interesting. I like that the actors all thought that the Blair Witch legend was real as they were shooting it. Ooh. That really led to them being as scared as they were.

[00:53:44] Also, because of the way the movie was shot, a lot of theaters had to kind of put warnings and have extra trash cans around because it was making some people nauseous. Yeah. And then, you know, vomiting's a domino effect. Mm-hmm. So after the film was released in late November of 99, the historic house where it was filmed, it was overwhelmed by fans.

[00:54:12] Fans were going out there and they were breaking off chunks of the house as souvenirs. So the township eventually ordered the house to be demolished. That's really sad. The next month. So, yeah. I wonder if there's more security or something. Yeah. Sure, I've been out there for like a hundred years unbothered and then like some yahoos that watched a movie go out there and just fucking ruin it for everyone. So let me get this straight. Yes. You watch this movie.

[00:54:41] You think it's found footage. It's going to get the shit out of you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you said, I'm going to go to the house. What is wrong with you guys? Johnny's like, I would have been there. That's my people. That's my people out there. Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no, no. Couldn't be you. Could not. Could not, could not, could not. Now, a question started to come out after the movie came out.

[00:55:10] Was it original or was it a copycat? Some critics noted that the film's basic plot and premise and narrative style were very similar to two movies. The Cannibal Holocaust from 1980 and the Lost Broadcast from 1998. Now. And I think we forgot to say that is. Oh, I mean. Yeah. We did it, Joe.

[00:55:36] The film's trailer was leaked on the website 8 Inc. Cool News on April 2nd, 1999. And the film was screened at 40 colleges in the U.S. to build word of mouth. A third, 40-second trailer was shown before Star Wars Episode I, The Phantom Menace in June. So I probably saw that trailer because I believe I went and saw The Phantom Menace during that time.

[00:56:02] And there's probably a reason, but surprise, surprise, that some of the footage was originally screened during the Florida Film Festival in June prior to, obviously, the movie coming out. During the screenings, the filmmakers made advertising efforts to promulgate. Why am I learning new words today? Efforts to promulgate the events in the film as factual.

[00:56:29] So this included the distribution of flyers at festivals, such as Sundance, asking viewers to come forward with any information about the quote-unquote missing students. USA Today reported that The Blair Witch Project was the first film to go viral despite having been produced before many of the technologies that facilitate such phenomena existed.

[00:56:55] Well, this movie lives on forever because an array of films relied on the whole found footage. Again, it wasn't the first, but it's the first to popularize it. And because of it, we have continued with the paranormal activity movies. We had Cloverfield, The Last Exorcist, Chronicle, Project X, and so many more.

[00:57:20] Even said that the marketing influence helped him promote his horror film, Cabin Fever, in 2002. Well, remember, if you have any feedback or thoughts about this movie, make sure to hit us up at NoMoreLateFees on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, threads. Let's get into present-day ratings.

[00:57:44] Johnny, now that you've rewatched it with a fully formed written, what is your rating for today? I will give it, honestly, I'll give it the same. I don't know if I would, when the next time I'll see it, but I don't know if I have an interest in seeing it again anytime soon. Was it your date? Today was my original, yeah. And Jackie? Same day. If I don't ever have to watch this again, I'm good.

[00:58:12] If I could go lower than one day, same day. If I could get to hell, I would put this. Rewind full time in space to not watch this movie. I would watch Killjoy a million times. We found a bar lower than Killjoy. This is, I want to say, this is the worst movie we've had to watch. What?

[00:58:40] I think the most outlandish thing about this movie, honestly, was how that camcorder still worked after four days of continuous use. Not wrong. Facts. I never want to, never want to see this movie again. But I'm just going to put it out there. Regardless, it's just my opinion. And also, you guys know, I don't fuck with the horror shit.

[00:59:06] But like, and if I am, you better be committed to making that shit really good. This is just one of those movies that lives within a bubble. It was a time. It was a time. It was a time. I missed it. I missed the boat. What? What happened? You know, Book of Shadows, Blair Witch 2 is in our time frame. I'm aware. 2000. I know. And I was, do you notice that there's no notes about that? But your business had to go find it?

[00:59:36] I'm not watching it, Jackie. There's so many other movies we can do. Kurt Loder's in it as himself. I'm not watching. We got you once with Saw 2, Never Again. As George W. Bush said, you fool me once, you fool me twice. Some, some, some, some, some, some, some. Direct quote. Great quote.

[01:00:04] If you have opinions on the Blair Witch or any other movies that we've done, hit us up at our quick drop. You can call in and leave a voicemail or text in on 909-601-6653. Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, Twitter, and Twitter. Butterfly in the Sky at Blue Sky. And you can be featured on a future episode. Johnny, thank you, my love. You're very welcome. Love you guys so much. Love you so much. You had some very interesting opinions. What? What was my opinion?

[01:00:35] But I will never judge you. Just judging the fuck out of me. You just need to go out with me one night, listen to some scary stories, look for spiders in the grass. I think you'll come around, honestly. As long as you hold my hand, I'll be all right. All right, cool. And as always, stay spooky, be kind, and rewind.

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