FilmMovie ReviewsMovie Rewatch Halloween Horror Month – The Blair Witch Project (1999)

IMDb Rating: 6.5/10

R | 1h 21min | Horror, Mystery | 09 Dec 1999 (New Zealand) |Movie

Metacritic: 81% Must See

88Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 86 % Certified Fresh (Critics) | 56 % Rotten (Audience)

Director: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez

Writer: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, Heather Donahue

Stars: Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, Michael C. Williams

Movie Tagline: “Scary as hell..”

IMDb summary: Three film students vanish after travelling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind.

When The Blair Witch Project first released, everyone wanted to see it – at least they thought they did. The hype about the “found footage” film was everywhere. Horror fans were clamouring to the box office.

I remember this film so clearly because of the audience’s reaction to it. Many people in my viewing walked out of the theatre! For most people, The Blair Witch Project was way too realistic. The one thing you know about horror movies is that sometimes they are based on real events. At least that’s what people thought at the time.

But of course, that’s the power of good marketing. The director and writer behind the film marketed this movie as if it was based on true events when in fact, was purely fabricated for effect. Seemed to work a treat though because TBWP is now heralded as one of the most successful found footage movies to date.

We do have one piece of advice though and that is don’t bother with the remake. It’s honestly a joke and does absolutely nothing for this franchise. All you need is the original.

While researching this we did discover that there is a version available with two deleted scenes that were reinserted when the film was aired on the FX Channel but apparently, neither of these deleted scenes has ever been released officially. So we’re now very interested in finding that version. Stay tuned as we may end up writing about this for our deleted scenes blog series.

If you like our content, you can follow us on WordPress here, on Letterboxd here, on Twitter here or on Instagram here.

Don’t forget to check out our podcast updated weekly right here.

Thanks for your support!