They were encouraged to improvise and left to encounter the unknown horrors the filmmakers had in store for them. The three actors shot the film themselves, learning how to use the camera equipment during pre-production. The truly terrifying moments in the film arise due to the off-the-cuff acting skills of the performers, as well as their honest reactions to what was happening around them. In a film titled, The Blair Witch Project, audiences never got to see an actual witch. Yet still, this was not the most challenging aspect of the shoot.

However, their dialogue was almost completely improvised. Williams were given a detailed outline of the script. Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. The film was made with a budget of only $60,000 and hosted a unique filmmaking experience for its actors, to say the least. The hype built through word of mouth and on internet message boards reached a fever-pitch by the time the film hit theatres. This viral marketing campaign lasted for months. All of this was used as a promotional tool to add legitimacy and terrify would-be audiences before the film even premiered. In addition, they even screened an hour-long fictitious television special titled Cure of the Blair Witch, which alluded to an upcoming feature-length film on the subject. This success is due, in part, to the filmmakers’ utilisation of the newfound accessibility of the internet, unleashing one of the world’s first ever viral marketing campaigns.įamously, they created a spooky website for the film (which still exists today). The Blair Witch Project is undoubtably one of the most iconic and divisive horror films ever released.

In the twenty years since its release, interest in the mother of all found-footage horror films has not waned, despite a shift in the folklore surrounding it. “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. The teaser trailer for 1999’s The Blair Witch Project begins, But how did such a low-budget film become a horror classic? The truth lies in how the film was made. It’s the 20 th anniversary of the release of horror phenomenon The Blair Witch Project, one of the most influential and genre-defining films of our time.

The blair witch project 1999 true story