The Blair Witch Project [Blu-ray]

Director: Eduardo Sanchez, Daniel Myrick Eduardo Sanchez

Overview

Combining Hi-8 video with black-and-white 16 mm film, this film presents a raw look at what can happen when college students forego common sense and enter the world of voodoo and witchcraft. Presented as a straightforward documentary, the film opens with a title card explaining that in 1994, three students went into the Maryland back woods to do a film project on the Blair Witch incidents. These kids were never seen again, and the film you are about to see is from their recovered equipment, found in the woods a year later. The entire movie documents their adventures leading up to their final minutes. The Blair Witch incident, as we initially learn from the local town elders, is an old legend about a group of witches who tortured and killed several children many years ago. Everyone in town knows the story and they're all sketchy on the details. Out in the woods and away from their parked car (and civilization), what starts as a school exercise turns into a nightmare when the three kids lose their map. Forced to spend extra days finding their way out, the kids then start to hear horrific sounds outside their tents in the pitch-black middle of night. They also find strange artifacts from (what can only be) the Blair Witch, still living in the woods. Frightened, they desperately try to find their way out of the woods, with no luck. Slowly these students start to unravel, knowing they have no way of getting out, no food, and it's getting cold. Each night they are confronted with shrieking and sounds so haunting that they are convinced someone is following them, and they quickly begin to fear for their lives. The film premiered in the midnight movie section at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/05/2010
UPC:	0012236110491
Original Release:	1999
Rating:	R
Source:	LIONSGATE - 600000-AEC LGE
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:22:00
Sales rank:	13,609

Special Features

Discovered Footage (Theories of the Blair Witch); Director and Producer Commentary; Never-Before-Seen Alternate Endings; Curse of the Blair Witch; The Blair Witch Legacy; Theatrical Teasers and Trailer

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Heather Donahue	Heather Donahue
Joshua Leonard	Joshua Leonard
Bob Griffith	Interviewee
Jim King	Interviewee
Sandra Sanchez	Interviewee
Ed Swanson	Interviewee
Patricia Decou	Interviewee
Michael K. Williams	Actor,Michael Williams
Mark Mason	Man in Yellow Hat
Jackie Hallex	Interviewee with Child
Bob Griffin	Actor
Sandra Sánchez	Actor
Michael Williams	Actor
Kim Richards	Actor
Tony Cora	Composer
Antonio Cora	Composer

Technical Credits

Daniel Myrick

Eduardo Sánchez

Eduardo Sanchez	Director
Daniel Myrick	Director,Screenwriter
Robin Cowie	Producer
Bob Eick	Executive Producer
Kevin J. Foxe	Executive Producer
Gregg Hale	Producer
Eduardo Sánchez	Screenwriter
Dana Meeks	Sound/Sound Designer
Michael Monello	Producer

Editorial Reviews

If you've ever been camping in the woods, you know that a campfire's light doesn't reach more than a few feet into the darkness, but someone in that darkness can see you for a mile. Taking this creepy concept to its extreme, a couple of Florida film school grads turned $50,000 into more than $100 million -- proving to Hollywood that you don't always have to spend money to make money. Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez dropped their three "actors" (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams) in the woods with video cameras, providing them with instructions and supplies. By the end of the film, it's easy to forget that these people aren't actually in mortal danger: we really do believe they're terrified. The Blair Witch Project is extraordinarily successful at dissolving the boundaries between film and viewer, fiction and reality. Reaction to the film is often highly mixed, with some viewers finding little suspense in the student-project concept. Donahue's character does become a little grating, and those prone to motion sickness should be forewarned: there is no respite from the jerky camerawork. But even if you don't feel The Blair Witch Project lives up to its considerable hype, it's worth seeing simply for its creative achievement -- one that proves that less can indeed be more.