Latest / All The Right Movies / The Blair Witch Project (1999) | Ep. 46 - Part 1

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The Blair Witch Project (1999) | Ep. 46 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

• 0:04
  All our movies. I am so, so sorry for everything
• 0:12
  that has happened because in spite of what, Mike.
• 0:17
  Says now it is my fault. Because it was my project, and I
• 0:24
  insisted. I insisted that we weren't lost.
• 0:30
  I insisted that we keep going. I insisted that we walk South.
• 0:37
  Everything had to be my way. And this is where we've ended
• 0:42
  up. And it's all because of me that
• 0:45
  we're here now, hungry and cold and haunted.
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  In the small town of Burkettsville, Maryland, student
• 0:56
  film makers Heather, Josh and Mike head into the woods to
• 0:59
  document the folklore tale of the Blair Witch.
• 1:01
  Unable to find their way out, the film makers are terrorized
• 1:04
  by forces unseen. The Blair Witch Project changed
• 1:07
  the landscape of cinema. It popularized a new form of
• 1:10
  horror movie, used the burgeoning Internet to its
• 1:12
  advantage when marked on the film, and as a result, became
• 1:14
  one of the most profitable films ever made.
• 1:17
  My name is Luke, and in the tent with me are Matt.
• 1:20
  This is no redneck. No redneck is this creative.
• 1:22
  And Westie, all the right movies are lost, angry in the woods,
• 1:27
  and no one is here to help us. That's our motivation.
• 1:48
  Hello and welcome to All the Right Movies, a podcast on
• 1:51
  classic and hit films as legendary and mythologized as
• 1:54
  the Blair Witch herself. Yes, yeah, and still with no map
• 1:57
  either. No map, of course.
• 1:59
  We don't really know where we're going.
• 2:00
  No of. Course not.
• 2:02
  But we won't leave teeth outside your tent.
• 2:04
  Either. We'll see.
• 2:06
  Well, this one is a long time coming.
• 2:07
  We're in Burketsville to discuss the once in a Lifetime movie
• 2:10
  phenomenon that is The Blair Witch Project.
• 2:13
  Yeah. Big time, Big stuff.
• 2:15
  Excited. Big one for you.
• 2:17
  One hour, one hour, 21 minutes. Horror.
• 2:19
  One hour 20. That's a sweet spot.
• 2:24
  Before we do that, we're going to haunt you with the specter of
• 2:26
  Patreon, much like the Blair Witch.
• 2:28
  There's no getting rid of that. Wow, this is beautiful writing.
• 2:32
  Yes, unbelievable. Well done.
• 2:34
  I love it. I love it.
• 2:35
  You write that one. You write that one.
• 2:40
  We've added to our roster on Patreon, so if you think you've
• 2:42
  heard this one before, then think again and listen up.
• 2:46
  As always, the most recent 20 classic ADRM podcasts just like
• 2:49
  this one are available for all to listen to, and the rest are
• 2:53
  in our podcast archive now. This is episode 102.
• 2:57
  Wow, yes, how's that? Meaning that there are 82
• 3:00
  podcasts just waiting to be discovered in our archive.
• 3:04
  And if you're a horror nut like we are, we've covered them all.
• 3:08
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• 3:11
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• 3:14
  Yeah. So if that sounds good to you,
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  It's as big as my arm and I wish it was as big as something else.
• 3:53
  Yes. So 66 podcasts, and that grows
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  every month with brand new episodes of our exclusive
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  Thank you so much. Yes.
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  Thanks everyone. Thanks guys.
• 4:36
  OK, now back to is Westie. Yeah.
• 4:39
  Why do you want to talk about The Blair Witch Project?
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  It was just at the right time for us, wasn't it?
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  Because this there was nothing like it.
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  We were of the age me and Matt were at the cinema at the time,
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  I believe. And it was, you know, that
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  poster that I keep coming back to.
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  And it was impossible to ignore just from that statement, you
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  know, And the year later, the footage was found.
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  Well, there's no way I'm not watching that.
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  Then the great thing about it was, I mean, we'll talk about
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  it, but it was the birth of the, you know, the Internet market
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  and how they did that. And is it a true story?
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  Is it not? And you just, you were so
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  confused by it. There was all the days of
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  reality TV was coming into play and the the blur and the lines
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  between, you know, fiction and reality is really starting to be
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  a social comment. And I think that's what this
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  film does really well is that you go in and you go, this seems
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  real. It's it's just got such a
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  mystery to it. And the fact that it is so well
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  made in that it's very tight but very loose.
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  So you've got gaps to fill in, but it gives you the gaps and it
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  knows where the gaps are. It's very, very clever film.
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  It's very well thought through. Everything on the screen is
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  intentional. There's no fat on this
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  whatsoever. Like was said, one minute, you
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  know, one hour, 21 minutes and this, there's not a minute of
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  that that is wasted. It's all a build of tension, a
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  build of mystery, a build of fear.
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  And you, when you plug your own gaps, The Blair Witch Project is
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  your film, whether you like it or not, because you've created
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  the hell that you see on the screen because you don't see
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  anything. You've got to create that
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  yourself. So it's a very personal film to
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  everybody and I think that's why it really works and you've got
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  to buy into this. A lot of people have turned
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  around to me and said it's boring, see where you're coming
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  from. It's because it's not affecting
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  you, because you're not letting it.
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  I think that's the point. If you let this film in, you are
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  done for me. I think that's why we should be
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  talking about. It's very, very special film.
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  It's really, really good for me. I love it.
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  Well, it's coming up to Halloween, of course, and we
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  always try and find some time for a horror film during this
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  time in October, but it's the film's 25th anniversary this
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  year as well. Oh.
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  Jesus, is it 25th? Wow.
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  Dan Myrick on her life in movies.
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  The film's Co writer, director, editor.
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  So this feels like a natural fit, doesn't it?
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  Yeah, excellent insights in that as well.
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  Yeah, absolutely. So check it out if you haven't
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  already. Devil.
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  Little did we know that the RE Watchables guys were going to
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  cover it this Halloween as well. Oh, really?
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  Yeah, couple of weeks ago. Oh well, it's fine, it's all
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  good, isn't it? A little bit of competition, Of
• 6:56
  course it is a little friendly back slabbing.
• 6:58
  Yeah, of course, if you like us both, then, you know, listen to
• 7:01
  those guys. Listen to us.
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  It'll be fun to compare and contrast.
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  Yeah, absolutely. This film was one that I'd heard
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  about and I was desperate to see.
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  I remember reading a newspaper article about the hysteria
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  surrounding the film sweeping through America, and obviously
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  that kind of thing will always get me going.
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  Yeah, definitely. Understandably gagging to see
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  it, but often we don't get films over here until about 6 months
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  after the US release, certainly in the late 90s.
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  That was the case then, yeah. So I was stuck.
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  But my best friend called up not long after I'd read this out and
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  he said I've got a copy of The Blair Witch Project on VHS.
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  I was like, right, OK, brilliant.
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  It was about 11:00 at night. I didn't care what time it was.
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  I'm coming over and we're watching immediately.
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  It's happening. And that's why he's still your
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  best friend. Yeah, just for that one thing.
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  So I went over to his, we watched it, I was transfixed for
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  81 minutes, loved it, terrified obviously.
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  It was everything I wanted it to be.
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  But I didn't consider the walk back home for me after midnight.
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  Yeah. The Blair Witch An hour.
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  Yeah, and then I heard somebody rustle in a Bush as I passed it
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  on the walk home and jeez, I dart at home faster than the
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  speeding bullet. Fuck.
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  This. But yeah, I mean, I've loved the
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  film ever since. It's one of the great Hollywood
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  stories, so can't wait to get stuck in.
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  Yeah. And what about you, Matt?
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  Yeah, I mean, same for me. I was obsessed with the build up
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  to this film back then and it is on where it depends so heavily
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  on the context. As we've said, this was the days
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  when the Annette was nowhere near as accessible as it is now,
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  which certainly wasn't on your phone with one swipe your
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  finger. So I've just become aware thing
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  like you look at these drips and drops of news and rumors coming
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  through about this new horror film.
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  But was it a film? Was it real?
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  Is everything captured on camera?
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  You know, the marketing we'll get into?
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  Because that was genius on the level we've never seen before.
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  And. And, yeah, like, Wesley, just
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  that tagline on that poster, it's just like, fuck me, what's
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  on that footage? I need to see that footage now.
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  It's so starkly brilliant. But by the time it came out,
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  obviously over here, the cat was out of the bag.
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  And yet somehow that didn't matter to me.
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  And really, I suppose I was to set myself up for a big
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  disappointment considering the anticipation, yet I wasn't.
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  This absolutely delivered for me from first game to the last
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  second. Still remember the sold out
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  screen in a window and I was stood outside waiting to go in
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  when the previous one came out. And I was just trying to gauge
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  everyone's reactions. I was trying to gauge everyone's
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  face at all. I was scared to look.
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  Do they look horrified? And really, there's been nothing
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  like it since. And this really has been
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  probably top five films to me that I've wanted to cover when
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  we've started doing this podcast.
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  So I'm delighted to finally given to the deep dive and going
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  into the woods with it. Lovely OK.
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  The Blair Witch Project was written, directed and edited by
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  Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez and produced by Greg
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  Hale and Robin Cowie for Hacks and films, distributed by
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  Artisan Entertainment. Filmed on location in the state
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  of Maryland and released on the 14th of July 1999, it stars
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  Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael Williams.
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  Only, nobody else. Pack your bags, boys.
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  We're headed to Burkettsville for the opening of The Blair
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  Witch Project. The film starts at day one,
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  naturally, and we're right there with it.
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  We'll be headed into the woods soon, but First off it's the
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  introduction to our 3 camp mates and the town's fork of
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  Burkettsville. I mean, the film has to try to
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  fine line because it has to maintain the solution of being
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  real. But also every scene has to
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  matter. It means something.
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  I think that's easy, said the Done.
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  It's one of the most subtle things about it.
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  So the introduction of three characters does have more to it
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  then I think you may get on First Few and me, first of all,
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  have this introduction. Her list of essential reading
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  includes How to Stay Alive in the Woods, which if this was a
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  regular scripted film, that would be so on the nose because
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  it's not a thing. Yeah, you probably would read
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  that and you would make a little joke out of it, but on repeat
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  view. And it's obviously something
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  that comes to lace with this horrible irony because, you
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  know, as she says, because you never know what's going to
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  happen. I mean, you know, just wait,
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  Heather, then you'll find out. You would never anticipate this.
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  Exactly. And I think it does a really
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  efficient job of not only setting up these guys, but also
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  seeding in all the ways to go into clash and why the fall
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  apart so badly wants to get lost when Heather sees Josh outside.
• 11:27
  Hey, it's mixed of punctuality. You think, yeah, I get it,
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  That's in jest. But that's the kind of comment
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  in a stressful situation where it's going to great.
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  And if that's the attitude you've got, it's going to cause
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  a bit of a blow. So it's already a warning sign
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  of Heather being maybe slightly overbearing, which really comes
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  to fruition later on. Yeah, it really does.
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  Yeah. And then that introduction to
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  Mike and you realize, have this never met this guy before?
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  They were going out to shoot for a whole weekend by themselves in
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  the woods and some of them don't even know each other.
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  I mean, there's red flags all over the place already about the
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  setup and the fact that the planet in such a short space of
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  time is very impressive. Yes, well, just from there they
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  kind of all converge into Burketsville.
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  And I love the earnestness of Heather in the cemetery when
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  they're filmed the intro to their dock.
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  And it's just set up straight away that she's the driving
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  force, she's got the impetus, she's got all the knowledge of
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  the Blair Witch, she's the boss. But it's all very nice and
• 12:26
  jokey, the kind of having a good time.
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  They've got no idea what's in front of them as the woods loom
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  in the background behind them. That's great.
• 12:33
  And the thing I love about this scene is in RE watches, it's
• 12:37
  that we know what's coming and they're, you know, playing the
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  being film makers and have a good time, all innocent, but
• 12:42
  that innocence is just about to be ripped clean away from them.
• 12:46
  Yeah, love that looming over this scene all over the place.
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  I mean, in this scene, our whole introduction to the documentary
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  was written by Donahue should research Pagan symbols and
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  things like Wicca mythology and just poured everything into the
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  scene and it really comes across, It's really genuinely
• 13:00
  well done, genuinely well delivered.
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  Yeah, you wouldn't be surprised if Donahue had actually read
• 13:05
  that book. Yeah.
• 13:07
  Had to survive in the woods. Oh, definitely.
• 13:08
  Yeah. Because she said she did a good
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  job of freaking herself out by looking at these kind of things,
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  this pig in mythology, Wicker, all of this kind of thing to
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  kind of get her amped up before she headed out into the woods.
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  Until, I mean, she's very serious about what she's doing.
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  Very, very, very, very, very, very focused.
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  And I'll go from the introduction and we'll go to
• 13:28
  these really great talking heads interviews where we don't know
• 13:32
  who's real, we don't know who's planted, we don't know what's
• 13:35
  going on. The token heads interviews were
• 13:37
  as spontaneous as they could be really.
• 13:39
  The film makers planted an actor in amongst the people in the
• 13:42
  town. So the actors had to film
• 13:44
  everything and they had to weedle out the plants basically,
• 13:48
  right? So they would ask people about
• 13:50
  the player, which and people like real people would say what
• 13:52
  are you talking about? And then when they found the
• 13:54
  plant, they would improvise this dialogue.
• 13:58
  Every single one of them is really interesting.
• 13:59
  Every single one of them gives you a like a tiny piece of the
• 14:02
  puzzle for you to put together. And then you get the ultimate
• 14:05
  piece of the puzzle where the guy tells you basically the end
• 14:07
  of the film and tells you what happens and why it happens.
• 14:10
  And it's when the kids trying to shut her up, which is I'm just
• 14:12
  trying to tell a scary story, but it's not real.
• 14:14
  It's not real. It is real.
• 14:16
  Yeah, in Midnight Run is I'm gonna bury him in the fucking
• 14:19
  swamp. That's exactly what it reminds
• 14:25
  us of. So, so good.
• 14:26
  But it's like, well, that's the whole point.
• 14:28
  It's like the kids of the is the innocence and doesn't want to
• 14:31
  hear about it. We want to hear about it.
• 14:32
  She's trying to shut her up. She's trying to say it.
• 14:34
  Don't watch the rest of the film.
• 14:36
  It's not true or is it true or is it not?
• 14:38
  And it's just set up in that one tiny moment, which I think is
• 14:41
  just completely accidental, if I'm honest.
• 14:43
  And then we'll get Mary Brown fucking yes, but there's the
• 14:49
  amount of flag it's made out of sticks.
• 14:51
  You fucking She looks terrified. She looks like she looks like a
• 14:55
  witch on purpose. I think just hold she hold the
• 14:57
  Bible and it's like really weird.
• 15:00
  Just hold something and it's like it's insinuating to be some
• 15:02
  kind of book of whatever and you start telling this scary story
• 15:06
  and you're like, that's it. That's the Blair witch for me.
• 15:09
  That's that's a personified. Her spirit then lives on with
• 15:13
  them. It kind of haunts them all the
• 15:14
  way through, and you have her image burnt into your head.
• 15:17
  Whenever anything's going wrong, you imagine it's her.
• 15:19
  I'll do anyway. I imagine it's that.
• 15:21
  It's that same facial features and that same kind of
• 15:24
  silhouette, and an old woman whose feet don't touch the
• 15:26
  ground. Like it is building a character
• 15:28
  in your mind, whether you like it or not.
• 15:29
  And that's the genius at the start of the film, because it
• 15:31
  does give you the bad guy, but you've got to kind of piece it
• 15:34
  together. You've got to make it yourself.
• 15:36
  It gives you the plaster scene, but you've got to make it.
• 15:38
  You've got to build, yeah. I think what they do with Mary
• 15:41
  Brown is they give you that skeletal structure and you kind
• 15:44
  of make that into the bad guy. It's really well done.
• 15:47
  It is, yeah. It's brilliant.
• 15:49
  And a lot probably the smallest cast we've ever covered, the
• 15:52
  were few rules that had to be filled in.
• 15:54
  And because the budget was Lord, that just put a pauses in
• 15:57
  universities to recruit students, one of whom is
• 15:59
  petitioned to Q who played the part of maybe Brown.
• 16:02
  Yeah. What would the poster say?
• 16:04
  Do you look scary as shit? Are you a student but a 60 years
• 16:08
  old? Yeah.
• 16:11
  Is that book just what you're studying?
• 16:15
  Yeah, I think it's kind of, it's left open to your interpretation
• 16:19
  that Mary Brown could be the Blair Witch.
• 16:22
  Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
• 16:23
  Oh yeah, she had a fur like a horse fur.
• 16:29
  Horrible. It's horrible.
• 16:31
  So day one done. Things seem relatively safe so
• 16:34
  far. Oh.
• 16:35
  Yeah, everything's fine now, Yeah.
• 16:39
  Daybreak on Day 2 leads us into the woods where we catch up with
• 16:43
  some very friendly chaps fishing.
• 16:44
  Yeah, Matt, over to you. Yes, I want to talk about this
• 16:48
  conversation now for the fisherman because there's
• 16:50
  something really confident about these guys.
• 16:52
  You just know this is their daily activity every day of the
• 16:55
  week. That's all you have to do.
• 16:57
  These two the go out fishing together and they've got this
• 16:59
  really easy and relaxed chemistry with each other where
• 17:02
  it's that amiable bicker and just interrupting each other.
• 17:06
  The one on the right tries to tell the story of what he saw
• 17:08
  once. The other one, oh, you're full
• 17:10
  of it. Probably drinking that day.
• 17:11
  I wasn't drinking that day. You just know this is the kind
• 17:15
  of argument to do every single day.
• 17:16
  So it is quite funny, but there's this underlying tension
• 17:20
  to it. The one on the right fully
• 17:22
  believes these words are harder. You can down feel kids will
• 17:24
  never learn and you've won. I've heard stuff, but I don't
• 17:28
  really believe it is bullshit. But I think his performance
• 17:31
  tells a different story. I think he can tell in his body
• 17:34
  language. He can tell there's a tremor of
• 17:35
  doubt in his voice. I don't believe that he believes
• 17:38
  that for one minute, but he's trying to convince himself that
• 17:41
  there's nothing out there because for something he doesn't
• 17:44
  believe, he knows that story of Robin Weaver inside and out.
• 17:47
  And I'm just saying his nervous performance really contrasts to
• 17:50
  the other fishermen you saw down the line, you know?
• 17:52
  Yeah, it's true. Anyone worth assault knows it's
• 17:54
  true. So there's this nice contrast
• 17:56
  between them. And it's one of these scenes, in
• 17:58
  retrospect, it sends a chill down the spine once you realize
• 18:01
  this is the last time anyone saw these three kids alive.
• 18:04
  You know the fishmen are the last people they will ever see.
• 18:07
  Yeah, some really great double takes in there as well, when
• 18:10
  he's just waiting for him to stop talking and he's just.
• 18:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Brilliant.
• 18:13
  Really funny, Yeah. Really natural, like when
• 18:16
  Heather asks him if she she's got his consent to have him on
• 18:20
  film and he says, wow, I don't know.
• 18:22
  Don't know anything about that. Yeah, I guess that's okay.
• 18:26
  Yeah, great. You have to say yes or no, Sir.
• 18:31
  And straight from that we'll go into possibly.
• 18:34
  I mean, yeah, the introduction of the cemetery was really good
• 18:37
  and an introduction to the documentary and you can get
• 18:39
  where it's coming from, but Jesus Christ, is she a massive
• 18:42
  piece of ham here. It's so that's.
• 18:46
  Great. Just the just the dialogue that
• 18:48
  she's just the language that's used.
• 18:49
  But like the stench was thick with like death and they were
• 18:53
  all here. Like the vultures were there and
• 18:55
  then the bodies were removed without anyone knowing where
• 18:57
  that came from in Coffin Rock in this story, you know?
• 19:00
  And it's just really putting it on thick.
• 19:03
  And it's like the tearing out the intestines and all this kind
• 19:06
  of like back. She's trying to make it as scary
• 19:08
  as possible. She's trying to make it as hammy
• 19:10
  as possible, as cheesy as possible to just nail this story
• 19:13
  home. You can't tell it and just say,
• 19:15
  oh, yeah, there's some five guys but tortured here.
• 19:17
  It's probably something to do with the Civil War, I would
• 19:19
  imagine. I don't know.
• 19:20
  And then they disappeared without a trace.
• 19:22
  And there was this and there was this.
• 19:24
  And it's a great bit of footage because it puts you on the back
• 19:27
  foot because you think it's going to be about something
• 19:30
  else. And all this is about is just
• 19:32
  losing hope. That's all this film's about
• 19:34
  really, is losing hope. Anywhere you're going and what
• 19:37
  you're doing and this kind of story and the way that it's told
• 19:41
  puts you on the back foot because you just start thinking
• 19:43
  about something else opposed to your own survival.
• 19:45
  You start buying into the fable, you start buying into the
• 19:49
  stories, and you forget that you need to look after yourself
• 19:51
  because you're more important than whatever happened there.
• 19:54
  And I think she makes the story more important.
• 19:56
  She makes the project more important.
• 19:58
  And you can see that the way that you talk to the camera is
• 20:00
  more important than the way that you talk to Josh and Mike.
• 20:03
  And you get that at this point. You see where her priority is,
• 20:06
  and the priority is the documentary, The priority is the
• 20:09
  footage. And she forgets about herself
• 20:12
  and forgets about the people that she's with.
• 20:13
  And I think that's why this is so important, especially the
• 20:15
  Coffin Rock story, because she forgets where she is and she
• 20:19
  just forgets to be safe. Yeah, I really love the the
• 20:22
  contrast between Donahue as performing like you were saying,
• 20:26
  Westie quite hammy and then her naturalistic like behind the
• 20:29
  camera kind of thing. It's almost like a big sigh,
• 20:31
  isn't it? When she's finished?
• 20:32
  Yeah, right. That just be normal again,
• 20:34
  right? So pretentious when she sits
• 20:35
  down. So pronounced with the book
• 20:37
  open. Yeah, like Ron Burgundy, it's
• 20:42
  just like, yeah, it's a Brian Fantana in the field.
• 20:46
  We're rolling right now, I don't believe.
• 20:51
  But yeah, it's it's a wonderful, wonderful performance from it.
• 20:53
  And yeah, it does show that contrast and it shows how good
• 20:56
  of an actress really is. It's really does, personally,
• 20:58
  yeah. Well, I'm picking up on day
• 21:00
  three where a lot happens but not much happens.
• 21:04
  They talk about Mike's chest hair.
• 21:06
  We see his nipples. Disgusting.
• 21:09
  Yeah. They look for a cemetery, they
• 21:11
  cross a river over a log, kind of standard in the woods stuff.
• 21:15
  They see some rocks stood up on top of each other as well.
• 21:17
  So it's all pretty innocuous stuff.
• 21:20
  None of it is kind of out of the ordinary if you're in the middle
• 21:23
  of the woods. Yeah, alarming.
• 21:25
  Maybe the rocks, but you know, you could pass that off as just
• 21:28
  kids playing or whatever. Yeah, of course.
• 21:29
  Yeah. But it's the mountain sense of
• 21:31
  unease that's happening here, course.
• 21:33
  And throughout all of this activity is a building tension
• 21:36
  of being lost. And it's relatable because I'm
• 21:39
  sure we've all been in a situation where you're kind of
• 21:41
  out of your comfort zone, and you start to spiral and begin to
• 21:44
  feel the worst. And then when you look back, you
• 21:47
  think how stupid you were at the time.
• 21:48
  Yeah, well, that's where these 3 here are at the moment.
• 21:51
  The irrational thoughts. Heather is trying to keep it
• 21:54
  tight. She's the leader.
• 21:55
  She's trying to instill confidence in her troops.
• 21:57
  But the mask is beginning to slip.
• 21:59
  And it's that anticipation. As a viewer at this point, it's
• 22:02
  all been kind of pretty much PG so far.
• 22:05
  We know that something bad is going to happen sooner or later,
• 22:08
  and the film really holds its nerve and doesn't throw out
• 22:10
  cheap jump scares in this day where nothing really much
• 22:14
  happens. Yeah.
• 22:15
  Yeah. And I think playing the long
• 22:17
  game, I think that really helps the film.
• 22:19
  Yeah. So, nothing concrete to be
• 22:21
  worrying about so far, but it's all starting to get a little
• 22:24
  uneasy for our tiresome trio. Just a little bit the director.
• 22:34
  The two masterminds behind the film are Daniel Myrick and
• 22:37
  Eduardo Sanchez, rookie directors who are pulling triple
• 22:40
  duties here. The story of the screenplay is
• 22:42
  coming later, but first they work as directors.
• 22:45
  And you know, they set out to make a really scary horror film,
• 22:49
  obviously, but I don't think they could have anticipated it
• 22:52
  to be this good. No, I mean, it's just all things
• 22:55
  that make for a great horror movie.
• 22:57
  It's one O 1 stuff, really. But it's it's so effective.
• 22:59
  And I think that works in the film's favor.
• 23:01
  It's going down to the basement. It's been isolated in the woods
• 23:05
  and unseen for supernatural. It's classic horror movie
• 23:08
  storytelling. Like you said at the top, Westie
• 23:11
  and I agree with you. No filler, no fluff, no room for
• 23:14
  that at all. It all boils down to pure
• 23:17
  terror. And it's really point of view as
• 23:19
  well, which makes a difference because you are.
• 23:20
  There. Yes, that's true.
• 23:21
  Yes, that's right. Yeah.
• 23:22
  Once the 1st 15 minutes of exposition are out of the way,
• 23:25
  it's open season, yeah? You have no idea what's going to
• 23:29
  happen. You don't.
• 23:30
  You don't scared. Of the sun going down as well.
• 23:32
  You're so scared of the nighttime like you just, you
• 23:35
  just wouldn't have the daytime conversations and say it's going
• 23:37
  to be dark soon. I'm like, oh.
• 23:40
  What fresh hell is this? Yeah, exactly.
• 23:43
  Worse, every night is worse than the last.
• 23:45
  And I think what helps is that there's a good percentage of the
• 23:48
  screen time afforded to just to blackness.
• 23:52
  It's those moments in the tent when the cameras are rolling and
• 23:54
  we can hear the noises in the distance, but we can just see
• 23:56
  darkness on the screen. And I'm always desperately
• 23:59
  trying to find images in that darkness.
• 24:01
  And it seems as though it just holds for minutes at a time.
• 24:05
  Yeah. But that keeps me firmly locked
• 24:07
  into the screen. Amazingly effective stuff.
• 24:10
  And even the opening title card. In October 1994, three student
• 24:13
  film makers disappeared in the woods near Burgess Film, Ireland
• 24:16
  while shooting a documentary. A year later, their footage was
• 24:19
  found. Boom.
• 24:20
  Yeah. Simple, effective.
• 24:21
  Terrifying. It's.
• 24:22
  One of the best blurbs about any film ever.
• 24:24
  It really is. I don't can't think of anything
• 24:27
  better than that to be honest. And the word haxan is so
• 24:30
  terrifying to me and I have no idea why.
• 24:33
  It's because of this. Just the way it just shakes, the
• 24:36
  way that the scan and like every all the title cards just shake
• 24:40
  like the blade with projects. Just fucking beautiful font and
• 24:44
  it's just basic, but it's just got that vibration to it, yeah.
• 24:48
  Just a little wobble. Yeah.
• 24:49
  Fucking just. Brilliant.
• 24:50
  I love that. Like that, mate, I'm straight.
• 24:52
  Yeah, it's. Great, but Haxon Films was the
• 24:55
  directors and Greg Heels production company.
• 24:57
  It's a reference in the 1922 Swedish silent horror film
• 25:00
  Haxon. All right, so terrifying word.
• 25:02
  Anyway, Yeah, yeah, of course. That's about witchcraft, isn't
• 25:05
  it? It is about witchcraft.
• 25:07
  Yes, You're right. Yeah.
• 25:08
  The working title for the film was the Black Hills Project.
• 25:11
  It then turned into the Blair Witch Tapes, then Project.
• 25:13
  Obviously, the name Blair came from Blair High School, where
• 25:16
  Sanchez's sister went. Right.
• 25:18
  Right. So, yeah, I mean, just
• 25:20
  incredibly effective stuff and just a vein of pure terror
• 25:25
  through this film the likes of which I have rarely seen.
• 25:28
  Yeah. I think what they've done is
• 25:31
  it's the classic Pandora's Box story, isn't it?
• 25:33
  It's like, love it. If you open this, you know, bad
• 25:36
  things, bad things are going to happen, but you can't help but
• 25:39
  open it because of that blurb. You can't help but dive in and
• 25:42
  go right, well, I'm just going to have to experience this.
• 25:44
  And the way the ramp up the claustrophobia, the way that the
• 25:47
  way that this is edited, that will get into the way that this
• 25:50
  is shot. You know, it's just like, make
• 25:51
  sure it's in focus. Make sure it's exposed.
• 25:54
  This is the only film, I think, when I was thinking, watching it
• 25:57
  again this morning, it's the only film that I don't care how
• 26:00
  it's shot. Yeah, great.
• 26:01
  I don't look at it from that point of view, I don't think.
• 26:04
  Oh, well, what lens is that? That's really interesting angle.
• 26:06
  I don't really. Give a shit, doesn't matter.
• 26:08
  It doesn't matter. It's the pure content.
• 26:11
  That's what this film is, is pure content.
• 26:12
  And you want to try and suck as much of that content in the
• 26:15
  brain as possible to try and figure out what's going on and
• 26:18
  how to get out of there. But that's the genius of these
• 26:20
  two guys that do not give you enough information to feel
• 26:23
  comfortable, and they give you enough information to feel
• 26:26
  uncomfortable. And then they take a map away
• 26:30
  and you're like, are you taking the fucking piss?
• 26:32
  And then you start seeing stick formations, you start seeing
• 26:35
  rocks. You start seeing as we'll go
• 26:37
  into teeth. Like, what are you doing to his
• 26:39
  fucking hell? And you'd start spiraling into
• 26:43
  your own nightmare. My daughter's 13, right?
• 26:45
  I'd rather show her A Nightmare on Elm Street than I would show
• 26:47
  her The Blair Witch Project, because then at least she knows
• 26:50
  who the bad guy is. You know what I mean?
• 26:51
  She'll probably go, Dad, how does that end?
• 26:53
  But where's the closure? There isn't any.
• 26:55
  You've just got to deal with it and you've just got to kind of
• 26:58
  live with it and it stays with you as if you've witnessed
• 27:00
  something. And I think that's what they've
• 27:01
  done really, really well. It's to their absolute testament
• 27:05
  because they know that they give you enough questions and really
• 27:08
  good questions, not shitty cheesy ones, really good
• 27:12
  questions where you want to find the answers to them.
• 27:14
  And then they don't give you the answers, but at the same time
• 27:17
  you're quite happy with not revealing the answers.
• 27:19
  Do you know what I mean? It doesn't leave you frustrated.
• 27:22
  You're entertained by the questions and you're happy that
• 27:24
  you haven't got the answers. And that's very rare, especially
• 27:27
  in cinema, for that to be set up and knocked down as well as
• 27:30
  they've done it. I think this is just an absolute
• 27:33
  product of evolution throughout the filming process.
• 27:35
  Agreed. Yeah, I think that the when this
• 27:38
  can be really interesting if we go here.
• 27:40
  Yeah, we never thought about going this direction.
• 27:42
  And try that. Let's, let's keep that out.
• 27:44
  Don't put that in. I think they would have had lots
• 27:46
  written down that they just went, you know what, fuck this.
• 27:48
  I'm not putting any of this in. You're going to have to figure
• 27:50
  it out for yourself, but it's absolutely based on the primal
• 27:54
  fear of being alive and losing hope and not being able to find
• 27:58
  your way back. And then they put supernatural
• 28:01
  element on top of that. People forget that this is a
• 28:02
  film about survival, basically. It's like alive, but then you
• 28:06
  throw a fucking witch in it. What?
• 28:08
  You know what I mean? It's like, that's even worse.
• 28:11
  They don't need that on top of what's happening already.
• 28:13
  It's not what they've put in this film.
• 28:15
  It's what they've left out. That makes it really important.
• 28:17
  I agree. Yeah, it's the double horror of
• 28:18
  being lost and being fraught and losing hope, but also being
• 28:22
  stalked by a fucking witch. Yeah, imagine, right, you're
• 28:25
  lost, even if it's just hamsterly forest, which is
• 28:28
  locally and we're coming out and we know where we are and the car
• 28:32
  is even 10 feet in front of work, right.
• 28:34
  Well, let's, let's just imagine we're coming next to the car
• 28:37
  park and it's 2:00 in the morning and you hear a baby
• 28:40
  crying. Yeah.
• 28:42
  Fuck. That out?
• 28:43
  Nope, out. Don't.
• 28:45
  I don't care. Not out.
• 28:48
  I'm so surprised none of the cast which we'll talk about.
• 28:50
  I'm so surprised none of them had a fucking heart attack.
• 28:52
  I know. I know it's amazing.
• 28:54
  It's amazing. I.
• 28:55
  Just think it's really ballsy. And part of the reason I admire
• 28:58
  it is that just had this one great idea and they run with it.
• 29:03
  And I find that really quite inspiring because they didn't
• 29:06
  worry about having very little money, they didn't worry about
• 29:09
  not having any special effects, They didn't worry about not
• 29:12
  having a proper soundtrack or cinematographer.
• 29:14
  That just thought this idea can really work and we're going to
• 29:18
  stick to our guns with it. And yeah, if you have that other
• 29:21
  stuff, that's great, but sometimes all you need is the
• 29:23
  one idea and that willingness to just do it and see if you can
• 29:27
  pull it off. And I think that do that with
• 29:30
  aplomb. And there's so many decisions in
• 29:32
  this way. It's about them holding their
• 29:34
  nerve to not show anything. I don't know that did at one
• 29:37
  point want to show something with, but it didn't work out,
• 29:39
  which she will talk about. Apart from that to the score,
• 29:43
  no, not going to show a thing. We're not going to explain
• 29:45
  anything. We're not going to have a jump
• 29:47
  scare because how many found footage films since this end
• 29:50
  with something jumping at the camera and that's the last thing
• 29:52
  you see. And that would have been so easy
• 29:55
  for this film to do as well. But they've stuck to that single
• 29:58
  principle. Everything is ambiguous.
• 30:00
  This might not be happening, actually.
• 30:02
  This might be in the heads. This could be coincidence.
• 30:05
  Everything is in the mind, and I just know if that was me in
• 30:07
  their position as a director, I don't think I could have held my
• 30:11
  nerve in the same way that these two did.
• 30:13
  I'd have been going. Or maybe we should show
• 30:15
  something. Maybe just at the end, maybe
• 30:17
  just a little thing, a little glimpse.
• 30:18
  But no, they've gone. No, not a tiny shot of anything.
• 30:21
  And Despite that, the film was just filled with this
• 30:23
  unrelenting dread. And you know, we'll cover the
• 30:26
  ending obviously when we get there.
• 30:27
  But all I'll say about that for now is for them to hang their
• 30:30
  entire ending on one line of dialogue from over an hour
• 30:34
  earlier. That takes balls.
• 30:37
  I mean, that's holding your nerve and then some to go.
• 30:40
  This will work Just just. Stick with it, stick.
• 30:43
  With it, trust the audience will remember.
• 30:45
  So yeah, I've got nothing but press for these guys because
• 30:48
  with their one shot they hit the ball sign.
• 30:50
  They've made a film that in this genre, it puts their names up
• 30:53
  alongside the the great site, Craven and Kubrick, Romero and
• 30:57
  Carpenter, and that's just not bad going for two complete
• 31:00
  nobodies. No, no, because audiences need a
• 31:03
  payoff. Usually they they want to see
• 31:05
  something. What the fuck is it?
• 31:06
  Yeah, exactly. No, it's like just giving
• 31:09
  somebody a start and they've got to create their own man.
• 31:15
  I'm not me. I'm not cooking that for you.
• 31:16
  Do it yourself. Well, I think it's about time
• 31:19
  that we had our first Patreon question.
• 31:22
  Let's do it. As mentioned at the top, if you
• 31:25
  submit your questions for the films that we're covering, we'll
• 31:28
  answer them on the show. And our first one comes from
• 31:30
  Jamie Beckett. Hello, Jamie.
• 31:32
  Hello, Jamie. Hello, Jamie.
• 31:33
  Jamie starts off with this. Check it out guys.
• 31:36
  You keep delivering the goods week after week.
• 31:39
  Brilliant listening. What a sweetheart.
• 31:40
  Thank you. Thanks, Jamie.
• 31:42
  Thanks, Jamie. Yeah, he says The Blair Witch
• 31:44
  Project is possibly as low FI as it comes, but had a huge impact.
• 31:49
  What are the films punched above their weight with their impact
• 31:52
  given the production costs? Great question.
• 31:55
  Big time, Matt. All your thoughts?
• 31:57
  I think this question, I think it does automatically make you
• 32:00
  gravitate towards horror films because I think that this is
• 32:03
  what all films can do probably better than any other genre.
• 32:07
  So I'm sure we're going to have some crossover, but neither The
• 32:09
  Living Dead really stands out how that?
• 32:12
  Well, I mean, he created the genre, really.
• 32:15
  Really did, yeah. Texas Chainsaw, I think would
• 32:17
  obviously fall into this category as well.
• 32:20
  And given what I mean, slightly different because obviously once
• 32:23
  I mentioned it, you know, obviously the director gives it
• 32:25
  a certain cache, but should be remembered.
• 32:28
  Cycle was really made on the cheap for a Hitchcock film.
• 32:31
  Yeah, that was really. I mean, he shot it like he was
• 32:33
  shooting an episode of his TV show.
• 32:35
  Really it? Was a massive gamble for
• 32:37
  Hitchcock, that film. Massive gamble a lot and.
• 32:39
  Then A50 mil lens as well if anyone's interested.
• 32:41
  Yeah. Everyone is where?
• 32:42
  You go 1 lens. Yeah.
• 32:45
  And then with all that, another one that just changed the genre
• 32:48
  forever. Yeah, I think cycles worth a
• 32:49
  mention as well. Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:52
  I tried to move away from the horror genre, but like Matt
• 32:54
  said, it's really hard to do that.
• 32:56
  I mean saw 1.2 million and made 103 terrifier series that would
• 33:01
  just come out I think when? That's keeping current, Westie.
• 33:04
  I love it. Yeah, I mean, that's that's
• 33:06
  really impressive with what they've done there because they
• 33:08
  have stuck with the guns and I didn't expect anything like that
• 33:11
  to become so mainstream. So that really just deserves a
• 33:14
  round of applause, to be honest. That's incredible work.
• 33:17
  Like the Living Dead I've got written down.
• 33:18
  But outside the genre, I think the likes of Rocky, people
• 33:21
  forget that was just on a shoestring and brought lots,
• 33:24
  lots back. Juno was made on next to
• 33:26
  nothing, all right, and brought a lot back.
• 33:28
  Seven point, 5,000,232. You know, it's brilliant.
• 33:33
  And the one for me that stood out as soon as I saw the
• 33:35
  question was Mad Max. Because I think that to me is
• 33:38
  the ultimate law. How the fuck do you do this?
• 33:41
  And it became really popular, you know, 350 grand and it
• 33:44
  brought back 100 million. And he just to get about the
• 33:47
  crash cars and it's George Miller's first film.
• 33:49
  I think it's really important. That is a really low budget film
• 33:51
  that nobody could ever make again.
• 33:53
  To me, that's the one that stands out.
• 33:55
  Yeah, it is really low budget. Yeah, Yeah, I was similar kind
• 33:59
  of thing, Westie. I was trying to stay away from
• 34:01
  the horror genre, but the first one that I came to was
• 34:03
  Halloween. Right.
• 34:04
  Yeah. Right, classic $325,000 budget
• 34:09
  and 75 grand of that was on Donald Pleasence.
• 34:14
  Money well spent, let's be honest.
• 34:15
  Well, yeah, of course. The dark, the blackest eyes.
• 34:18
  The devils are the devils eyes. I was going to go into quint
• 34:21
  there a dolls. So a quarter of a million to
• 34:27
  make the film look as good as it does.
• 34:28
  And that's because Carpenter spent pretty much the entire
• 34:30
  budget on cameras and lenses and it paid off 70 mil at the box
• 34:34
  office. But also like Blair widget
• 34:36
  spawned a brand new sub genre of horror and the slash of genre
• 34:39
  amazing. Outside of that, I looked at
• 34:41
  documentaries and catfish was made for 30 grand.
• 34:46
  It returned 3.5 million spawned ATV show and added a new phrase
• 34:50
  into the cultural lexicon. Yeah.
• 34:51
  Catfish, right? Yeah.
• 34:53
  There you go, Jamie. Let us know what yours are.
• 34:55
  And that goes for everybody listening.
• 34:57
  Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for the question.
• 34:58
  Jimmy, going back to the directors, I think what comes
• 35:01
  across in the research is that the film makers were very
• 35:04
  considerate towards the actors. They made no secret of how
• 35:07
  uncomfortable the shoot would be, but their safety was of
• 35:10
  paramount importance. Myrick said that their mandate
• 35:13
  was shoot everything, react naturally, give us lots of
• 35:16
  screaming and yelling, and then run in this direction.
• 35:19
  Brilliant. That's perfect.
• 35:23
  And producer Greg Hill was instrumental in the shooting
• 35:25
  schedule, location scouting and logistics of the shoot.
• 35:28
  Around 3 weeks prior to filming, the production team went out to
• 35:31
  the woods and mark all of the areas where the actress would
• 35:34
  camp overnight. So everything was kind of pre
• 35:36
  planned. Yeah, fantastic stuff.
• 35:38
  They're digging in the wrong place.
• 35:43
  Well, Hale had been in the army and he is that experienced
• 35:45
  during production. He introduced the notion of GPS
• 35:49
  devices for the actors and taught them to find and follow a
• 35:52
  point on it. And then once they reached that
• 35:54
  point, they would find basic rations which diminishes the
• 35:57
  weak progressed instructions for the day and three film canisters
• 36:01
  for each of them which contain stage directions for their
• 36:04
  character for that day. And again, a skeleton outline of
• 36:07
  their conflict. And nobody got to see the other
• 36:09
  person's notes, so they were constantly surprising each
• 36:11
  other. That's genius.
• 36:13
  That isn't it. What a way to make something.
• 36:14
  Yeah. Like have those directions for
• 36:16
  one day would say just head South no matter what, no matter
• 36:19
  what you were told by the other two, just heads out, right?
• 36:22
  Don't listen to anybody. And then in conflict to that,
• 36:25
  Josh's notes would be you've been going South all day.
• 36:27
  You need to intervene at some point, right?
• 36:29
  So just this whole organic process, they were, they had the
• 36:32
  structure, but it was just up to then to see how it played out.
• 36:36
  It's entirely up to you. Incredible stuff.
• 36:38
  And I think it's testament to them knowing when to do that,
• 36:40
  because you don't do it straight away.
• 36:41
  You let the tension build. If your note for Josh is like
• 36:44
  when you've got to intervene at some point, you've just got to
• 36:46
  wait until that point where it's almost about to snap, then you
• 36:49
  interview. Exactly.
• 36:50
  That's on the actors to be able to decide exactly when the best
• 36:53
  time to do that is. And while the as we're out in
• 36:55
  the middle of nowhere, Sanchez, Merrick and Hale, but not far
• 36:58
  away, lurking in the undergrowth in camouflage, absolutely
• 37:01
  ridiculous, making things as uncomfortable as possible for
• 37:04
  the actors to The cast knew they were out there, but they had no
• 37:07
  idea where they were. But on a few occasions, the
• 37:10
  directors would break from proceedings and go out to the
• 37:12
  trio, Sanchez said. Well, sometimes they just needed
• 37:16
  a pat on the back, or they hear what was wrong, or to voice the
• 37:18
  complaints about the other actors.
• 37:20
  Yeah, and they let off some steam.
• 37:21
  Yeah. And it wasn't as back to nature
• 37:25
  as you'd expect, or kind of like the mythology of the film has
• 37:28
  been built up, Donahue said. We didn't have to skin squirrels
• 37:31
  or anything like that, she said. It was kind of like a daily use
• 37:36
  park. We sometimes had to stop
• 37:38
  shooting for families going past on their bikes.
• 37:40
  Right. Yeah.
• 37:42
  Really which? Doesn't feel like that at all,
• 37:44
  does it? Doesn't feel like that at all.
• 37:45
  Norway. Oh, sorry, excuse me.
• 37:48
  Oops, sorry. Don't mind us.
• 37:50
  Yeah. A little bell ringing somewhere?
• 37:52
  What the fuck is that? So 2 rookie directors using
• 37:58
  guerrilla tactics, reaching heights very few could even
• 38:01
  dream of. You know the cast.
• 38:09
  The main cast on The Blair Witch Project and for over an hour we
• 38:12
  only see three faces to cast the film.
• 38:15
  Sanchez and Myra put an ad in backstage magazine that read
• 38:18
  improvisational feature film. We're holding a custom call for
• 38:21
  the Black Hill project non union with peer travel and meals
• 38:25
  shooting in October November for three weeks in Maryland.
• 38:27
  Seeking men and women 18 to 25 with natural look extremely
• 38:31
  challenging role to be shot under very difficult conditions.
• 38:35
  Well, this is honest. Very honest, yeah.
• 38:39
  They felt it out hundreds of hopefuls before settling on the
• 38:42
  trio in the film. And Custom took place in Orlando
• 38:45
  in New York in 1996. And there was a sign in the
• 38:48
  hallway that read, If you get this role, you will be subject
• 38:51
  to uncomfortable physical situations.
• 38:53
  You will never be in harm's way. You will be outdoors most of the
• 38:56
  time. If this is not your thing,
• 38:58
  please don't audition. Brilliant.
• 39:00
  They did not want to waste their time.
• 39:02
  No, no, no. I mean double hammering at home.
• 39:04
  Yeah, I didn't think it was that obviously put out to be fair at
• 39:07
  this at this stage. Yeah, well, they saw, they
• 39:09
  obviously had a clear idea in their mind of what do we going
• 39:12
  to do? Yeah, exactly.
• 39:13
  Yeah. And they can't get out there,
• 39:15
  get 2 days into it and someone like flakes out like oh sorry
• 39:18
  this isn't for me. Yeah, exactly.
• 39:20
  Yeah, you're right. You've got.
• 39:21
  You haven't got the money for that.
• 39:22
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 39:23
  The sessions were heavily based around improv skills.
• 39:25
  When actors walked in, there were no introductions, just
• 39:28
  straight into it. If you weren't dialled into the
• 39:30
  improv straight away, you were out on your ass.
• 39:33
  Yeah. And their brief was simple.
• 39:35
  You've served 10 years of a 25 year sentence in prison for
• 39:38
  murder. You're up for parole.
• 39:40
  Why should you be set free? Go brilliant.
• 39:44
  And to keep them on their tours, Mark and Sanchez would then
• 39:46
  change things around mid audition and point to a pipe in
• 39:48
  the room and say that pipe's been leaking for a few weeks
• 39:52
  now. And if the actors were smart,
• 39:54
  they'd start playing the role of a plumber and dial into that
• 39:57
  side of the improv. Really needed those strong
• 40:00
  improvisational skills to be to be front and center immediately.
• 40:04
  It's really challenging that. It is, and I'm talking about the
• 40:07
  post girl, literally the poster girl, Heather Donahue.
• 40:10
  Now she gets an unfair rap. I think it's fair to say.
• 40:13
  Definitely. Very fits.
• 40:14
  Definitely. That's just fantastic.
• 40:17
  She is. I just find that unbelievable in
• 40:19
  low budget film like this. Non union actors, the majority
• 40:22
  if not all of the cast are subpar at best, but not done
• 40:27
  well. Not any of them for that matter.
• 40:29
  But Donahue just completely understood the brief and threw
• 40:32
  herself into it. You know, he asked me to go into
• 40:34
  the woods for eight days and get terrorized.
• 40:36
  No thanks. Not at all.
• 40:39
  No. No, thank you.
• 40:41
  I really like that she is the dominant force in the film and
• 40:43
  she basically kicks the asses of Josh and Mike for about 6 days
• 40:47
  before she breaks down. She needs to be the dominant
• 40:50
  force because she's the director and she absolutely takes the
• 40:53
  bull by the horns. This is the way we're going.
• 40:55
  We'll be in the cemetery in an hour and the director, I'm
• 40:58
  shooting this footage all day. Absolute courage in her
• 41:00
  convictions, and then we'll explain later, But this is all
• 41:03
  her own dialogue as well. Yeah.
• 41:06
  She had so much space to create this character and this is what
• 41:09
  she come up with, which I think is incredible.
• 41:10
  I don't think it's too far removed from Donahue as a real
• 41:14
  person that like her real character.
• 41:16
  Yeah, I don't think that either. But then in contrast, the
• 41:19
  moments where she's freaking out later on, it's an incredible
• 41:22
  decline into breakdown. The moment when Josh is shouting
• 41:26
  at the moment when she finds Josh's teeth, the iconic
• 41:29
  monologue and the hysteria in the house at the NC.
• 41:34
  It's unbelievable to think that this is the same person that
• 41:36
  knew it all at the start of. It you're so confident and cock
• 41:40
  shower here. I think it's one of the great
• 41:42
  horror movie performances. Great.
• 41:45
  Yeah. Contrary to what a lot of people
• 41:46
  think. Yeah, I would have thought it's
• 41:48
  probably the best final girl that nobody talks about.
• 41:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't disagree at all with
• 41:54
  that. She's great casting.
• 41:56
  Heather was the real gem in The Crown for the film.
• 41:58
  Originally it was a male part, but she came in and blew my her
• 42:01
  against and she has a way. Her response to why should you
• 42:04
  be let out of prison after 10 years was I don't think I
• 42:06
  should. Brilliant.
• 42:09
  Yeah, she said she was a terrible person.
• 42:11
  She was a baby killer and the inmates were thrown pacifiers,
• 42:15
  which made her even more demented.
• 42:17
  Wow. Just thought like that on the
• 42:19
  spot which is incredible. There wasn't a pre brief.
• 42:21
  She got this information as she was going into audition.
• 42:24
  It'll be. Europe for parole.
• 42:26
  Incredible. And Donahue was the only one who
• 42:28
  flipped it around and the film makers loved it because of that.
• 42:30
  They were also a little scared of her, which was the perfect
• 42:33
  energy for the part. And Sanchez said that she was
• 42:36
  able to go to replace, but none of the other actresses were
• 42:39
  going to. I have to find out roughly what
• 42:41
  was expected of her. Donahue said that the reaction
• 42:43
  of loved ones was that I shouldn't go into the woods with
• 42:46
  some guys I didn't know, which is really good advice, which.
• 42:49
  Is a good point. I wanted to say Social Security
• 42:53
  numbers. It's not one thing.
• 42:57
  It's your mother and our friends pitched in and make it sure up
• 43:03
  like take a knife, look after yourself.
• 43:05
  Everyone's really concerned about a welfare.
• 43:07
  It is fair enough. You go on.
• 43:08
  It's just you, one woman and all these blokes.
• 43:11
  Yeah, total strangers and you go out in the middle of nowhere.
• 43:14
  No. Yeah, no, don't be silly.
• 43:17
  The original character names for the cast were Jane, John and
• 43:20
  Bill, but the actors suggested that they use their real names
• 43:23
  to make the improv more natural, and obviously the directors
• 43:26
  agreed. It's something that they came to
• 43:27
  regret, especially Heather considering the backlash she got
• 43:30
  for her performance. Yeah, I think a lot of people
• 43:32
  couldn't detach from the film as reality and Heather was not only
• 43:36
  poster girl for the film but became the post girl for the
• 43:38
  backlash. Yeah, she's changed her name
• 43:41
  now, wasn't she? She has changed her name.
• 43:43
  Yeah, that's unbelievable, isn't it?
• 43:45
  I mean, more unbelievable. She won a Golden Razzy Award for
• 43:48
  worst Actress for her troubles. That is very harsh.
• 43:52
  Absolutely. That's got nothing to do with
• 43:53
  her performance. It's not it.
• 43:55
  Hasn't it's. It's got everyone's reactions to
• 43:58
  who she is and how she's reacting to things and how
• 44:00
  annoying that persona would be. But if you're terrified, I'm
• 44:04
  sorry, but you're annoying, yeah.
• 44:06
  Exactly. End the story if I'm if I'm
• 44:09
  terrified, I'm an absolute piece of shit and I'm a piece of shit
• 44:12
  normally, but if I'm really scared I'm a fucking asshole.
• 44:17
  But that doesn't make her a bad actress.
• 44:19
  She doesn't, definitely. Not, I mean what a bunch of
• 44:21
  assholes. The golden raspberries just make
• 44:24
  them defunct. Just pointing out people's bad
• 44:26
  points. Piss.
• 44:27
  Off with shit. It does nothing for anybody, no.
• 44:30
  It's awful, really mean spirited.
• 44:32
  Yeah, it's crap. Heather Donahue retired from
• 44:34
  Acton in 2008 and became a professional and very successful
• 44:38
  medical marijuana grower. Yeah, so she.
• 44:40
  Found out, Josh. So a divisive performance for
• 44:49
  some, but I think we'll all agree right here.
• 44:52
  A magnificent 1. Yes, iconic performance.
• 44:58
  Now it's over to the biggest Freddy cat in the cast.
• 45:01
  Matt. Yeah, not Matt, Mike.
• 45:04
  Well, also, to be fair, it is also me, Mike.
• 45:08
  He's probably the most sympathetic.
• 45:10
  And that's despite the fact he does take them up and kick it
• 45:12
  into the river. Yeah.
• 45:14
  And I just find him really relatable as well, and not just
• 45:16
  because I also have sporadic chest there.
• 45:18
  Olivia right there. Send you a picture later.
• 45:23
  No, don't. I've got a really good picture
• 45:25
  of me and you would V 2000, yeah.
• 45:27
  Well, I've got your top off. Yeah, yeah, I've got talking
• 45:30
  about campus. Just for the.
• 45:31
  Lanes usually run out. I'll send that in, yeah.
• 45:36
  Mike thought. I think for the most part he's
• 45:38
  the one who seems to have his head screwed on more than the
• 45:40
  other two. Like when they first see the
• 45:42
  noises at night, he point blank refuses to come out of the tent
• 45:46
  to investigate and to see it too.
• 45:48
  I'm not going down there. He's.
• 45:49
  Sensible man? Absolutely not.
• 45:52
  And he's the one who first brings up his unhappiness with
• 45:54
  Heather's leadership. He's not true if he trusts her.
• 45:57
  But I think probably the most important thing he does, he just
• 45:59
  brings these nice little mounts of humour.
• 46:02
  I mean, it's obviously not the place for goofy slapstick or
• 46:04
  gags, but he just brings these elements up momentarily.
• 46:07
  Lighten the atmosphere for the three of them.
• 46:09
  That little bit where he plants the stick in the ground and he
• 46:11
  does the little pause with. The leaning pause.
• 46:14
  Yeah. The leaning pause.
• 46:15
  Yeah, yeah, that's a nice moment.
• 46:17
  Show them what the sticks for. Yeah, it's really good stuff
• 46:20
  like that. I mean, he has one to.
• 46:22
  It's almost like Martin Freeman or John Krasinski in the office
• 46:26
  when he gives the little comical glances to camera.
• 46:29
  Like. Like when Heather, like at the
• 46:31
  beginning, kind of after the first day, Heather says, I've
• 46:33
  not been getting you lost. And Josh asks, well, would that
• 46:36
  be a full of shit statement? And he just moves the camera to
• 46:39
  make you just gives the little nod to come.
• 46:41
  Like, yes, that's a full of shit statement and great Oz reaction
• 46:45
  when Heather says I'm very pleasantly surprised by our
• 46:47
  little Mikey and again, the move, the comedy and you say,
• 46:52
  what do you call me? So he does have those months and
• 46:55
  he gets one of my favorite lines, which is funny, but it's
• 46:58
  infused with a little bit of panic and fear and it's the
• 47:00
  started he noises at night and they're talking about them and
• 47:03
  he says there's people out here messing with.
• 47:06
  I'm not going to play with that and have the response.
• 47:08
  Well, how do you know those people will?
• 47:10
  Even if it wasn't, I'm not going to play with that either, which
• 47:13
  that's if I see you kind of laugh, but like he's got genuine
• 47:16
  panic in his voice because it's a really good point.
• 47:18
  So when he starts losing, I really feel his anguish.
• 47:22
  I feel his desperation when he's the one that's trying to keep
• 47:25
  the spirits up. Towards the end when Josh has
• 47:28
  disappeared, he's the one that's trying to keep had the positive
• 47:31
  in the situation. So yeah, I just find him very
• 47:33
  relatable, very likable, and he's the one I probably feel the
• 47:37
  sorries for in this situation. I think the fact that he's
• 47:40
  leaving his parents house as well, yeah, yeah.
• 47:42
  And still just a kid and dad and he's just, yeah, he's just a
• 47:45
  completely innocent and all this.
• 47:47
  And it's just the way he complaints about the filming.
• 47:49
  Yeah. And he does it very early on.
• 47:51
  He does very. Early on we're making a film
• 47:52
  about a witch. Like get the fucking camera out
• 47:54
  me face. Yeah, I like the different
• 47:56
  dynamics, the different levels of mania that the cast are out
• 47:59
  as the film progresses. When Josh has his freak out,
• 48:02
  Mike's the voice of reason. Mike goes on this aggressive,
• 48:06
  rants, Josh is the one who's trying to level things out.
• 48:09
  And it's the same with Heather as well.
• 48:10
  When she has a freak out, great. Like really great balance of
• 48:13
  performances across. Great dynamic, isn't it?
• 48:16
  And Michael Williams wanted the gig because he was good at
• 48:18
  improv and loved camping. That is perfect, isn't it?
• 48:22
  What more do you need? In the audition, he said he did
• 48:24
  his best Morgan Freeman from Shawshank Hobbies.
• 48:28
  I need to hear that. Anybody that?
• 48:32
  Anyway, I mean, you know, Merrick getting get him back on
• 48:34
  the phone and see if we can get that audition tape.
• 48:38
  Williams wasn't sound man, so he was given a sound crash course
• 48:41
  by the film makers. How to connect the wires, how to
• 48:44
  make the audio clean, how to use the DAT, that kind of thing.
• 48:48
  Just slapdash has a haphazard. How did they know it was going
• 48:51
  to work? Unbelievable.
• 48:53
  So 2 for two in the cast, a great performance from Williams.
• 48:56
  Yeah, finally. Cameraman extraordinaire.
• 49:02
  Of course, I'm talking about Westy, not Josh Westy, over to
• 49:06
  you. I'm.
• 49:06
  Going to go for Josh. Yes, obviously last one left,
• 49:09
  but a voice of reason. I think probably the most mature
• 49:12
  of the cast, the one who's got a little bit more kind of get up
• 49:17
  and go. When I say maturity, I mean he
• 49:20
  crashes as fast as he should do and then rises from it.
• 49:23
  He doesn't let it kind of sit with him.
• 49:24
  He kind of tries to move on, but I think the performance is
• 49:28
  absolutely fantastic because it's somebody that you don't
• 49:30
  want to lose. You want someone like that has
• 49:34
  this kind of outlook, and he feels really safe for me as a
• 49:37
  character. Like out of any of the three of
• 49:40
  them, I would rather be out with Josh than I would be out with
• 49:42
  the other two. I think he's kicking himself all
• 49:44
  the way through that. He's trusted Heather so much as
• 49:46
  he has. I think that's the problem.
• 49:49
  He's like, I should have just fucking.
• 49:50
  He doesn't look at the car. They've left the water on top of
• 49:52
  the car when the walk away from. It's all very lackluster and I
• 49:55
  think he beats himself up throughout the whole film
• 49:58
  thinking I should have done more.
• 49:59
  I could have taken a hold of this.
• 50:00
  I've got to be at work at 9:00 tomorrow.
• 50:03
  He's got a job. Yeah, he's very responsible.
• 50:05
  His girlfriend's waiting for him.
• 50:06
  Yeah, his girlfriend's waiting for him.
• 50:08
  He says, look, if they're not on for us, they're going to figure
• 50:11
  it out and we're going to get sorted out.
• 50:12
  This is the fucking facts of it. And he tried to bring reality
• 50:16
  into this situation of absolute fantasy where everyone else is
• 50:19
  talking about, you know, screaming babies.
• 50:20
  And Josh is the person who's thinking about the real world
• 50:24
  outside of there. And he brings that into the
• 50:27
  equation. Now the genius is the take him
• 50:29
  out the equation, which means that it's all about the fantasy.
• 50:33
  There's no reality left. Any other film you would need an
• 50:36
  explanation. Where is he, what's happened,
• 50:39
  what's going on. And I think for a character to
• 50:41
  make that much impact is a real testament to his acting ability
• 50:45
  and a real testament to the character.
• 50:46
  I think he's fantastic in this grounds it until it doesn't need
• 50:50
  grounding anymore. Then they take him out and for
• 50:53
  me, that's perfect direction, that's perfect acting.
• 50:55
  It's just it's a perfect dynamic.
• 50:57
  I think his name resonates the most from the cast because it's
• 51:01
  just shouted a lot. Yeah, you hear it, Lord.
• 51:03
  You do. Well, he was actually signed on
• 51:05
  first out of the three of them. I'm not surprised.
• 51:07
  Yeah. Yeah, I'm not surprised.
• 51:08
  Yeah. Well, you think that That's not
• 51:10
  a surprise is he was a job in photographer and videographer
• 51:13
  living in New York, and he only went the audition because a
• 51:16
  friend had told him about it. And one the prerequisites for
• 51:18
  this character that they needed someone who could operate a
• 51:21
  camera. So he came to the audition with
• 51:23
  his camera. They did, in his words, a little
• 51:25
  mini improv and he was totally out the job.
• 51:27
  That was a much sought after skill.
• 51:29
  So if once the source somebody who could do improv and hold a
• 51:32
  camera, boom, that's it. We don't need to ask any more
• 51:34
  questions. Definitely.
• 51:36
  After the audition, he was told let us raise some money and
• 51:38
  we'll get back to you. And that wasn't until about 12
• 51:40
  months later that they started to talk about going into
• 51:43
  production. Right, right.
• 51:45
  And he's the only cast member to make a career out of acting,
• 51:47
  really. He's been in loads of film and
• 51:49
  TV since his debut. Yeah, yeah.
• 51:52
  As production got close to, the reality of it began to intensify
• 51:54
  for the actors. They started to get fake Flyers
• 51:57
  through the post where events happening in Burgersville and
• 52:00
  more information was provided them to build out their
• 52:02
  characters. All Michael Williams was told
• 52:05
  was that he had to be the most scared out of the three of them,
• 52:08
  that they should all stay as close to their own personalities
• 52:11
  as they could be. The film makers were adamant
• 52:14
  that as soon as anything started to look like a movie, it would
• 52:17
  be removed immediately. And you totally get there's no
• 52:20
  lamination on this whatsoever. Nothing theatrical.
• 52:22
  Not even a lens to the camera, it just feels like you're just
• 52:24
  part of the scene. It does, and they're encouraged
• 52:27
  the same character for as much of the day as possible.
• 52:29
  But when they needed to break character, the actors came up
• 52:32
  with a safe word tackle, and they all had to say the word in
• 52:35
  reply so they could break and discuss things like, have you
• 52:38
  thought about trying this? Why don't you do that?
• 52:40
  That was maybe a little unbelievable when you screamed
• 52:42
  so quickly or so loudly there. Etcetera.
• 52:45
  I think you get lost in, like we've said before, the mythology
• 52:48
  of it that you think that they just went out there and they
• 52:50
  just went crazy. But there there was a lot of
• 52:52
  technique involved. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 52:54
  There would improvise moments as they went along, Leonard
• 52:56
  suggesting his character maybe do a bit on a tree swing.
• 52:59
  So they decided between themselves, would that be a good
• 53:01
  idea? Yeah, be a good idea.
• 53:02
  So they filmed the scene and just kind of see what comes as a
• 53:05
  result of it. Yeah.
• 53:06
  Yeah. Greg Hale, who produces his
• 53:08
  famous lines to the actors before they went into the woods,
• 53:11
  was your safety is our primary concern, but your comfort is
• 53:14
  not. Wow.
• 53:16
  Yeah. The cast we're told as little as
• 53:19
  possible, only being given the absolute essentials.
• 53:22
  They knew the direction they had to walk, the locations were
• 53:25
  mapped out for them, and the film makers came up with a
• 53:27
  safety plan for them. But still I mean that, is that
• 53:30
  enough? I don't think so.
• 53:32
  I don't. Think so?
• 53:33
  No. No, and we mentioned the rations
• 53:36
  earlier. These slowly became smaller and
• 53:38
  smaller as the days progressed. So at the start of shooting
• 53:41
  they'd get a sandwich and crisps or chips for lunch, and then I
• 53:44
  was downgraded to no lunch at all by day 5 or 6.
• 53:48
  But the actors did anticipate this the new was going to
• 53:50
  happen, so they never felt at risk.
• 53:52
  I mean, that's quite a downgrade after five days.
• 53:54
  Yeah. Sandwich crisps out.
• 53:56
  Yeah. A leaf.
• 53:59
  Not even a Twix? Yeah.
• 54:00
  This film would never have been made if there wasn't this
• 54:03
  structure in place. No, exactly.
• 54:05
  No, it's really well thought through.
• 54:06
  It's a very intelligent film, Yeah.
• 54:08
  It is so despite the low budget and lack of experience, the cast
• 54:11
  of The Blair Witch Project is an outstanding 1.
• 54:13
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• 55:32
  the Right Movies. The middle.
• 55:40
  Things are beginning to heat up in the second act.
• 55:42
  Day 4 is a washout and the nocturnal noises persist.
• 55:46
  We're waking up on Day 5 where it's all about to go fuck up,
• 55:51
  and I'm starting off as Heather opens her tent in the morning.
• 55:54
  And I'll go back to what I was saying before about the
• 55:58
  directing. This is very simple but
• 56:00
  effective storytelling. These piles of rocks outside the
• 56:03
  tent, the wooden effigies later from the trees, they're all
• 56:06
  eerie symbols in horror history. They're as iconic as Freddy's
• 56:10
  glove or leather faces. Chainsaw for me.
• 56:13
  And I think the power comes from, you know, what does this
• 56:15
  mean? When they find the rocks
• 56:17
  earlier, it's got to symbolize something because the rocks are
• 56:20
  everywhere. When these rock formations show
• 56:23
  up in the tents, party's over the sounds before we're a
• 56:27
  warning. Now these three are mocked and
• 56:30
  there ain't nothing they can do about it.
• 56:31
  Yeah, it's physical now, isn't? It it is something's pot, these
• 56:34
  rocks here and they aren't happy.
• 56:36
  No, no. I think it's a common
• 56:38
  misconception that the actors were scared all the time during
• 56:40
  the shoot. Member of the opinion that the
• 56:42
  legend was real. But Joshua Lennon said they were
• 56:44
  cold and wet all the time, and when they finally got
• 56:47
  comfortable at night, that's when the film makers would start
• 56:49
  up their shenanigans. Shenanigans.
• 56:52
  Like the quick word for it? And the cast would all kind of
• 56:56
  let out a collective groan, like, oh, no, we've got to do
• 56:59
  this again. So that kind of breaks the
• 57:01
  veneer of reality for them. Yeah, but it wouldn't take me
• 57:04
  long. Like if I was in the situation
• 57:06
  of the characters, not the actors, it wouldn't take me long
• 57:09
  to start believing there are supernatural forces of work
• 57:11
  here, even though I consider myself to be a rational man.
• 57:15
  Considering the fantastical nature of the Blair Witch, it's
• 57:17
  the relatability of the situation is why it's so
• 57:20
  effective for me. Being alone in the woods, lost
• 57:22
  no food, no water, no cigarettes.
• 57:24
  Absolutely frightening. The mask would slip immediately.
• 57:32
  Well, after that, it gets worse for them because then the map
• 57:34
  goes missing. And this is one of the ones
• 57:37
  where you feel the screws starting to tighten on these
• 57:41
  three and you can see the fractures in their relationship
• 57:44
  become really noticeable because only one or two things kind of
• 57:47
  happened. Either Heather's lost it, which
• 57:49
  is a mark against her leadership, or one of the other
• 57:52
  two guys has took it for some reason, which puts them
• 57:55
  obviously in a massively bad light.
• 57:57
  And the map has been so important up until now.
• 58:00
  It's been the one thing they've been clinging to.
• 58:02
  We've got a map we can get out. This will get us to safety and
• 58:06
  now we're gone. This coupled with that previous
• 58:10
  scene where Josh and Mike are already starting to lose their
• 58:12
  patience with Heather and her insistence on filming, there's a
• 58:16
  real sink and feeling in the stomach now.
• 58:18
  It's only going to get worse from here on in because where's
• 58:22
  the trust in this argument? That's not I'm not playing head
• 58:25
  games. You're playing head games.
• 58:27
  You want to stay here, you want to film rocks, you want to look
• 58:29
  around. It's all starting to escalate
• 58:32
  and it's such an interesting scene to watch in ret respect,
• 58:35
  knowing what Mike has done with the map and he's responsible
• 58:37
  because he's really keeping his distance from the pair of them
• 58:41
  and he's just given these little small interjections like you
• 58:44
  really don't have it and then kind of backing off and go on.
• 58:49
  Let's go when the argument gets really heated because he wants
• 58:51
  to get the moving again to stop talking about the map because
• 58:53
  obviously the guilt is on the shoulders and you can hear it in
• 58:56
  his voice, I think in retrospect.
• 58:58
  So this scene, I think it's really pivotal because this is
• 59:01
  where the panic really sets in. They are now truly lost and they
• 59:05
  can't even trust each other. Yeah, it's amazing that that map
• 59:08
  was a symbol of hope. Yeah.
• 59:10
  And that's been taken away now I.
• 59:13
  Think it's just no one. What happened to the map is
• 59:16
  really heartbreaking. It shatters me every time
• 59:20
  because Mike is just completely beyond repair.
• 59:23
  To me it's like Google Maps without any signal.
• 59:27
  It's comfortable to have it there, but it's not it's not
• 59:29
  updating, it's useless. Is he right?
• 59:32
  Is he right to throw that away and just say right, let's become
• 59:35
  more determined to find out where we're how we're going to
• 59:37
  get out of this because the maps fucking pointless and it's
• 59:40
  useless and we're putting too much thought into it.
• 59:43
  So I don't know if he's right to do what he's done.
• 59:45
  I think in retrospect it doesn't matter.
• 59:48
  No, exactly. They were doomed anywhere.
• 59:50
  Yeah, but in his head, he's kind of thinking, well, this is just
• 59:52
  going to make them more focused to get out of here.
• 59:54
  We've got to get, it's America, we've got to get out of here.
• 59:57
  There's got to be somebody somewhere.
• 59:59
  Let's just keep going. And I think he's he's got the
• 1:00:02
  best interests at heart, but he's just a bit confused about
• 1:00:05
  what he's done. But it's just that revealed,
• 1:00:07
  just the way he laughs about it, just the way he thinks.
• 1:00:10
  It's just so like it's the right thing to do.
• 1:00:13
  And it's Heather's reaction to this is probably what makes
• 1:00:16
  people hate her is that she is so over the top with it.
• 1:00:20
  And you've you've damned us now. And it's all and it becomes
• 1:00:24
  really the opposite of what I think Mike as a character wanted
• 1:00:27
  to do with the map. He wanted to promote like a real
• 1:00:30
  just a big enough of everybody. And just like, right, we don't
• 1:00:32
  have the map, but we'll get out of here.
• 1:00:34
  We'll find somewhere to get out and stop arguing about because
• 1:00:37
  the map was useless. They're still lost, still didn't
• 1:00:40
  know how to read it. So I think he was just really
• 1:00:42
  trying to reinforce that. And it backfires on him.
• 1:00:45
  And as it backfires on him, it backfires on the characters, it
• 1:00:48
  backfires on the audience, it backfires on the whole film.
• 1:00:51
  And now you think, holy shit, we are truly, truly lost.
• 1:00:54
  And I think it's just, it's a wonderful scene to throw in.
• 1:00:57
  That argument is is magnificent. It's so intense.
• 1:01:00
  Yeah, it's transfixing. You can't look away from it.
• 1:01:03
  It's amazing stuff. Yeah, it's great.
• 1:01:05
  So with the map and the Creek, trust and hope starts to
• 1:01:07
  evaporate, even for Heather at this point.
• 1:01:10
  Yes, the intensity is ramped up significantly in the next
• 1:01:15
  stretch of the film. Yeah.
• 1:01:17
  Westie, over to you to start things off.
• 1:01:19
  Yeah, I mean, when they see them stick formations, it takes you
• 1:01:22
  straight back to Mary and a gate, she responsible for this,
• 1:01:27
  and it becomes so like kind of vivid and so basic that it's
• 1:01:32
  scary. Yes, it is.
• 1:01:33
  Anything more intense would have completely lost the whole vibe
• 1:01:37
  of it. I think you needed something so
• 1:01:39
  simplistic like like a child could do it.
• 1:01:42
  Yes, yeah. But there's nothing more
• 1:01:44
  terrifying than just some sticks put together in a certain way
• 1:01:47
  that means something you don't understand.
• 1:01:50
  That's the thing, isn't it? It means something.
• 1:01:52
  And what does it mean? Am I cursed now?
• 1:01:54
  Like is this powerful? Is it is?
• 1:01:56
  Should I be worried? Should I touch it so I'm not?
• 1:02:00
  In the so many of them as well. It's not just like the found
• 1:02:03
  one, Yeah. That's the issue.
• 1:02:05
  It's so haunting in the fact that they've been made with with
• 1:02:09
  something behind it. There's some reason and behind
• 1:02:11
  it, there's like this twine there and the branches there and
• 1:02:14
  everything's just like symmetrically brilliant and it
• 1:02:17
  creates a shape. And that shape was just on the
• 1:02:19
  poster. Then that shape was on the book.
• 1:02:21
  And it was like, this is what it's all about.
• 1:02:23
  And that sure, they just went, what's the scariest way we can
• 1:02:26
  put six or seven, six together like this?
• 1:02:29
  It really works. It terrifies me.
• 1:02:31
  Imagine just waking up and just looking over.
• 1:02:33
  Even if you're in your bedroom and one of them is just hanging
• 1:02:35
  over your door, you're like, that's it, I'm done.
• 1:02:39
  It's such a brilliant visual reference where every time you
• 1:02:44
  think of The Blair Witch Project, you think of these
• 1:02:46
  stick. Figures.
• 1:02:46
  Yeah, you do. No going back.
• 1:02:47
  It's a point in no return, isn't it?
• 1:02:49
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 1:02:49
  It's it's this horrible supernatural wall that's built
• 1:02:53
  up with these like spectral figures and it really hits home.
• 1:02:56
  It's so simple, but it's so effective.
• 1:02:58
  It is, yeah. I mean, Wesley said about the
• 1:03:00
  ramping up of the tension. Because it's gone from, ah, this
• 1:03:03
  will be a fun little adventure to we've got lost, not sure
• 1:03:06
  where we are, but that's the only thing that's going on.
• 1:03:09
  But then you get the next scene, which is where any doubt that
• 1:03:12
  there's something malevolent out there playing with them is gone
• 1:03:15
  because it's when their tent gets attacked.
• 1:03:18
  And it's like, yeah, all this wage it, it is not a
• 1:03:21
  coincidence. There's something in the woods
• 1:03:23
  and it's targeted. And then this scene for me is
• 1:03:26
  just pure terror. And I can sort of vividly
• 1:03:29
  remember watching this for the first time at the cinema and
• 1:03:32
  nearly hit the roof. And it still carries the same
• 1:03:35
  power no matter how many times they've seen it.
• 1:03:37
  Because how you can think being in the middle of the woods in
• 1:03:39
  the middle of the night and you wake up to hear children running
• 1:03:43
  around your tent and a baby crying isn't the most terrifying
• 1:03:46
  thing imaginable. I don't know.
• 1:03:48
  And like you said earlier, Luke, one of these scenes that comes
• 1:03:51
  in from complete darkness. So it's so disoriented because
• 1:03:55
  have turned the camera on for a reason and Mike already looks
• 1:03:58
  terrified, but he doesn't know what's going on.
• 1:04:01
  Even when you have children and you hear that your own children
• 1:04:03
  crying, it's fucking terrifying. Someone elses kids.
• 1:04:07
  That's not my responsibility, man, no.
• 1:04:11
  I'll be gone and all these kids I know.
• 1:04:13
  That's the thing. And it's when you start to hear
• 1:04:15
  the voices because the sound design is so good, because it's
• 1:04:18
  just unclear enough by your first reaction is, is that a
• 1:04:21
  kid? No, I can't be a kid.
• 1:04:22
  Surely not. Yeah.
• 1:04:23
  Yeah, exactly. But then when you hear the
• 1:04:25
  giggle and the giggle is like right next to your head and it's
• 1:04:29
  Christ Almighty that's the last thing you want to hear.
• 1:04:31
  And then the tent start shaking and for how fast they run it,
• 1:04:35
  it's incredible that they still managed to capture two of the
• 1:04:38
  most iconic moments of the film when they had the shrieks.
• 1:04:40
  What the fuck is that? Yeah, the managed together and
• 1:04:44
  the frame perfectly. Because on the one hand, you
• 1:04:46
  really want to see what you're seeing, but on the other hand,
• 1:04:48
  you really, really don't. You just think that's the last
• 1:04:51
  thing I want to see. And then I just love that
• 1:04:53
  incredible image where they get to what the think of safety and
• 1:04:56
  you get that image of Heather just caught in the torchlight
• 1:04:58
  standing up and trying to look around, but she's almost like
• 1:05:01
  completely whited out. That looks amazing as well.
• 1:05:04
  So yeah, this seemed to me it's the turning point of the film.
• 1:05:07
  I mean, this tent attack was fuelled with like, legitimate
• 1:05:10
  terror, like, the actors weren't expecting it whatsoever.
• 1:05:13
  And genuine fear was caught on camera here.
• 1:05:16
  And you can tell it's wonderful stuff.
• 1:05:17
  Oh yeah. When that, when you were saying
• 1:05:19
  about that moment, I had to say is what the fuck is that?
• 1:05:21
  Yeah. It was the art director, Ricardo
• 1:05:23
  Moreno, who was dressed all in white.
• 1:05:25
  White long Johns, white stockings, white tights over his
• 1:05:27
  head. The camera was supposed to pan
• 1:05:29
  over to capture him, but forgot to.
• 1:05:31
  Right. Sanchez and Merrick decided to
• 1:05:34
  keep it in because it fit with the notion of keep it and
• 1:05:36
  everything off camera. And it was one of those happy
• 1:05:37
  accidents because it really works that it's not there.
• 1:05:40
  It's the. Break in her voice.
• 1:05:44
  They just really fucking I. Love the fact that Heather's
• 1:05:46
  seen it and she's not expecting it.
• 1:05:48
  Like the actress, Heather is not expecting it.
• 1:05:51
  And that's all in camera. And that doesn't mention it,
• 1:05:53
  doesn't describe it doesn't say anything about the imagination
• 1:05:57
  that please. Yeah.
• 1:06:00
  Because it makes you think that you've seen something.
• 1:06:03
  That's a classic trope because you fill your brain with this
• 1:06:07
  horrific imagery. Yeah, after this, I'm talking
• 1:06:10
  about Josh's mental breakdown. And God bless Josh because he's
• 1:06:16
  due back at work. His girlfriend is definitely
• 1:06:18
  going to notice that he's not back home.
• 1:06:20
  He just wants out of this situation and he's lost all
• 1:06:23
  faith in Heather. And now after they spent the
• 1:06:25
  night hiding in the bushes, running away from what was ever
• 1:06:29
  was, frighten them, in them in their tents, they make it back
• 1:06:31
  to the tent and all of this shit has been messed with.
• 1:06:35
  So all of this combined leads up to this point where he isolates
• 1:06:38
  himself and he's a completely broken man.
• 1:06:40
  And what I like is that we're kept at a distance from Josh.
• 1:06:43
  It's all from Heather's perspective, and his story is
• 1:06:46
  told through her and Mike's conversation about Josh losing
• 1:06:49
  it. And all you hear is just him in
• 1:06:51
  the background asking for cigarettes.
• 1:06:55
  And I think it's believable that one of them would crack like
• 1:06:57
  this. I mean, they're all headed for
• 1:06:59
  this mental state. Josh just gets there 1st.
• 1:07:03
  And I think that weakness quote UN quote is anticipated by the
• 1:07:06
  Blair Witch, which is why Josh goes first.
• 1:07:09
  I do feel very sorry for him. But the line what the fuck was
• 1:07:12
  this blue Jelly shit all over my shit is very, very funny.
• 1:07:20
  What? Because what is that blue Jelly
• 1:07:22
  shit? All over my shit.
• 1:07:27
  We've all been marked for a while now, but it's imminent for
• 1:07:30
  Josh. That blue Jelly shit will not
• 1:07:32
  wash off now. No.
• 1:07:33
  And we never see that either. It's just no we.
• 1:07:35
  Don't. It thinks it's water.
• 1:07:37
  It is slime, man. So our tree.
• 1:07:43
  You are psychologically broken. Now it's time to ram things up
• 1:07:46
  some more. Here we go, the crew.
• 1:07:54
  I'm sure it's not a surprise to anyone, but there was a minimal
• 1:07:57
  crew working on The Blair Witch Project.
• 1:07:59
  We're starting with the screenplay, quote UN quote,
• 1:08:02
  written, quote UN quote by again Dan Merrick and Eduardo Sanchez.
• 1:08:06
  Matt, what are your thoughts on the right?
• 1:08:09
  Yeah. I mean, as as you've said there,
• 1:08:10
  it's obviously very unusual in terms of writing for this film.
• 1:08:13
  It's not like anything else we've ever talked about really,
• 1:08:16
  because. It's bullet points, isn't it?
• 1:08:18
  It's a bullet point. It's bullet points, yeah.
• 1:08:20
  How how it's built up in terms of writing.
• 1:08:22
  I'll just look at it through the perspective of how they build up
• 1:08:25
  the mythology that is the backbone of the film, that
• 1:08:28
  everyone in the film knows about.
• 1:08:30
  So those names, Ruston, Paul, Coffin Rock, there's something
• 1:08:33
  really evocative about those. I think what the background taps
• 1:08:37
  into is a real familiarity. We've all heard similar urban
• 1:08:40
  legends at some point. Like I did grow up in a small
• 1:08:43
  village and one side of the village it was lined with heavy
• 1:08:45
  woodland and anyone who's grown up anywhere like that, there's
• 1:08:49
  always stories. Don't go in the woods lawn.
• 1:08:53
  I saw this thing. This person heard that they came
• 1:08:56
  running out for whatever. And that's the familiarity that
• 1:08:59
  Blair, which really resonates with like again, where I grew
• 1:09:01
  up, that genuinely was an old abandoned house in evidence at
• 1:09:05
  all. Stay away from there.
• 1:09:06
  It's a bad place. It's on to die, you know?
• 1:09:07
  And again, it wasn't, it was just abandoned.
• 1:09:09
  But these myths and legends the spring up.
• 1:09:12
  Like Bloody Mary, Adoris minds me off.
• 1:09:14
  Yeah, Bloody Mary in the Mirror of mythology of places you don't
• 1:09:17
  go and I think play, which completely nails that.
• 1:09:19
  And it didn't have to be set in the woods.
• 1:09:21
  It could be set in a valley somewhere.
• 1:09:22
  It could be set in a mountain range.
• 1:09:24
  But again, the fact it's in the woods, that's such a smart move
• 1:09:27
  because he hadn't won anything. Woods, beautiful nature.
• 1:09:30
  Who doesn't love that? But I guarantee everyone at some
• 1:09:33
  point in their lives, you've been in some woods somewhere and
• 1:09:36
  you've been creeped out just for some reason.
• 1:09:39
  Yeah, definitely don't know why. Maybe you felt you being watched
• 1:09:41
  by something or the silence can nerve you or something like
• 1:09:45
  that. And you just think, I want to
• 1:09:46
  get the hell out of here, actually.
• 1:09:48
  So I think by Rich is really smart in building up the
• 1:09:50
  mythology that everything rests on.
• 1:09:53
  Yeah, Westie writing for you. How do you feel about it?
• 1:09:56
  I feel great about it, if I'm completely honest.
• 1:09:58
  I think what we're singing is the bones of the story.
• 1:10:01
  And the great thing about The Blair Witch Project is you're
• 1:10:03
  watching the meet go on to the bones as it progresses, as it
• 1:10:07
  works through. And you see in kind of it, it's
• 1:10:09
  a work in progress and it's a yeah, there's nothing to like to
• 1:10:13
  the letter. As we've said about the
• 1:10:15
  direction, it's very much this is your situation, how are you
• 1:10:19
  going to react to that? 3 characters and their
• 1:10:22
  relationships are so mismatched. Like we said at the top, man,
• 1:10:25
  it's like you don't even know. We don't even know Mike and he
• 1:10:28
  comes into this and the first thing to do is shoot everything
• 1:10:32
  Heather's way and then they just have some Scotch and the next
• 1:10:35
  day Josh is hurt and he's obviously had more than anyone
• 1:10:38
  else. He's a little bit further afield
• 1:10:40
  than everyone and you kind of get this dynamic and I think it
• 1:10:43
  really works. To their credit, it's to keep
• 1:10:46
  the brackets on the story, to keep it grounded, to keep it
• 1:10:49
  level, because they could have went anywhere with this.
• 1:10:52
  It could have gone fucking stupid at the end with, like
• 1:10:54
  we've said, things just flying at the camera or whatever else
• 1:10:57
  from start to finish. It's found footage.
• 1:11:00
  They're not tempted by, you know, that beautiful apple in
• 1:11:03
  the Garden of Eden where they're like, you can put a ghost at the
• 1:11:06
  end of this because it's Loafi, it's on 16 mil and we can do a
• 1:11:09
  really good effect and really freak people out.
• 1:11:11
  And they're like, Nah, we're just going to keep it human.
• 1:11:14
  It's a very human film. And in the script as well, I
• 1:11:17
  mean, Heather and Josh were previously romantically
• 1:11:20
  involved, which I think kind of comes across like the might have
• 1:11:25
  had a one night stand or something.
• 1:11:27
  It's just kind of underlying and that they have.
• 1:11:30
  In the same house, aren't they, when the film opens?
• 1:11:32
  Exactly. And he talks about his
• 1:11:34
  girlfriend more than he should, and he talks about his job and
• 1:11:36
  he wants to get back to his life.
• 1:11:37
  I think there might have been something there, and I think
• 1:11:39
  it's really good, but it was written totally out of the
• 1:11:41
  story, which is probably for the best.
• 1:11:43
  It would have segregated Mike a little bit too much.
• 1:11:46
  He would have just been too much.
• 1:11:47
  Yeah, it had been written out of the draft before they got under
• 1:11:51
  the the set. There's a familiarity between
• 1:11:53
  Josh and how there's an understanding between them two.
• 1:11:55
  There is, yeah. Again, beautiful.
• 1:11:57
  It's a question no answer. Yeah, no, no.
• 1:12:00
  And there's a lot of fan theory about that as well, isn't there?
• 1:12:02
  Yeah. Sanchez and Myrick were buddies
• 1:12:05
  at Central Florida University in the early 90s.
• 1:12:08
  Myrick said that being film students that are always trying
• 1:12:10
  to come up with different ideas and eventually hit on a horror
• 1:12:13
  movie, they felt that there hadn't been any great horror
• 1:12:16
  movies for years, like the ones that really used to scare them
• 1:12:19
  when they were kids. They were inspired by the
• 1:12:21
  classics obviously, like Alien, The Shine and Jaws, and the
• 1:12:25
  documentary style came from lesser known gems like The
• 1:12:27
  Legend of Boggy Creek and the sci-fi TV documentary show In
• 1:12:31
  Search Of, which was a big inspiration for my Rick,
• 1:12:33
  particularly when when I interviewed him he was he went
• 1:12:36
  on about that quite a lot. Yeah, and the settled on it
• 1:12:39
  being documentary style shot in the woods, ultimately ending at
• 1:12:42
  a house that couldn't be known to them.
• 1:12:44
  They've been led to all along, and the reason why the
• 1:12:46
  characters were filming in the woods was hotly debated.
• 1:12:49
  Apart from it being a family vacation, they decided there
• 1:12:52
  should be some spooky local witch legend and it had to be
• 1:12:54
  shot in Maryland, reckoning that Maryland isn't too far from
• 1:12:58
  Salem, where the notorious witch trials happened in the 1600s.
• 1:13:01
  Yeah, nice. Yeah.
• 1:13:03
  I mean, the fact that Burgetsville is around 500 miles
• 1:13:05
  from Salem can be sidestepped, I'm sure, because in America
• 1:13:09
  that might seem like next door, but in England, that's like
• 1:13:11
  three countries away or something.
• 1:13:13
  Yeah. Yeah, it really is.
• 1:13:15
  Yeah. And producer Greg Hale was
• 1:13:17
  friends with Merrick and Sanchez from school.
• 1:13:19
  Once he heard the basic outline for the film, he was immediately
• 1:13:22
  interested. He had ambitions of being a
• 1:13:24
  writer, director, but said I'll do whatever I have to do to make
• 1:13:27
  this happen. And if that's producing, then
• 1:13:28
  that's what I'll do. Yeah, I think he just wanted to
• 1:13:31
  be involved because he loved the premise of an immediate great
• 1:13:33
  premise. Yeah.
• 1:13:34
  Yeah, it is. It's amazing, Miracle, Sanchez
• 1:13:36
  said about writing the script with the conventional kind of
• 1:13:39
  three act structure, detailed story beats, what will be
• 1:13:41
  happening in the characters hour by hour, what the conversations
• 1:13:44
  would be like. But there was just no dialogue
• 1:13:47
  included, right? It was about 30 to 40 pages of
• 1:13:49
  just directions. So early on, they knew that the
• 1:13:52
  dialogue would come naturally from the dynamic of the actors.
• 1:13:55
  Great. And that's what I'm just
• 1:13:57
  impressed about from the writers.
• 1:13:59
  They didn't write any dialogue or very, very little.
• 1:14:03
  They left it all out there for the three nobody actors who
• 1:14:06
  hadn't starred in anything at all to come up with the goods on
• 1:14:08
  the strength of a couple of auditions.
• 1:14:11
  What? There were detailed notes in the
• 1:14:14
  scripts. There were instructions on what
• 1:14:16
  to see at certain points and how to see it.
• 1:14:18
  So a strong framework. But the cast were given carte
• 1:14:20
  blanche just to fill in the spaces in between.
• 1:14:22
  Yeah. And the cast shot all day, but
• 1:14:24
  there's very little time to review the footage because they
• 1:14:27
  were too busy mapping out the next day shoes, making sure that
• 1:14:30
  the cast had the right gear and supplies, and then doing the
• 1:14:33
  direct and duties as well. Yeah, there's so much footage to
• 1:14:36
  go through. Ridiculous.
• 1:14:37
  It was about 19 hours into Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:40
  So, I mean, if Myron and Sanchez weren't reviewing the footage
• 1:14:42
  from the previous day, so then they couldn't tell the actors if
• 1:14:46
  they were veering off course or if the scene was messed up, they
• 1:14:49
  couldn't see if it needed to be shot again.
• 1:14:52
  So that's some huge faith that you're placing on the cast.
• 1:14:55
  Yeah. And I know it was out of
• 1:14:57
  necessity to capture the atmosphere that was needed, but
• 1:14:59
  it could have just crumbled. What if Josh, Mike and Heather
• 1:15:02
  were just taking the piss for eight days, lacking around in
• 1:15:04
  the woods? Yeah, I love that though.
• 1:15:06
  That's great. They must think, well, there
• 1:15:08
  must be something there, isn't it?
• 1:15:10
  It's. Just this.
• 1:15:10
  There's got to be. Some Mary like a must be some.
• 1:15:13
  Hail Mary, though, isn't it? Mary Yeah.
• 1:15:15
  And it's worked good. It has, yeah.
• 1:15:17
  It's a highly unusual way of writing a screenplay and I don't
• 1:15:21
  think there's been anything like it in mainstream cinema.
• 1:15:23
  Not well, not that this is mainstream cinema, but that has
• 1:15:25
  crossed over into mainstream cinema and I love that story.
• 1:15:30
  I think they got lucky on a few levels because, you know, this
• 1:15:34
  could have, could have gone wrong on a number of levels.
• 1:15:36
  And we'll talk about that more as we go into the crew.
• 1:15:39
  But they had absolute confidence in their casting process and I
• 1:15:43
  think that's where the root of their confidence lies, is they
• 1:15:46
  rooted out all the people that they know wouldn't have been
• 1:15:49
  able to come up with the goods that absolutely paid off.
• 1:15:52
  They were right and what they were doing.
• 1:15:53
  Yeah, too, right. So a unique approach to writing
• 1:15:56
  a screenplay which paid off in droves.
• 1:15:58
  Yes. A slightly different look at the
• 1:16:02
  soundtrack for this film. We're focused on the sound
• 1:16:05
  designed by Jack Shirtle, and there's one piece of music by
• 1:16:08
  Antonio Cora that plays at the end.
• 1:16:11
  Matt, your thoughts on the use of sound in the film?
• 1:16:14
  It's just so pivotal to the film success really, isn't it?
• 1:16:17
  And the tricky thing from their perspective is how much of it
• 1:16:21
  can they capture in camera on the shoot, because if they start
• 1:16:25
  adding in stuff in post, the bigger the chance they're going
• 1:16:28
  to lose the realism that dream. And for plus they obviously need
• 1:16:32
  Heather, Mike and Josh to be reacting to the sounds
• 1:16:34
  themselves. So have to be done on location.
• 1:16:36
  So from that perspective, it's incredible what they've
• 1:16:39
  achieved. And it's it's the distance they
• 1:16:41
  create with each of the sound effects.
• 1:16:43
  That initial first sound of kind of like cracking just says it
• 1:16:46
  sound like I've been to him, but I can never really work out what
• 1:16:48
  it's supposed to be. But it does sound really far
• 1:16:50
  away. And then you've got the children
• 1:16:52
  laughing, which is obviously right up against the tent.
• 1:16:54
  And can you go back that scene? If you watch her head once he
• 1:16:57
  can start make out, there are some discernible words in there,
• 1:17:01
  like you can hear the kids say they're in there or come here.
• 1:17:04
  Obviously I'm never watching this wearing headphones.
• 1:17:10
  I would say it's well worth it. It's a different viewing
• 1:17:13
  experience. I don't know if I can do it.
• 1:17:16
  I don't know, I need some space. Oh, no, it's definitely worth at
• 1:17:20
  least once. And then when you've got Josh
• 1:17:24
  screaming after he's disappeared, I mean, that is
• 1:17:27
  perfectly judged in terms of how far we're the one to be because
• 1:17:30
  you can't tell when the listener, you're like, where is
• 1:17:33
  he? Is he, is he close?
• 1:17:34
  Is he far away? Is it all around us?
• 1:17:36
  And again, that has to be perfect because that's one of
• 1:17:38
  the most certain Saints. So they can't afford to get that
• 1:17:40
  wrong. And then in general, that just
• 1:17:43
  seems to be this like ambient home in the woods during the
• 1:17:46
  daytime scenes. Like it's really interesting.
• 1:17:48
  You don't hear a lot of animal noises in this, which is quite
• 1:17:52
  unusual, constant how deep in the woods they are.
• 1:17:54
  There is some bird noise, but again, it's very distant.
• 1:17:56
  It's very faint. And you just kind of have this
• 1:17:59
  slight, it's almost like that kind of insect noise very
• 1:18:02
  faintly in the background. So yeah, I think the sound
• 1:18:04
  design is just perfect for this. It needed to be because that
• 1:18:07
  creates so much of the atmosphere.
• 1:18:09
  Yeah, I mean, it's great because it's real and there's nothing in
• 1:18:13
  here that's been amplified. There's no big stings, there's
• 1:18:16
  no big jump scares, there's nothing bad but that, you know,
• 1:18:20
  it's just it's very clean as well.
• 1:18:22
  It's been done very, very well from where they are and what
• 1:18:25
  they've had to do and they're shooting on 16 mil.
• 1:18:27
  It's not easy to record sound at all anyway in a on a controlled
• 1:18:32
  set, nevermind one that is just with this much flare and
• 1:18:36
  ambiguity really, you don't really know what's going to
• 1:18:38
  happen. You don't know what they're
• 1:18:39
  going to say or how loud they're going to see it.
• 1:18:42
  You know, the people screaming at some points as people
• 1:18:44
  whispering at some points. And it is as important as the
• 1:18:47
  visuals, I think for this film work, because like you said, at
• 1:18:50
  the top look, it's like we'll see a lot of black screen and
• 1:18:53
  the sound is more important than the visuals in this film.
• 1:18:55
  I think kind of all the way through it.
• 1:18:58
  It you want to hear more, you want, you lean, you lean towards
• 1:19:01
  the screen and just what? And then it shocks your back.
• 1:19:05
  It's like, what do you see? I think you had that because
• 1:19:07
  it's real life. And if you have that moment in
• 1:19:09
  real life, it's not perfectly laid out dialogue where you're
• 1:19:12
  like, I understand what that character is saying and it's
• 1:19:15
  done take after take after take. This is literally if you blink,
• 1:19:18
  you miss it and it's your fault. So it's just exactly what needs
• 1:19:22
  to be done. It's so well done.
• 1:19:24
  It's just really, really great because you don't hear
• 1:19:27
  everything. There's this level of distance
• 1:19:31
  between everything. Like Matt touched on, like when
• 1:19:33
  you hear Josh screaming, like did you hear him screaming?
• 1:19:36
  When you hear the babies, that's right in here.
• 1:19:38
  And it's like this, this level of like this, this distance,
• 1:19:41
  which shows that they've got so much further to go on this
• 1:19:45
  journey. They are so lost because there's
• 1:19:47
  depth in the sound is so far. So far away, yeah.
• 1:19:51
  It's terrifying, and I think that's really, really brilliant,
• 1:19:53
  the way they've done that, yeah. I mean, the sound is incredible.
• 1:19:56
  And then you've got that I was going to say a track, but
• 1:20:00
  calling the track as the credits roll.
• 1:20:03
  It's a stretch called The Music. It's called The Cellar by
• 1:20:06
  Antonio Cora. That's why I've not really
• 1:20:08
  touched on it to be honest. Just.
• 1:20:09
  The ultimate sound of doom, like you're being sucked down into an
• 1:20:13
  abyss. And you want to run out the
• 1:20:14
  cinema When that's played, just run away.
• 1:20:17
  I don't want anything behind us. It reminds me of the track at
• 1:20:21
  the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
• 1:20:23
  Yeah, yeah, a little bit industrial.
• 1:20:25
  It's not cut in black as well. The views that really, well, it
• 1:20:27
  is. Yeah, I mean, this film breaks
• 1:20:29
  tradition in so many ways. One music piece in the whole
• 1:20:32
  film and it plays at the end. Absolutely nothing else.
• 1:20:36
  There was though originally at the start of the film We Got to
• 1:20:39
  Get Out of this Place by the Animals was playing on the radio
• 1:20:42
  in the car scene but it had to be re dubbed because Ardison
• 1:20:45
  didn't have the money to pay for the rights.
• 1:20:47
  Yeah, I mean, two on the nose that isn't.
• 1:20:50
  It yeah, it really is. Great song though.
• 1:20:53
  Yeah, great song. Yeah, but the studio did stumble
• 1:20:56
  up the cash for Gilligan's Island theme tune that Mike
• 1:20:59
  sings. Yeah, right.
• 1:21:01
  And there was a retrospective soundtrack to the film, titled
• 1:21:04
  Josh's Blair Witch Mixtape. Yeah, music inspired by the film
• 1:21:09
  apparently found in Josh's car. Oh, OK, right.
• 1:21:12
  And it featured Public Image Limited, Bauhaus and Lydia
• 1:21:15
  Lunch, among other classic artists also include a little
• 1:21:21
  bit of personal. Information.
• 1:21:28
  But also included on Josh's mix tape on his way to the Blair
• 1:21:32
  Witch, the Black Hills was The Cellar by Antonio Cora.
• 1:21:37
  So I mean, how meta can you get that?
• 1:21:39
  Josh already listening to a song that wasn't made yet.
• 1:21:42
  Yeah, brilliant. You know, no movie score at all
• 1:21:46
  really. And usually they're in there to
• 1:21:48
  heighten attention, but I just, it's not needed here.
• 1:21:50
  It's not needed. Doesn't feel as though it's
• 1:21:52
  missing. I think it's really well judged
• 1:21:55
  as well because music just wouldn't fit the film's
• 1:21:57
  authentic. No put like a lot.
• 1:21:59
  Of things, I think it was motivated partially because of
• 1:22:03
  the budget was so low. Yeah.
• 1:22:05
  And like you've said, the incredible sound design, just a
• 1:22:07
  handful of film school nerds rubbing rocks together in the
• 1:22:10
  woods. But in the context of the
• 1:22:12
  scenes, it's chilling. Yeah.
• 1:22:14
  And it goes back to what you don't see.
• 1:22:16
  Yeah. What we heard starts to paint a
• 1:22:18
  picture in our mind's eye. And it isn't pretty, no.
• 1:22:21
  No, yeah, the sounds of children heard at night was taken from
• 1:22:24
  the kids playground around the houses of Sanchez.
• 1:22:26
  And but they're actually the tape was looked throughout the
• 1:22:29
  night of boom boxes in the woods, William said.
• 1:22:32
  It was the most terrifying moment of filming and I cannot
• 1:22:35
  disagree with them to be honest. Yeah, of course.
• 1:22:39
  So once again, a non traditional approach to a key filmmaking
• 1:22:42
  element which is pulled off masterfully.
• 1:22:44
  Unbelievably, yeah. Unbelievable.
• 1:22:49
  Finally, cinematography. The credited DP was Neil
• 1:22:52
  Frederick's, but we're not talking about the Ari Alexa
• 1:22:55
  here, are we Westie? Certainly not nice.
• 1:23:02
  Well done. Yeah, I mean, I've written down
• 1:23:06
  the first part of me notes. It is what it is.
• 1:23:10
  It is what it is. It is what it is.
• 1:23:12
  I think they were just given a camera and say make sure it's
• 1:23:14
  exposed, make sure it's in focus and make sure you capture as
• 1:23:17
  much as possible. And I would imagine there was so
• 1:23:21
  much that they left out of this film as opposed to what they put
• 1:23:24
  into it. I think they would have shot and
• 1:23:26
  shot and shot again. That's a testament to the
• 1:23:29
  directors for getting this soul right in the edit and making it
• 1:23:32
  so linear and making it one hour and 20.
• 1:23:34
  Because if I'd made this film be 4 hours long, let's go this way
• 1:23:38
  and let's go this way. And what about this?
• 1:23:40
  What about? And they've kept it really,
• 1:23:42
  really tight. And I think what you do see on
• 1:23:45
  the screen is really well done. It is really well shot.
• 1:23:48
  Like Matt said, what the fuck is that?
• 1:23:50
  And you look up and they're in shot.
• 1:23:51
  It's that should have been planned out.
• 1:23:53
  That should have been, you know, maintained.
• 1:23:55
  I think the way that the camera moves represents the audience's
• 1:23:59
  state of mind when it hands over to somebody and whip pans back,
• 1:24:03
  You want to see that person. You want to see night's
• 1:24:05
  reaction. You want to see Joshua's
• 1:24:06
  reaction. What related to everybody was
• 1:24:08
  that this it's a real home camera kind of vibe.
• 1:24:11
  And there's nothing worse than someone sitting you down going
• 1:24:14
  watch this This is me birthday last year.
• 1:24:17
  And here's the home footage. And it's not being edited and
• 1:24:19
  it's just. Shit.
• 1:24:22
  It is relatable, it can be your video and it's shot on 4/3 so
• 1:24:26
  it's a television ratio. It's not wide screen, it's not
• 1:24:29
  for the cinema, it is this is actually found footage, so deal
• 1:24:32
  with it. But what we've done is we've
• 1:24:34
  taken all the bits out that really wouldn't interest you and
• 1:24:36
  we've left everything in that wouldn't rest you.
• 1:24:38
  So find what you want out of it to get everything focused on a
• 1:24:41
  16 mil to get everything focused on a really old school TV camera
• 1:24:46
  and get it cut together as well and get the sound to match and
• 1:24:50
  get everything matched and have just this look.
• 1:24:52
  And it's probably one of the most human films that I've seen
• 1:24:55
  where it's just you, you point it where you want to see it and
• 1:24:58
  it works and you see everything you want to see, but at the same
• 1:25:01
  time it doesn't answer any questions.
• 1:25:03
  So it works across the board it. Does, yeah, it fits the
• 1:25:05
  narrative does this. Definitely.
• 1:25:07
  And you'd be forgiven for thinking that the film makers in
• 1:25:10
  the cast had a wealth of experience considering what they
• 1:25:12
  have captured. Yeah, but Nope.
• 1:25:14
  First films for everyone. Yeah.
• 1:25:16
  Although he was a cameraman, Joshua Leonard had never shot
• 1:25:19
  with a 16 mil camera before. Right.
• 1:25:21
  So cinematographer Neil Frederick's give him a crash
• 1:25:24
  course when he first arrived on set.
• 1:25:26
  They just went out shooting for the day to show, landed the
• 1:25:28
  insurance and outs, and that was it.
• 1:25:30
  That scene near the start about Josh filming in Feet versus
• 1:25:33
  Meters was real. That's a mistake that Leonard
• 1:25:36
  actually made. All right.
• 1:25:37
  That's why the footage of Mary Brown isn't the best.
• 1:25:40
  It's a little out of focus because Leonard was a novice
• 1:25:42
  with that camera. Right.
• 1:25:44
  And I think this is just unbelievable.
• 1:25:46
  Sanchez and Myrick might as well have just said that.
• 1:25:48
  The cast, you 3 clowns who've been in nothing before and we've
• 1:25:51
  just met you, go out into the woods, here's some instructions.
• 1:25:54
  Just come up with the dialogue on the spot.
• 1:25:56
  Here's some cameras. Press that button, film
• 1:25:57
  everything. Make sure it's in focus.
• 1:26:00
  One will be around to scare the bejesus out of here from time to
• 1:26:02
  time. Yeah, go.
• 1:26:04
  Go. Where do you go from there?
• 1:26:09
  I mean how they got anything usable at all is it's a miracle.
• 1:26:13
  Yeah, it's outrageous. Imagine those three out there.
• 1:26:16
  There's no way our footage would match.
• 1:26:19
  Westies would be all cinematic black and white obviously, and
• 1:26:22
  I'd be filming Matt like one of his farts.
• 1:26:29
  Across the stream like a tracking shot for me, Really
• 1:26:31
  smooth and then they said to cover the fart board of the
• 1:26:37
  rings. But again, I mean, amazed they
• 1:26:44
  pulled it off. I know.
• 1:26:45
  And it's always said that this film could never be made again.
• 1:26:47
  And that's with the advent of a lot of things like social media,
• 1:26:51
  mobile phones, the Internet, etcetera, etcetera, which is
• 1:26:53
  perfectly valid. But another reason this could
• 1:26:56
  never happen again is because it lightning doesn't strike twice.
• 1:26:59
  What are the odds of three novice film makers and three
• 1:27:01
  novice actors going into the woods with limited experience of
• 1:27:04
  using a camera, no traditional script, no budget, and coming
• 1:27:07
  back with one of the great horror films?
• 1:27:10
  Yeah, it could never happen again.
• 1:27:12
  No. It's wonderful.
• 1:27:14
  Mass cinematography for you. Yeah.
• 1:27:16
  I mean, the thing that strikes me about this is despite
• 1:27:20
  everything we've said, not only does it work, but there's some
• 1:27:23
  really memorable shots in this, like the very stark, but there's
• 1:27:26
  something really evocative about them as well in their
• 1:27:30
  simplicity. And, and most of the ones I'm
• 1:27:31
  thinking of all shot on the black and white.
• 1:27:34
  Like in the documentary intro that they shoot, there's that
• 1:27:36
  great shot of the gravestones, which is slightly Askew.
• 1:27:40
  It's slightly imbalanced, but the sun flare is coming down
• 1:27:43
  right in the middle of the frame.
• 1:27:45
  It's done perfectly. I mean, it's very Texas Chainsaw
• 1:27:48
  to me. That shot really reminds me of
• 1:27:50
  like the open in that graveyard. And then there were shots in the
• 1:27:54
  woods where you get glimpses of the sun's through the trees and
• 1:27:57
  it can. It's that word for me.
• 1:27:58
  It's very stark, but it's kind of bleakly beautiful at the same
• 1:28:01
  time. You know, when the sun is just
• 1:28:03
  starting to come down and the catching it through the trees.
• 1:28:06
  And I think this he can try to find all the twig figures that
• 1:28:09
  some of those shot on black and white.
• 1:28:11
  There's some behind them as well.
• 1:28:12
  Really great stuff. So you wouldn't necessarily
• 1:28:15
  think about. I do think there's some weird
• 1:28:16
  visuals in here. Yeah, they are.
• 1:28:18
  Yeah, Amazingly, amazingly. Somehow.
• 1:28:22
  Yeah, so non traditional filmmaking at its finest on The
• 1:28:26
  Blair Witch Project. A true filmmaking miracle, Yes.
• 1:28:29
  Absolutely the end. The third act of The Blair Witch
• 1:28:38
  Project is a near perfect lesson in tension building and horror
• 1:28:41
  movie magic. Matt, start us off.
• 1:28:45
  I'm starting off with Josh totally losing his patience with
• 1:28:49
  Heather and the argument that they get into, which is it's so
• 1:28:53
  tough to watch, I think because the mental breakdown of the
• 1:28:57
  group and them individually is just almost total at this point.
• 1:29:01
  Like they are barely hanging on to their sanity and they've got
• 1:29:04
  nothing else to do but turn on each other now.
• 1:29:07
  And I think this is the point where it's sinking in for all of
• 1:29:09
  them. They're not getting out of this.
• 1:29:11
  Whatever direction they've took the end of back where they
• 1:29:14
  started. Something's hunting them and
• 1:29:16
  it's getting closer each night. And it's also the point for me
• 1:29:20
  in the film where it really hits on how desolate these woods are.
• 1:29:24
  Not just the fact they've not seen any of the humans, but no
• 1:29:27
  wildlife either. You'd have thought it at some
• 1:29:29
  point you'd see a raccoon, the foxes scribble or something,
• 1:29:33
  something. These words, they're just such a
• 1:29:34
  dead zone. And then Josh does turn on
• 1:29:37
  Heather. It just feels really cruel
• 1:29:39
  because she's lost her hope at this point.
• 1:29:41
  She's trying to take some time for self with her thoughts.
• 1:29:44
  And he's in her face with that camera and it's so uncomfortable
• 1:29:48
  the way he just stands there filming it for so long and he
• 1:29:51
  doesn't say a word until I want to make movies, Heather.
• 1:29:54
  And his delivery is just laced with so much venom.
• 1:29:57
  Yeah. And I really like how Heather
• 1:29:59
  stands up to him at this point. Is that fuck you, Fuck you.
• 1:30:02
  She gives back to him. Really powerful.
• 1:30:04
  And you've got Mike trying to play the peacemaker.
• 1:30:07
  But yeah, you can just tell everyone's past the breaking
• 1:30:09
  point. You know, Mike's trying to get
• 1:30:11
  them to focus. Like, come on, guys, we've got
• 1:30:13
  to make camp. We've got to take turns to stay
• 1:30:15
  on watch now. But it's.
• 1:30:17
  Just I'll take first watch. I'll take first watch.
• 1:30:19
  There's not, I think that lack of thought.
• 1:30:21
  It's just, it's just got to Josh, you know, and his friend
• 1:30:24
  here, you know, he's your motivation.
• 1:30:25
  You're lost. You're angry in the woods.
• 1:30:27
  No one is here to help you. There's a fucking witch.
• 1:30:29
  We walk for 15 hours. No one is here to help you.
• 1:30:32
  That's your motivation. Like, it's understandable where
• 1:30:35
  his anger is coming from, but he's so unhinged at this point.
• 1:30:38
  It's so oblique to watch this unfold.
• 1:30:40
  And for people who criticized Donahue's performance, to me,
• 1:30:44
  did they just completely miss the scene because her breakdown
• 1:30:46
  into tears? It's heart rending stuff.
• 1:30:49
  It's so realistic. It's so real.
• 1:30:51
  I think this is probably closer to being.
• 1:30:53
  Real, I would imagine starting. Absolutely, definitely crosses
• 1:30:56
  that line. And I think this scene, it also
• 1:30:58
  answers the question that people always being a bazaar criticism
• 1:31:01
  of, well, why did they keep filming?
• 1:31:02
  Like Heather says, that's all just got left.
• 1:31:05
  Yeah, but just that fine line that she walks off, it's an
• 1:31:07
  absolute killer. You're going to write as a happy
• 1:31:09
  ending, Heather. Nope.
• 1:31:10
  No. Devastating.
• 1:31:12
  Brilliant. Yeah.
• 1:31:13
  Very unpleasant. Very unpleasant.
• 1:31:14
  Heather gets her fair share of verbal beatings from the two
• 1:31:16
  boys and. And this is probably the worst
• 1:31:19
  from Josh. Horrific.
• 1:31:21
  Yes, it's all sustained. Yeah, which holds her own,
• 1:31:24
  though. I think it's a great.
• 1:31:25
  Yeah, I like that. Yeah.
• 1:31:26
  I mean, from there we'll have Josh being despicable to Josh
• 1:31:30
  disappearing and that's again, a really fucking brilliant move
• 1:31:35
  from the film makers. It's like, I'm sick of this guy
• 1:31:37
  and he's gone and say, Oh no, I feel guilty about that now.
• 1:31:42
  I'm sorry about the way I felt. Can you bring them back as we
• 1:31:45
  all need to be together again? This is just going to get even
• 1:31:47
  worse. But I think it's the subtlety
• 1:31:49
  and what happens here. It's the finding the teeth
• 1:31:51
  outside the tent and such a strange thing to find because as
• 1:31:55
  an audience, you want that to be bigger.
• 1:31:58
  You want you, you see the blue and you're like, I want that to
• 1:32:00
  be a severed head or I want that to be an arm.
• 1:32:03
  I want that to be something that really cements this story as
• 1:32:07
  terrifying. And it's not.
• 1:32:08
  It's just teeth. It's just.
• 1:32:10
  And you're like, well, that could, that could come from an
• 1:32:12
  animal that could come. There's no proof that that's
• 1:32:15
  Josh. Do you know what I mean?
• 1:32:17
  And that makes it even scarier because it's just so subtle.
• 1:32:20
  And I think that's what the whole film is trying to do, is
• 1:32:22
  the subtlety in this film is what makes it terrifying.
• 1:32:25
  You never get big answers. You get big questions, but you
• 1:32:28
  never get big answers. It's Heather's reaction in this
• 1:32:31
  that really sells it for me. And just looking through this
• 1:32:33
  blood and fucking hell, I mean, I would probably just go out
• 1:32:37
  teeth. That's about you.
• 1:32:42
  That's disgusting. It's that shot that she gets
• 1:32:45
  that shocks through the audience.
• 1:32:46
  Yeah, it does. It reverberates, doesn't it?
• 1:32:48
  Yeah. It makes this small thing so
• 1:32:50
  much bigger. Yeah.
• 1:32:51
  And I think that's the genius of it.
• 1:32:53
  And that's really good. From her performance, it should
• 1:32:55
  have been an answer to something.
• 1:32:56
  It should have been, you know, this is identifiable as Josh.
• 1:32:59
  It should have been something from him.
• 1:33:01
  Just watch. Or he's fucking ponytail.
• 1:33:05
  I don't know, but it's just teeth.
• 1:33:07
  And you're just like, well, again, that's wide open.
• 1:33:09
  Can someone give us some answers here?
• 1:33:11
  And there's no answers. You're not allowed and I love
• 1:33:13
  that. We mentioned earlier about the
• 1:33:15
  directors having to step in to give direction from time to
• 1:33:18
  time. Yeah, Another time was during
• 1:33:20
  this scene, Heather had to be told that the package outsider
• 1:33:22
  turned had to be opened. She couldn't just throw it away.
• 1:33:26
  Right, she would have wouldn't. You.
• 1:33:27
  But I think it works for the scene.
• 1:33:28
  If you find something you don't like, just throw it away and
• 1:33:30
  pretend it doesn't exist. Yeah, just pop that over there.
• 1:33:33
  Yeah, well, the teeth were acquired by Eduardo Sanchez as a
• 1:33:37
  dentist, and the hair was really Joshua Leonard's hair.
• 1:33:41
  Nice. All right, OK.
• 1:33:42
  And originally, Mike was the character who was going to go
• 1:33:44
  first, but Sanchez and Myrick noticed that as the days went
• 1:33:48
  by, Josh and Heather were fighting a lot more than
• 1:33:51
  originally planned. So the change the plan to make
• 1:33:53
  Josh disappear inside, which nobody was expecting.
• 1:33:56
  Right. Yeah, on that day, Josh's notes
• 1:33:58
  were when everybody goes to bed tonight, stay awake and once
• 1:34:01
  you're sure they're asleep, leave the tent.
• 1:34:04
  If anybody wakes up, tell them that you're going to take a
• 1:34:06
  piss. Right.
• 1:34:07
  He didn't know any more than that.
• 1:34:09
  He did as the North said, made it away from the camp and was
• 1:34:12
  greeted by Sanchez Merrick and Greg Hale who said to him,
• 1:34:16
  you're dead dude. And then they took him for a
• 1:34:18
  slap of meal. Lovely.
• 1:34:19
  Loved it. Steak meal guaranteed.
• 1:34:26
  So following. This is probably the most iconic
• 1:34:30
  scene in the film, much parodied in the years since.
• 1:34:33
  Which itself, I think it's a huge compliment.
• 1:34:35
  Nobody parodies something crap, do they?
• 1:34:37
  Exactly. Even people who haven't seen
• 1:34:39
  this film before, they know this scene.
• 1:34:41
  Yeah. It's Heather's snotty monologue,
• 1:34:44
  Shall we call it? Yeah.
• 1:34:46
  And I think it can be taken for granted for all those reasons,
• 1:34:49
  but I think it's justly iconic. Yeah.
• 1:34:52
  This is the moment where all of Heather's defenses are
• 1:34:55
  shattered. Like I said, she's been the
• 1:34:56
  dominant force all week. Even when she's had her
• 1:34:59
  meltdowns. She's maintained a certain
• 1:35:01
  amount of optimism that the situation will improve, I
• 1:35:04
  suppose, on just on the exterior.
• 1:35:07
  But she's now broken and she's accepted her fate.
• 1:35:10
  And I mentioned Donahue in the cast and this is the pinnacle.
• 1:35:14
  Anyone who thinks this is a bad performance can't have seen this
• 1:35:17
  scene. They just cannot have.
• 1:35:20
  You may not like the character, you may think she's annoying,
• 1:35:23
  but sometimes she is. But a Razzie win is a joke.
• 1:35:26
  It's an absolute. Joke.
• 1:35:27
  Absolute joke. Those are real tears.
• 1:35:29
  This is a real performance. You can see it all in camera.
• 1:35:32
  It might not be over the moon to see liquids not coming out of
• 1:35:35
  somebody's nose, but it's bloody effective.
• 1:35:39
  Massively. And there are two chilling
• 1:35:41
  pieces of dialogue here for me when Heather stops mid speech
• 1:35:44
  and says what's that? She's shattered.
• 1:35:47
  We don't know if she's hearing things or not, but it just shows
• 1:35:49
  a state of mind. And this confession is what Mike
• 1:35:52
  and Josh have known all along. And I think deep down, Heather
• 1:35:55
  has to. And then it's the final line,
• 1:35:57
  silent for a moment, and then I'm going to die out here.
• 1:36:01
  End scene. Yeah.
• 1:36:03
  Boom. Yeah.
• 1:36:05
  Jesus Christ. I think as well the way this is
• 1:36:07
  shot, it's just so important. I mean, the plan was for Donahue
• 1:36:10
  to have an entire face in the frame, but Sanchez America said
• 1:36:14
  not a reshoot. It's just like now that's just
• 1:36:16
  the performance is too good to go back and try to frame it
• 1:36:19
  probably. And I think it's the frame and
• 1:36:21
  if this the off frame and that really works because it it adds
• 1:36:24
  that realism and it doesn't terrify for I just really want
• 1:36:27
  to just get a hold of them. Just be like, it's all right
• 1:36:29
  coming in and. Oh.
• 1:36:31
  God, it's heartbreaking. Donahue advise the whole thing.
• 1:36:34
  Her notes were that you realize now that you're going to die.
• 1:36:38
  Say what you need to make amends, Jesus.
• 1:36:40
  Christ, Christ, it was my project.
• 1:36:43
  It's heartbreaking. It is heartbreaking.
• 1:36:46
  Think. You can kind of be forgiven for
• 1:36:48
  thinking that Heather Donahue, the real person, was so far into
• 1:36:52
  it that this is kind of reality. But she wasn't entirely lost in
• 1:36:57
  the moment. They had to drive about an hour
• 1:36:59
  away from where they were before to get to this location, right?
• 1:37:02
  So reality had kicked back in. So she really had to get herself
• 1:37:06
  into a fragile state of mind, she said.
• 1:37:07
  I had to goose myself a little bit.
• 1:37:10
  Amazing. And she also said, I was so
• 1:37:12
  proud of that moment because it's everything you're not
• 1:37:14
  supposed to do as a film actress.
• 1:37:16
  The snot was flowing and it was some flat rain and ugly and
• 1:37:19
  messy and sloppy. I don't think people get to say
• 1:37:21
  that kind of thing very often. A real good ugly cry on screen.
• 1:37:25
  Yeah, great. It just fits, doesn't it?
• 1:37:28
  A person in that state is going to do that, is going to be off
• 1:37:32
  camera. They're not going to give a shit
• 1:37:34
  about the sentence and the zoom and all that.
• 1:37:36
  No. OK, so now before we get to the
• 1:37:38
  house, we've got our second question from an ATRM Patreon
• 1:37:42
  supporter. This one comes from Ash McMahon.
• 1:37:45
  How are you doing, Ash? Hello Ash.
• 1:37:47
  Hello, Ash. Ash says I saw this on the small
• 1:37:49
  screen years before a re release at the cinema.
• 1:37:52
  Personally I feel its impact more on the small screen at home
• 1:37:55
  in the dark. Do you guys agree and if so can
• 1:37:57
  you think of any other examples where this is the case?
• 1:38:00
  He said Late Night with the Devil, a new one, springs to
• 1:38:02
  mind. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:38:05
  I mean, any film at home in the dark, it works for me.
• 1:38:08
  Let's absolutely fine. But I think anything that shot
• 1:38:11
  for three ratio, it just kind of begs to be watched back at home.
• 1:38:15
  And but there was so many more films that didn't really work at
• 1:38:19
  the box office and worked so much better when you have the
• 1:38:21
  chance to reflect on them. I think films where you feel
• 1:38:26
  incredibly stripped bare, and this is one of them films where
• 1:38:29
  you don't you want, you don't want to share this experience
• 1:38:31
  with the people. There's certain films that you
• 1:38:33
  want to share the experience with people and that's what the
• 1:38:35
  cinema is for. But I think films like Shawshank
• 1:38:37
  Redemption, you need to watch that by yourself in the dark.
• 1:38:41
  It's a fucking wonderful thing. Usual Suspects again, which was
• 1:38:44
  massive because you want to just sit and think about it.
• 1:38:46
  Big Lebowski thought was a big one for me.
• 1:38:48
  I just wanted to kind of just sit and make that thing.
• 1:38:52
  And finally, Spinal Tap, I think that's one of the perfect films
• 1:38:55
  to watch at home. I don't think that's a cinema
• 1:38:57
  film that should be played in every household on every hour
• 1:39:02
  forever. Whether it's dark or not, I
• 1:39:06
  don't care. But yeah, they're the ones for
• 1:39:08
  me. They're the ones for.
• 1:39:10
  Great. And I do agree with Ash as well.
• 1:39:12
  We mentioned the low budget which I think gets a little
• 1:39:15
  found out on the big screen. I think also think it would be
• 1:39:19
  nausea inducing considering the handheld nature of the footage.
• 1:39:24
  The film I thought of initially because I had personal
• 1:39:26
  experience with it was Paranormal Activity.
• 1:39:28
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 1:39:29
  It was like Into the Blair, which when it first came out and
• 1:39:32
  like this film, I read about it and was desperate to see it and
• 1:39:34
  when eventually did it was late at night.
• 1:39:37
  I watched it on my laptop. My face was about 6 inches from
• 1:39:40
  the screen. God.
• 1:39:44
  Well done. They've enjoyed the last shot in
• 1:39:47
  that film, and didn't I? Was frozen with terror that
• 1:39:50
  final scene. The original final scene.
• 1:39:52
  Not the Studio 1, the original final scene.
• 1:39:55
  I jumped like a cat who's just seen a cucumber.
• 1:39:58
  Covered in tinfoil. Terrifying stuff.
• 1:40:04
  What about you, Matt? Yeah, it's it's a really
• 1:40:06
  interesting question, isn't it? Because I've always maintained
• 1:40:09
  films are meant for the big screen.
• 1:40:10
  Yeah, everything should be seen on the bigger screen possible
• 1:40:13
  whenever you can. But it is a good point with this
• 1:40:15
  one. And I think what I would say for
• 1:40:16
  this, it's a film where it depends on the audience.
• 1:40:20
  If this was re released, I would just hear the end of watching
• 1:40:24
  with people who who don't get it, who thinks the sticks and
• 1:40:27
  stones are laughable, who get bored and check the fonts.
• 1:40:31
  That I'd want to watch this only with people of a similar mindset
• 1:40:34
  to myself who get it. So just us then, those guys.
• 1:40:38
  Yeah, I mean. You know, those three would be
• 1:40:40
  fine. You know, that'd be fine.
• 1:40:41
  And I think in terms of the small screen, I think the fact
• 1:40:43
  that we're watching VHS footage, essentially it does that to the
• 1:40:46
  whole movie aesthetic of it. So I don't know if I'd say it's
• 1:40:50
  a better experience, but it definitely does work.
• 1:40:53
  Or something to watch with the lights out, like, say, stick the
• 1:40:56
  headphones on connecting with the TV and watch it that way.
• 1:41:00
  Do you think other films like this?
• 1:41:02
  I think just by the very nature, kind of any fan footage really.
• 1:41:05
  I mean, yeah, Paranormal Activities, definitely one.
• 1:41:08
  I think I'm going to mention some others in a bit.
• 1:41:09
  So yeah, anything that does feel like this is like going back in
• 1:41:13
  the day and watching someone's whole movie.
• 1:41:16
  Yeah, Anything shot on a video camera, like a home video camera
• 1:41:19
  handheld. Yeah, it works, doesn't it?
• 1:41:22
  Yeah, forget about it. Great.
• 1:41:24
  OK. Well, thank you for the
• 1:41:25
  question, Ash, a great one. Yes, thank you, Ash.
• 1:41:27
  Yes, thank you. To finish off, we've got the
• 1:41:32
  iconic house scene. Awful.
• 1:41:36
  It's just awful it. Is horrific and this film really
• 1:41:42
  nails the landed. I think usually if a horror film
• 1:41:45
  lets you down, it's going to be in the final third with a crap
• 1:41:49
  reveal or illogical motivation. It's not here.
• 1:41:53
  It gets better and better. There's no explanation required.
• 1:41:57
  I think it takes a lot of nerve or a limited budget to keep
• 1:42:00
  everything off screen. Literally everything.
• 1:42:03
  And it holds right to the last frame.
• 1:42:05
  Such balls. Mike and Heather fumbling
• 1:42:08
  through the woods and this stumble on the 1st sign of life
• 1:42:11
  for eight days. It's a house.
• 1:42:14
  Yeah. God, I've never been more
• 1:42:17
  terrified to see one. Yeah.
• 1:42:20
  What should be something really confident?
• 1:42:22
  Yeah, I want to just go back to the tent.
• 1:42:24
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:42:25
  Go in there, yeah. I mean, where's this come from?
• 1:42:29
  Everything inside is screaming don't go in.
• 1:42:32
  But the pole is too strong to resist because it's Josh's voice
• 1:42:36
  beckoning the main. And I think this is a marvel of
• 1:42:39
  production design by Ben Rock, the production designer on the
• 1:42:42
  film. It's filthy and decaying and
• 1:42:44
  rotten to the core. It's completely unwelcome.
• 1:42:46
  And yet they're inside. And we know that absolutely
• 1:42:50
  nothing could come of this, and it definitely doesn't.
• 1:42:55
  I really love the jump in between the two cameras and the
• 1:42:58
  disoriented and distance in the sound.
• 1:43:00
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:43:01
  Because it's Mike's camera that's picking up the sound,
• 1:43:03
  isn't it? Yes, it is.
• 1:43:04
  Yeah. That's kind of cross cut, isn't
• 1:43:06
  it? That's right.
• 1:43:07
  Yeah, Love that. But the worst part?
• 1:43:08
  Those little handprints all over.
• 1:43:11
  That is the worst part 100% fucking why?
• 1:43:16
  Don't know, just know. I would rather like it was a
• 1:43:20
  small pandas pole or something and that's been killed.
• 1:43:23
  Find the children I know, genius.
• 1:43:29
  The Maryland Wolves. Imagine could you imagine direct
• 1:43:33
  this? They had to travel about an hour
• 1:43:39
  to get to this location. As I said, it's where the shot
• 1:43:41
  had this monologue as well. Ruston Pass house in the middle
• 1:43:44
  of the woods. Real name is Greg's house.
• 1:43:46
  They weren't aware that a house would be their final location.
• 1:43:50
  They were just camped outside the perimeter and were given
• 1:43:52
  their final instructions, right? Michael Williams said his
• 1:43:55
  instructions were, Mike will hear something tonight.
• 1:43:58
  And when you hear it, you're going to follow it all the way
• 1:44:00
  up until Heather reaches you. And when Heather reaches you,
• 1:44:03
  you want to run all the way down.
• 1:44:05
  And Williams didn't know what's all the way up and all the way
• 1:44:07
  down meant until he came upon the house.
• 1:44:09
  And he's like, holy shit, it's a house, was his genuine reaction.
• 1:44:13
  Wow. Oh God, that's amazing, isn't
• 1:44:16
  it? Yeah.
• 1:44:17
  It's the whole reaction to hearing something.
• 1:44:21
  And Mike, I'm here. Josh, I'm here.
• 1:44:22
  Josh, he's downstairs. Come on, let's go, let's go,
• 1:44:25
  let's go. And there's that pandemonium
• 1:44:27
  where we've we've seen everything slowly.
• 1:44:30
  We've seen that handprints that you've said, look, we've seen
• 1:44:32
  the house. And now we're running through
• 1:44:34
  it. I don't want to run through that
• 1:44:35
  place. No, no.
• 1:44:37
  I don't know what's around the corner, but you still have to.
• 1:44:40
  You still have to run with them and you still have to be there
• 1:44:43
  and be part of it. But just that scene where it
• 1:44:45
  just, it just ramps up even more than it's just, it's not a real
• 1:44:49
  exploration of a haunted house. It's running through a haunted
• 1:44:52
  house, which I don't think I've ever seen before at that point
• 1:44:55
  anyway. When I'd seen the film, I
• 1:44:57
  thought the last thing I want to do is run through a haunted
• 1:44:59
  house. And that's what they're making
• 1:45:00
  you do. And it's even more terrifying
• 1:45:03
  than just walking through it. And who would have thought it
• 1:45:05
  works so well. And then you come to that end,
• 1:45:08
  and Jesus Christ what an ended is.
• 1:45:11
  That's the thing as well is that you don't know what's coming.
• 1:45:14
  You don't know what's coming around the corner or upstairs,
• 1:45:17
  downstairs. It's pure terror.
• 1:45:20
  And this was the most set up of all the locations in the film.
• 1:45:23
  Obviously all the entrances to the house were blocked apart
• 1:45:25
  from 1, and radios playing Josh's voice were played inside
• 1:45:28
  the house to guide the actors. But in reality, they could only
• 1:45:31
  go so far before they had to call cut and set up the ending
• 1:45:36
  of the film. Yeah.
• 1:45:38
  Yeah, and mean what an ending it is as well.
• 1:45:41
  The build up is so disoriented and as we said, the fact that
• 1:45:45
  Heather's camera doesn't have sounds, so we see it from her
• 1:45:48
  perspective, but her voice is coming from Mikes camera and
• 1:45:51
  you're like what, who, Who am I listening to?
• 1:45:54
  What am I saying? But that final descent into the
• 1:45:56
  basement can't be stressed enough how much this had to work
• 1:46:00
  because this is what everything has been building towards.
• 1:46:03
  And it's like I said in the direction Myrick and Sanchez
• 1:46:07
  just holding the nerve that this is going to work and that
• 1:46:10
  everyone remembers that one line of dialogue despite everything
• 1:46:14
  we've seen since, because otherwise this is no ending at
• 1:46:16
  all. But even now, I still find
• 1:46:19
  myself holding my breath when she makes those last steps.
• 1:46:23
  Her sanity has gone by this point.
• 1:46:24
  I mean, Jesus shrieking. And you just see the wind
• 1:46:27
  whipping through this empty building.
• 1:46:28
  And the whole sequence is laced with so much dread.
• 1:46:33
  What are you going to say? How can this end in a satisfying
• 1:46:35
  way and it's pulled off to complete perfection.
• 1:46:39
  I will never, ever, ever forget my reaction to this end.
• 1:46:43
  And the slow pan round the shot of Mike and my head just gone.
• 1:46:48
  So Mike in the corner, Mike's in the corner, oh fuck fuck.
• 1:46:53
  And then bang, something gets Heather.
• 1:46:56
  Camera rolls on for a few more seconds.
• 1:46:58
  Good to credits. Good night everyone, sleep
• 1:47:00
  tight. Like brilliant.
• 1:47:03
  It's a moment seed onto my brain.
• 1:47:06
  I couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterwards and it's
• 1:47:09
  just a guy stood in a corner, but holy shit.
• 1:47:12
  Yeah, it's how many times have we referenced this as well?
• 1:47:15
  Yeah, like anytime someone stood in the court at the end of
• 1:47:17
  Blair, Which project that, Yes, Yeah, it's just someone.
• 1:47:20
  All the time. Because it's got such a
• 1:47:22
  resonance. So as soon as you make the
• 1:47:24
  connection, like fuck. Yeah.
• 1:47:27
  As soon as you make the connection, though, it cuts the
• 1:47:29
  black. Yeah, that's the genius of it,
• 1:47:30
  because it gives you that. It gives you that couple of
• 1:47:32
  moments where the cameras rolling and she's silent,
• 1:47:36
  everything silent. And you go, oh, that's how we
• 1:47:38
  made them stand in the and then say directly and you're just,
• 1:47:41
  you're out. You haven't got time to think
• 1:47:43
  about it. Genius.
• 1:47:44
  It's brilliant. It's.
• 1:47:44
  Hammer creeping around that corner, going Mike, then bang.
• 1:47:50
  Mike, that's why I'm not in. It's with anyone called Mike,
• 1:47:56
  just in case that would happen. And Heather and Mike didn't know
• 1:48:03
  what was in the basement. Mike was directed to move down
• 1:48:06
  there first with Heather following.
• 1:48:08
  Once he got down there he was told to face the wall in the
• 1:48:10
  corner and when Heather finally got the basement they grabbed a
• 1:48:13
  camera and dropped it to the ground and shushed her.
• 1:48:15
  So should they stop screaming? So it is actually real?
• 1:48:18
  It happened in real time. He got there first.
• 1:48:21
  Look in the corner, punch, be quiet, that's it done.
• 1:48:24
  Perfect. Incredible.
• 1:48:26
  Yeah, the same was shot twice, but there was a lot of time in
• 1:48:28
  between Baltics because Heather couldn't stop hyperventilating.
• 1:48:31
  I'm. Not surprised.
• 1:48:32
  Yeah, I'm hesitant now in my own house thinking about it.
• 1:48:39
  Filming wrapped on Halloween 1997.
• 1:48:42
  It should have wrapped the day before, but they had a problem
• 1:48:44
  with batteries on one of the days so they overran, right?
• 1:48:47
  Was it the Blair Witch conspiring against them to
• 1:48:50
  finish on Halloween? The Battery Witch project.
• 1:48:55
  Michael Williams said that the experience of emerging from
• 1:48:58
  those woods haven't been surrounded by the law of the
• 1:49:00
  Blair Witch. And now he's surrounded by
• 1:49:02
  people dressed up as witches for Halloween.
• 1:49:04
  Was quite jarring, yeah. I imagine, yeah.
• 1:49:07
  And Eduardo Sanchez remembered walking back into town from that
• 1:49:10
  final day shoot in the middle of the night and saying we're
• 1:49:13
  nobody's, we have no track record, but we're doing
• 1:49:16
  something right now that Spielberg could probably never
• 1:49:18
  do. Massive statement.
• 1:49:21
  I think something I would say, there's no anticipation that
• 1:49:25
  they would garner any success, but he said at least we're doing
• 1:49:28
  something unique, which is exactly what they were doing.
• 1:49:31
  And yeah, he's absolutely right. Spielberg wouldn't do anything
• 1:49:33
  like this. But it is wildest dreams.
• 1:49:36
  There's no way you could have anticipated this taking off.
• 1:49:39
  But after test screen and there was some confusion about what
• 1:49:42
  that end and actually meant. So Artisan paid for production
• 1:49:46
  to go back into the woods and film 3 alternatives.
• 1:49:49
  The do all still finished in the basement, but the final image of
• 1:49:52
  Mike changes. One of them he's hanging by his
• 1:49:54
  neck in the corner and the second he's been crucified on
• 1:49:57
  the wall, and the third is where he's in the corner but facing
• 1:50:00
  Heather as she comes in, suggesting he's be the
• 1:50:02
  instigator of everything all along.
• 1:50:04
  Yeah, I mean they are online, you can see them.
• 1:50:07
  Yep, nothing much changes and I think the continuity,
• 1:50:10
  considering that just go back into the woods.
• 1:50:12
  Haven't shot this a long time. The ultimately decided that the
• 1:50:16
  original worked the best. Yeah, thematically it fits
• 1:50:19
  because we're told that story about the kids facing the wall
• 1:50:21
  of the start like you've mentioned, Matt.
• 1:50:23
  Yeah, exactly. But to make reference to it,
• 1:50:26
  they did film another talk and had seen it at the start of the
• 1:50:28
  film where that guy talks about Ruston Parr making one of the
• 1:50:31
  kids face the corner. Yes, because that wasn't in
• 1:50:34
  initially. Yeah.
• 1:50:35
  Well, so they've come back to make it, Yeah.
• 1:50:37
  Yeah. So, yeah, I think Art Design
• 1:50:39
  said we need something else, and I think that's creatively that's
• 1:50:43
  the right choice. So with the film of this
• 1:50:46
  magnitude, it seems appropriate to have one of the greatest
• 1:50:49
  final scenes in horror movie history.
• 1:50:54
  Reception and awards. It is a film and equated to 8
• 1:50:59
  months in the editing suite cutting down 19 hours of
• 1:51:02
  footage. A month, a day.
• 1:51:09
  Even after filming had wrapped, the original ID for The Blair
• 1:51:12
  Witch Project was to structure it like an episode of In Search
• 1:51:15
  of That Dan Merrick was talking about a four documentary footage
• 1:51:19
  of Heather, Mike, and Josh would only cover a small percentage of
• 1:51:21
  the runtime. The rest would be a history of
• 1:51:25
  the Blair Witch Friends family, a detective hired by Heather's
• 1:51:29
  mother, analyzing the footage that Heather, Mike, and Josh had
• 1:51:31
  shot. But when the film makers
• 1:51:34
  reviewed the footage in the editing suite, they realized
• 1:51:36
  they had something quite special on their hands in the for a full
• 1:51:39
  feature. Yeah, so the other footage was
• 1:51:42
  repurposed for the full documentary The Curse of the
• 1:51:45
  Blair Witch, which ran on the sci-fi Channel on the 12th of
• 1:51:48
  July, 2 days prior to the release of this film.
• 1:51:50
  It served as a nice companion piece of the film and also was
• 1:51:53
  strengthened that the law and mythology of the Blair Witch,
• 1:51:57
  just to keep that really on the level which people bought into
• 1:52:00
  massively and reinforce the notion that this was actually
• 1:52:03
  real. Yeah, it's a bloody good
• 1:52:05
  documentary as well. It goes hand in hell
• 1:52:08
  brilliantly. Merrick knew ATV producer named
• 1:52:11
  John Pearson and showed him a kind of eight minute investor
• 1:52:13
  trailer that he pulled together there to get money in the 1st
• 1:52:16
  place. Pearson loved it and included it
• 1:52:19
  on his Bravo TV show special Split Screen.
• 1:52:22
  That created a quite the buzz online which led to the Blair
• 1:52:26
  Witch website. Right.
• 1:52:28
  And it it really did have one of the best marketing campaigns in
• 1:52:31
  movie history because the Internet was in its infancy.
• 1:52:34
  Smartphones were obviously just so far off in the future, not
• 1:52:37
  even a consideration. Same for social media.
• 1:52:40
  And it just took advantage of all that.
• 1:52:42
  Eduardo Sanchez built the website, which provided a
• 1:52:44
  timeline of historic events and that all added to the mythology
• 1:52:48
  of the Blair Witch and the mission trio.
• 1:52:50
  Yeah, due to positive responses all around, the film makers
• 1:52:53
  submitted the film to be screened at Sundance Film
• 1:52:55
  Festival and to their surprise, it got accepted.
• 1:53:00
  And after it got accepted after a huge response at the midnight
• 1:53:02
  screening of Sundance, the film became the buzz film of the
• 1:53:05
  Sundance Film Festival. Artisan purchased the film for
• 1:53:08
  1.1 million a few hours after the screening.
• 1:53:11
  A few minutes for me as soon as the credits kicked in.
• 1:53:15
  How much do you want? 1.2?
• 1:53:16
  I'll have that. And ended up pumping in a few.
• 1:53:19
  100,000 at a post production and really focused on an aggressive
• 1:53:22
  margin campaign, which played on the fact that the events in the
• 1:53:25
  film are actually real. And yeah, they did a great job
• 1:53:27
  with that. Amazing stuff of legend.
• 1:53:30
  So this meant redesigning the website and focusing hard on us.
• 1:53:34
  And when they got the film into can, the mocked up those iconic
• 1:53:37
  missing Flyers to continue the buzz.
• 1:53:40
  But they had to insist that the actors stay out the limelight to
• 1:53:42
  maintain the facade. And it wasn't until the film is
• 1:53:45
  out that they started doing talk shows and the like and proper
• 1:53:47
  interviews. Yeah, yeah, they were told.
• 1:53:49
  Just stay out of the media. Yeah.
• 1:53:52
  The film became viral before viral was even a thing, really.
• 1:53:55
  The website got 160 million hits by August 1999, seven months
• 1:54:00
  after premiering at Sundance and only a month after the US
• 1:54:03
  release. Huge.
• 1:54:04
  Yeah, Yeah. Didn't listen, Had this man was
• 1:54:07
  getting like sent condolence cards and stuff.
• 1:54:09
  Yeah, yeah. From people who thought that her
• 1:54:12
  daughter was dead. Yeah, fear me.
• 1:54:16
  But Sanchez and Merrick were adamant that they never lied to
• 1:54:19
  anyone about the film. Sanchez said.
• 1:54:21
  We've always thought that if you trick people into the theatre
• 1:54:24
  and then they find out it's not real, they're going to be
• 1:54:26
  really, really angry, which I totally agree with.
• 1:54:29
  And Merrick was very aware that not pushing it too far and being
• 1:54:32
  accused of being Hawks, as I think it was really important
• 1:54:34
  for them how they sold the film. Yeah.
• 1:54:37
  Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's all well and good, but
• 1:54:39
  Artisan did manage to persuade IMDb to list the three actors as
• 1:54:43
  missing, presumed dead on their site, so.
• 1:54:47
  We don't lie to anyone, but they are.
• 1:54:49
  They are dead. But the film makers maintained
• 1:54:52
  that if you scratch the surface even just a little bit, you
• 1:54:54
  could find out the truth, for example, on their website.
• 1:54:57
  It made it clear it was just a film, made it very clear.
• 1:54:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:55:00
  But that didn't stop the groundswell of interest and
• 1:55:02
  attention in the film. And I guess people wanted to
• 1:55:04
  believe in the macabre and went along for the ride.
• 1:55:08
  After the New York premier, Greg Hill's girlfriend worked at a
• 1:55:10
  photo processing place and was looking at photos from the
• 1:55:14
  premier and her Co worker asked him where were they taken?
• 1:55:17
  And she said, oh, it's one of the Blair Witch parties.
• 1:55:19
  And she said, Oh, yeah, yeah, I feel really bad for those kids.
• 1:55:23
  And Greg Hill's girlfriend said, no, no, it's fake.
• 1:55:25
  My boyfriend was producer on the movie.
• 1:55:27
  He's a picture of Josh, Heather and Mike a week ago.
• 1:55:30
  And she said, oh, no, no, no. Those are actors that they
• 1:55:32
  played the kids. The kids are really dead.
• 1:55:34
  Right. Wow.
• 1:55:35
  OK, so people really thought this.
• 1:55:38
  Yeah. After the festival circuit, The
• 1:55:40
  Blair Witch Project was finally released on the 14th of July
• 1:55:44
  1999 on an eventual $600,000 budget.
• 1:55:48
  It grows just short of $250 million.
• 1:55:53
  Boom, have that. Still one of the most profitable
• 1:55:58
  films ever made. Yeah, critics loved it as well.
• 1:56:01
  Rolling Stone said that it was a groundbreaker in fright that
• 1:56:04
  reinvents Scary for the new Millennium.
• 1:56:07
  Right. Variety said that The Blair
• 1:56:09
  Witch Project puts a clever, modern twist on the universal
• 1:56:11
  fear of dark and things that got bump in the night.
• 1:56:15
  Yeah. And finally, what did the big
• 1:56:17
  man give it? Roger Ebert out of four. 3.
• 1:56:20
  Yeah, I think he would have admired what they're doing.
• 1:56:22
  And yeah, 3 sounds right. Oh, he gave it a big time. 4 out
• 1:56:27
  of four all the way to the top. Wow.
• 1:56:30
  And he said it was an extraordinarily effective horror
• 1:56:32
  film, which of course it is. Which?
• 1:56:35
  It is. Yep, yes.
• 1:56:36
  So big with critics and with audiences.
• 1:56:38
  But what about the award circuit?
• 1:56:40
  Initially it fared very well. It won the John Cassavetes Award
• 1:56:43
  at the Independent Spirit Awards.
• 1:56:45
  Brilliant. But then it all went downhill.
• 1:56:49
  As mentioned, Heather Donahue got a Worst Actress award at the
• 1:56:52
  Razzies. The film was also nominated for
• 1:56:54
  Worst film And at the you know, we've all heard this Movie
• 1:56:59
  Awards ceremony. It's one of the big ones.
• 1:57:02
  At the Stinkers Bad Movie Awards, it won Biggest
• 1:57:06
  Disappointment and got a further 3 nominations for Worst Picture,
• 1:57:10
  Worst Actress and Worst Screen Debut, which was shared between
• 1:57:14
  Heather, Mike, Josh, The Stick People and the World's Longest
• 1:57:18
  Running Batteries assholes. That whole awards wins the worst
• 1:57:23
  awards award for me. They must think they're so
• 1:57:27
  clever. Yeah, aren't we?
• 1:57:29
  So. Yeah.
• 1:57:30
  Aren't we so funny? No, you know, I mean.
• 1:57:31
  It's established in the 1st 10 minutes that they've got loads
• 1:57:34
  about. He's out there.
• 1:57:35
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what you once seen shown
• 1:57:39
  them change in their batteries. Exactly.
• 1:57:41
  It's mental. Yeah.
• 1:57:43
  And now it has 86% on run tomatoes and a surprisingly low
• 1:57:47
  6.5 out of 10 on IMDb. However, as it's divisive, not
• 1:57:52
  that surprise. It's very divisive, yes.
• 1:57:54
  Well, you can't win them all, but the Blair Witch's bliss in
• 1:57:57
  history was already guaranteed before the Stinker Awards had
• 1:58:00
  this a yeah. Sequels and influence.
• 1:58:08
  A huge film, one of the most impactful ever so mass in the
• 1:58:13
  years since it's released in the last 25 years.
• 1:58:16
  The Blair Witch projects influence.
• 1:58:18
  What's its legacy? You know the this very, very few
• 1:58:21
  films you can pick and go that started the genre and yes, some
• 1:58:27
  came before the likes of Cannibal Holocaust etcetera.
• 1:58:29
  But cannibal Holocaust that one has a story outside the footage
• 1:58:33
  in that film. This one, the footage is the
• 1:58:35
  film from begin and trend and you know where he saw with all
• 1:58:39
  the imitators that came after it.
• 1:58:41
  It's entirely a genre of its own now down to this one film.
• 1:58:45
  So, you know, pretty big legacy and huge in the horror genre.
• 1:58:50
  At least three moments that you'd put up.
• 1:58:52
  There's three the scariest moments in a horror film, I
• 1:58:54
  would say So, yeah, absolutely. Huge legacy.
• 1:58:57
  Yeah, I mean, everything that you fellas have said really
• 1:59:00
  changed the game, change people's perceptions of how
• 1:59:02
  movies could be cast, shot, marketed.
• 1:59:05
  It tapped into and popularized the fan footage genre.
• 1:59:08
  I mean, that you were saying mass.
• 1:59:09
  The genre itself was there, yeah, but nobody was talking
• 1:59:13
  about. It no, it wasn't mainstream.
• 1:59:15
  No, not at all. It did back to the early 60s a
• 1:59:18
  film called The Connection about heroin addicts, considered the
• 1:59:21
  first film in the medium most commonly found in the horror
• 1:59:24
  genre. Of course Cannibal Holocaust,
• 1:59:26
  like you said From 80 is probably considered the first
• 1:59:30
  found footage horror film. Last Broadcast came out in 98
• 1:59:34
  which is very similar to Blair Witch, but none of them caught
• 1:59:38
  fire like Blair Witch. Before this film, there were
• 1:59:41
  roughly 10 found footage films in existence, the whole of
• 1:59:46
  cinema history. 10. Ten, in the 25 years since,
• 1:59:50
  there have been close to 200 fan footage movies.
• 1:59:55
  There's your legacy. There you go.
• 1:59:56
  There's like 10 a month now isn't?
• 1:59:58
  That yeah, good, bad or indifferent.
• 2:00:00
  And we've got our final Patreon question to uncover the great
• 2:00:04
  fan footage films. OK, so firstly from Nathan Lang.
• 2:00:09
  He says thank you for all your work and giving us in arguably
• 2:00:12
  the best film podcast there is. So there's a reason why I'm
• 2:00:15
  choosing these questions. Thank you Nathan.
• 2:00:17
  Nathan asked Player, which might not be the first time footage
• 2:00:20
  film, but it certainly kicked off a trend that continues 25
• 2:00:23
  years on. My personal favorite is the
• 2:00:25
  scientifically accurate found footage film set in space.
• 2:00:28
  You wrote a report. What are some of your favourites
• 2:00:31
  brackets? Westie is only allowed to pick
• 2:00:33
  3. He knows me too well.
• 2:00:38
  So my top three are in no particular order, wreck the
• 2:00:43
  Spanish 2007 infection spread and Masterpiece One location.
• 2:00:48
  Absolute terror. If you haven't seen that, you're
• 2:00:51
  missing. Fucking terrified.
• 2:00:53
  Magnificent, yeah. Jesus Christ is so scary. 2nd is
• 2:00:57
  The Poughkeepsie Tapes, a film that was held back by MGM for
• 2:01:01
  unknown reasons, but one watch might suggest why.
• 2:01:05
  It's a four documentary stitching in serial killers
• 2:01:08
  whole movies with interviews with psychologists, police and
• 2:01:12
  the like. There are some unforgettably
• 2:01:15
  scary. Moments.
• 2:01:15
  Yeah, some brilliant moments in that.
• 2:01:17
  And finally, Hell House LLC from 2015.
• 2:01:20
  Nice. A Halloween haunted House of a
• 2:01:22
  movie with some really skin crawling moments.
• 2:01:25
  Sequels a decent. There was a one from last year
• 2:01:28
  but the original is the best. Nice.
• 2:01:31
  OK. And Matt, what about you?
• 2:01:35
  Yep. So my three again, no particular
• 2:01:37
  order, but three, the radio stick in my mind.
• 2:01:40
  One from a couple of years ago was a lockdown horror host
• 2:01:43
  where? Oh, yes, yes, Seance conducted
• 2:01:46
  over zoom. Really clever use of zoom and
• 2:01:50
  split screens. Really, really interesting one,
• 2:01:52
  that pretty terrifying one called the Borderlands, which is
• 2:01:58
  set in Scotland. And it's two people who work for
• 2:02:01
  the church and the center of this church investigated because
• 2:02:04
  there's been paranormal activity happening there.
• 2:02:07
  Really, really creepy. And it's got an end.
• 2:02:09
  And that has to be seen to be believed to really go somewhere
• 2:02:13
  very strange. And the last one I wanted to
• 2:02:15
  mention is Willow Creek. Which?
• 2:02:17
  Is about a couple that go out on a hunt to find Bigfoot.
• 2:02:22
  Things do not end well. But the reason I wanted to bring
• 2:02:25
  this up, obviously play which has a very famous scene in the
• 2:02:28
  tent. Willow Creek has a similar one,
• 2:02:30
  except the difference is they don't leave the tent and it's
• 2:02:32
  about 20 minutes long and it's just pure terror.
• 2:02:37
  It's fantastically well done. Directed by Bob Golf with
• 2:02:41
  Unbelievable. Yeah, he's made some interesting
• 2:02:43
  films. He's still some great films,
• 2:02:44
  yeah. Excellent.
• 2:02:46
  And Westie, do we have any crossover here?
• 2:02:49
  I had one crossover, but I went for some that was maybe not as
• 2:02:53
  big of a hit, but bigger hits for me that I really enjoyed
• 2:02:56
  from this genre. I think Wreck is number one
• 2:03:00
  because just it is what it is. It takes this and it ramps it up
• 2:03:03
  at 2:11. It's the, you know, it's the
• 2:03:05
  Spinal Tap of play, which the two that really resonated with
• 2:03:10
  me was unfriended from 2014. OK.
• 2:03:13
  Yeah, all right. Which was all about people just
• 2:03:16
  being online and murders happening as they're talking to
• 2:03:19
  each other. And I really, really enjoy that
• 2:03:20
  film. I don't think it's going to go
• 2:03:21
  down as one of the best films ever made, but I think just
• 2:03:23
  using that medium, it works really, really well.
• 2:03:27
  And Lake Mongol Brilliant, 2008. Brilliant.
• 2:03:31
  Which is very, very strange and it's it's just wonderful how
• 2:03:34
  they introduced new footage in different ways.
• 2:03:37
  Late Mongo and Unfriended if you haven't seen them.
• 2:03:40
  Definitely, yeah. So with something as popular as
• 2:03:42
  the Blair, which naturally attention focuses on a sequel
• 2:03:45
  pretty much straight away, Artisan were quick to move with
• 2:03:48
  their hot new IP and approached American Sanchez.
• 2:03:52
  They had IDs for a second film, namely a prequel, possibly
• 2:03:55
  focusing on the Russian past story.
• 2:03:58
  Artisan eventually said yes to them, but this was in December
• 2:04:01
  99 and Artisan wanted the film out in October 2000.
• 2:04:06
  The turn around was far too quick.
• 2:04:08
  So American Sanchez steps aside because they just didn't have
• 2:04:11
  anything but a basic outline for the story and wanted the Blair
• 2:04:14
  Witch hype machine to die down first.
• 2:04:17
  Artisan won't have any of it and pressed it on without them.
• 2:04:20
  An incredibly ballsy thing to do for American Sanchez may not
• 2:04:23
  ever get a shot like this again, and they didn't, but they kept
• 2:04:26
  their integrity. Yeah, so instead of Sanchez and
• 2:04:29
  Merrick, we got the Joe Berlinger directed Book of
• 2:04:32
  Shadows, Blair Witch two in 2000.
• 2:04:35
  Then there was a big gap and in 2016 we've got the Adam Wingard
• 2:04:39
  directed Blair Witch, both directed by two people who had a
• 2:04:43
  great pedigree. So, thoughts on the sequels,
• 2:04:46
  Westie? I don't know.
• 2:04:48
  I just, I was left a little bit empty because it they just lack
• 2:04:52
  the humanity of the first one. The peril of the first one I
• 2:04:56
  think is you feel like you're part of it.
• 2:04:58
  Especially the second one, I think it does a really good job
• 2:05:00
  of trying to pull you into the story, but at the same time you
• 2:05:04
  feel, I feel quite detached from it.
• 2:05:06
  Right. It's almost like a parody of
• 2:05:08
  what I've seen before. Yes, there's so much depth to
• 2:05:10
  the first one. There's so much honesty to the
• 2:05:12
  first one and trying to recreate that it just becomes something
• 2:05:16
  where it's just almost like, you know, you want Leslie Nielsen to
• 2:05:20
  pop up at some point, like it's all right, everything's fine,
• 2:05:23
  you know? And I just get that
• 2:05:25
  disassociation from the sequels. Like you said, Luke Lightning
• 2:05:29
  can't strike twice, and it struck first and I bought it.
• 2:05:33
  I get it, but I don't really want it in my life.
• 2:05:39
  Yeah, I don't think you're the only one.
• 2:05:40
  What about you, Matt? Do you care for any of the
• 2:05:43
  sequels? Have you seen them?
• 2:05:44
  Yeah, I've seen them in, I mean, the first one, Joe Bellinger is
• 2:05:47
  an interesting choice because he's a documentarian raver, so
• 2:05:50
  it's an interesting natural twist.
• 2:05:52
  Yeah, let's get him in. And there's like the germ of a
• 2:05:55
  good idea even there by making it very mad about it being about
• 2:05:59
  the success of Blair Witch and people going to see the film and
• 2:06:02
  locations. But that's all it is.
• 2:06:04
  It's a germ of an idea. It's not scary.
• 2:06:06
  Though is it? It's not scary at all.
• 2:06:07
  That that premise isn't scary. It's the the typical thing of
• 2:06:11
  they had the release date first before they had an actual idea,
• 2:06:14
  which is never a good order to. Have a full money.
• 2:06:19
  No money doesn't add anything to the original.
• 2:06:21
  It's it's very kind of cliched by the book horror stuff once
• 2:06:24
  the spooky stuff starts happening.
• 2:06:26
  So yeah, it could have gone somewhere really in lesson, but
• 2:06:29
  just for how quickly it was rushed out, just didn't really
• 2:06:32
  have any kind of interest really.
• 2:06:33
  I've I've never revisited since. Well, I've got two big claims
• 2:06:36
  here, I think. Firstly, the Blair Witch world
• 2:06:40
  is one of the biggest missed opportunities in movie history,
• 2:06:44
  right? The mythology is already there,
• 2:06:46
  the infrastructure is laid down for you, nobody wants it.
• 2:06:49
  Second big claim Book of Shadows, probably the worst
• 2:06:53
  sequel ever made. Yeah, OK.
• 2:06:55
  I kind of agree with that. Yeah.
• 2:06:56
  OK. If you consider the hype and
• 2:06:58
  what the first film represents, you know everything we've
• 2:07:01
  discussed and then we get this a year later.
• 2:07:04
  What the? Fuck yeah.
• 2:07:06
  That you said, Matt, It starts off quite well, That opening
• 2:07:09
  scene, it's set in Burketsville. It discusses the impact the film
• 2:07:11
  had on the town. But then it's a tragedy of a
• 2:07:14
  film. It's cheap looking trash with
• 2:07:16
  bad effects and worse acting and the plot is nothing.
• 2:07:20
  No. Nothing.
• 2:07:21
  I actually don't mind the third film, right, because I search
• 2:07:26
  horror films, Google horror films, Google Feed will always
• 2:07:30
  tell me about new films that are coming up.
• 2:07:32
  And I was tracking this film called The Woods that I had
• 2:07:34
  cottoned on to coming in September, and I was very
• 2:07:37
  excited about it. But then the rug was pulled from
• 2:07:40
  under me when The Woods was just a working title and there was a
• 2:07:43
  reveal that it was the new Blair Witch film.
• 2:07:45
  You can imagine what I was like. In the candy store.
• 2:07:50
  Yeah, very excited. I didn't like it initially, but
• 2:07:53
  I've seen it a couple of times since.
• 2:07:54
  It isn't bad. It's no Blair Witch.
• 2:07:57
  But then what is these? All right.
• 2:07:59
  Yeah, exactly. And we have had the news in the
• 2:08:01
  last few months that the film series is going to get rebooted
• 2:08:04
  under the dependable Bloom House banner.
• 2:08:06
  So all is not lost potentially. No.
• 2:08:10
  But if we're talking about a once in a lifetime game change
• 2:08:13
  in horror, the effects of which can still be felt 25 years on,
• 2:08:16
  nothing could ever come close to the original Blair Witch
• 2:08:18
  Project. No, no.
• 2:08:23
  All the right movies ranking. So reveal almost as chilling as
• 2:08:29
  the Blair Witch herself. It's the ATRM ranking.
• 2:08:33
  Matt, your summary and score for The Blair Witch Project, please.
• 2:08:36
  It's just such a real lightning in a bottle stuff.
• 2:08:40
  This one, they couldn't have made it a couple of years
• 2:08:42
  earlier and they certainly couldn't couldn't have made it a
• 2:08:45
  couple years later. It was absolutely right concept
• 2:08:48
  at the right time and that concept is executed.
• 2:08:51
  Florida State, from the film itself to the marketing
• 2:08:54
  campaign, it it's one of those rare films where, when I think
• 2:08:57
  about it, there's more than the film itself that I consider part
• 2:09:00
  of it and part of the enjoyment of it.
• 2:09:02
  And yes, it's divisive, but even if you hate this film, you
• 2:09:06
  simply can't deny its place and its influence in the horror
• 2:09:08
  genre. And what makes it all more
• 2:09:10
  special to me is it was just made by two nobodies who have
• 2:09:14
  gone on. All due respect to them, they've
• 2:09:16
  gone on to do nothing of nought since, but they just had that
• 2:09:19
  one idea that just had that spark to go.
• 2:09:23
  We can use the Internet for this in a really interesting way in
• 2:09:26
  the pulled it off to perfection. I think the three cast members
• 2:09:30
  take method acting to another level entirely.
• 2:09:33
  And I think Donahue in particular, you know, she's
• 2:09:36
  obviously out of the business now.
• 2:09:37
  She seems in a much happier place.
• 2:09:38
  But I hope she can reflect and ignore all the nonsense about
• 2:09:42
  the Razzies. Just realized what a brave, raw
• 2:09:46
  and honest performance she gave. I think she's incredible in
• 2:09:49
  this. Yeah.
• 2:09:50
  Well said. Underneath all that, just
• 2:09:52
  getting to the very heart of it, I just think it's incredibly
• 2:09:54
  scary when they're in the woods, I'm in the woods with them
• 2:09:57
  there. He is palpable and infectious
• 2:10:00
  and there are moments in this I'll never forget how I felt the
• 2:10:04
  first time I saw them. And it's not lost a bit of power
• 2:10:06
  for me. So for me it's a pivotal film
• 2:10:09
  from my relationship with horror cinema.
• 2:10:11
  It's something I wish I'd had the balls to think of this and
• 2:10:14
  make instead. So it's an absolute 10 out of 10
• 2:10:17
  for me. Yes, unsurprising Mats and Mind
• 2:10:22
  isn't going to come as a surprise at all either.
• 2:10:24
  I haven't had one bad word to say about the film in the last
• 2:10:26
  three hours or so, So this is reflected in my score.
• 2:10:31
  There hasn't been a film like this in the last 25 years.
• 2:10:33
  They'll likely not be another in the next 25.
• 2:10:36
  It still has the power to transfix and terrify me and
• 2:10:39
  which is no main feat. Lightning in a bottle, like you
• 2:10:41
  said, Matt, with maverick directors and a hugely and, you
• 2:10:45
  know, in retrospect, underappreciated cast.
• 2:10:47
  It's a benchmark horror film sitting right at the top table
• 2:10:50
  and it's an easy 10 for me. Wonderful.
• 2:10:52
  And what about USC? I'll put it down to this.
• 2:10:55
  If anyone hasn't seen this film and you can show anyone 10
• 2:10:59
  minutes of this film, any point, they want to see this film.
• 2:11:02
  They want to know what it's about.
• 2:11:04
  And that to me is an absolute revelation because I don't know
• 2:11:08
  any of the film where you can just stick 10 minutes on at any
• 2:11:10
  point through the film and you'll say, do you want to see
• 2:11:13
  more of this? Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:11:15
  Because it is so original in its delivery.
• 2:11:18
  It's so original in its inception and so original in the
• 2:11:22
  way that they presented it. And you have got give it full
• 2:11:25
  marks because there's nothing like the Blair Witch Project.
• 2:11:28
  And you taught people and say Blair Witch Project.
• 2:11:30
  Yeah, that's great film. I'm going to watch it because I
• 2:11:33
  saw the poster. Like I saw the poster.
• 2:11:36
  It is literally the the movie version of like Iron Maiden.
• 2:11:40
  Like when I pick up an Iron Maiden album cover, I'm like,
• 2:11:42
  I'm fucking listening to that and it's visual and it's
• 2:11:45
  exciting and I'm getting into it and I don't give a fuck who
• 2:11:49
  likes it or who doesn't. So yeah, it's an absolute 10 all
• 2:11:53
  day. So 3 Big 10s and now our 4th and
• 2:11:57
  final score for The Blair Witch Project, which comes from our
• 2:12:00
  followers on X, formerly Twitter.
• 2:12:03
  Yeah. Here we go.
• 2:12:04
  I don't think we've ever had such a polarizing film.
• 2:12:06
  I. Know.
• 2:12:07
  Not surprised in the slightest, but here we go.
• 2:12:09
  Here. We go picked out some choice
• 2:12:11
  comments on the positive side of things.
• 2:12:13
  First of all, from Scott Cannon at Scotty did It.
• 2:12:16
  Who said 10? But I'm biased but I'm from
• 2:12:19
  pretty much the same part of Maryland.
• 2:12:21
  The movie came out right before my senior year of high school,
• 2:12:24
  so naturally we went camping in the woods near where it was
• 2:12:26
  supposed to take place. Definitely added to our
• 2:12:28
  excitement. Amazing Scotty.
• 2:12:31
  Yeah, I'd love that. Yeah.
• 2:12:32
  Jenny at Crystal Spurs said 10 pulled in by the groundbreak and
• 2:12:36
  marketing and the cinema experience didn't disappoint.
• 2:12:39
  The final shot of Mike still haunts me to this day.
• 2:12:42
  Yep. Michael Keys Weather at Jiggy
• 2:12:44
  Keys said play. Which project was the reason why
• 2:12:46
  I stopped watching scary movies? The film legitimately petrified
• 2:12:50
  me. I had to sleep with the lights
• 2:12:52
  on for days after seeing it out of fear of someone standing in
• 2:12:54
  the corner of my bedroom staring at the wall.
• 2:12:56
  My blood ran cold for a while watching it.
• 2:13:00
  Okay, it's good it makes that kind of an impact though.
• 2:13:02
  It's a proper horror form. Yes, but then he who comes
• 2:13:05
  Westie on the other side of the fence we've got from DRJ at D
• 2:13:09
  and Rhys Jones. Now you'll recognize that name.
• 2:13:12
  Dean has been a long, long, long time listener and is a patron of
• 2:13:16
  ours. So what up Dean?
• 2:13:18
  He says because it's only 10987 X only offers doors as options.
• 2:13:23
  He says I can't read the seven because that's too high.
• 2:13:26
  I thought it was hot garbage at the time.
• 2:13:28
  We'll probably rewatch after listen to the pod though and
• 2:13:31
  we'll see if my perception changes.
• 2:13:33
  It's going to change. It's going to change.
• 2:13:35
  Fair enough. Yeah.
• 2:13:37
  Let us know from Polly Valentine at P Valentine 592, she said.
• 2:13:41
  I think I'm in the minority. I don't think you are, Polly.
• 2:13:44
  I gave it a big fat 0. When I finished watching this,
• 2:13:48
  my first thought was I just lost some time I could have used to
• 2:13:51
  do something good. That's a shame.
• 2:13:53
  That is a shame and George Smith at George Smith, 67.
• 2:13:58
  George has followed us on X, formerly Twitter, for years.
• 2:14:01
  So, hello, George. Hello, George man.
• 2:14:04
  George says vastly overrated. Only the final moment registers
• 2:14:07
  with dread. Shame.
• 2:14:09
  Got a hypocritic, so yeah. So what do you think The Blair
• 2:14:12
  Witch Project got out of 10 on X?
• 2:14:14
  8.5. Yeah, it'll, it'll be low.
• 2:14:17
  I'll go 7.5. Oh Matt out of the park got 7.5
• 2:14:22
  out of 10. Wow, low score, low score.
• 2:14:26
  So overall that gives the blade which project the total score of
• 2:14:29
  37.5 out of 42 out of three in bad.
• 2:14:32
  Boom. Join us again in all the right
• 2:14:34
  movies. In two weeks, John, Westie and
• 2:14:36
  Matt will be going on board Apollo 13 to bring you the
• 2:14:39
  behind the scenes story of that classic.
• 2:14:41
  Definitely a long time common fellas, Exciting.
• 2:14:43
  A long time common. Yes, we're finally strapped in,
• 2:14:46
  ready for the big launch. Let's do it.
• 2:14:48
  Wonderful. And if that wasn't enough, every
• 2:14:51
  two weeks I'll turn it to this show.
• 2:14:53
  You've also got new episodes of Showreel, which gives you a
• 2:14:55
  snippet of our conversation from a podcast in our archive.
• 2:14:59
  If you like what you hear, signed up on Apple Podcasts,
• 2:15:01
  Spotify, or patreon.com, where you can also get new episodes of
• 2:15:06
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• 2:15:09
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• 2:15:12
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• 2:15:23
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• 2:15:25
  Yeah, we are firing on all cylinders and social media is no
• 2:15:29
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• 2:15:32
  right movies. We post all day, every day,
• 2:15:34
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• 2:15:40
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• 2:15:45
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• 2:16:22
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• 2:16:23
  And our website is all the right movies.com.
• 2:16:26
  It is. And that is a wrap everyone.
• 2:16:28
  We're going camping tonight. Hopefully we don't get any blue
• 2:16:31
  Jelly shit all over our shit. I'm.
• 2:16:35
  Going to get me nipples out. Come back in two weeks for
• 2:16:43
  Apollo 13 everyone. Thank you for listening.
• 2:16:45
  Yes, Thank you so much guys. Happy other week.
• 2:16:47
  Be careful in our words. Sleep well.