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… The town was cursed, the township of Blair was abandoned the town of Burkittsville was built on the site of Blair. “They accused a woman, Elly Kedward, of being a witch, they took her to the woods during a harsh winter, tied her to a tree and they thought she had frozen to death. “Basically, there was a township called Blair back in the 1700s,” Sánchez said. What exactly was the urban legend they invented?
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“So, we were like, ‘We’re gonna have to create this mythology just for the actress become an expert in the Blair Witch,’ which we were inventing.”
BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ENDING MOVIE
“The whole premise of the movie was that this person Heather was obsessed with the Blair Witch mythology,” Sánchez said. One of the more underrated crew members was co-director Daniel Myrick’s wife Julia, who embraced the role of “history fabricator.” It was she who spearheaded the myth-building of the Blair Witch urban legend, planting fake stories on the internet, handing out “missing person” fliers and listing the actors as “missing” or “deceased” in the end credits.
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The screening will feature a red carpet and Q&A with Sánchez alongside actor Mike Williams, sound designer Tony Cora and producer Michael Monello. Business & Finance Click to expand menu.We recommend checking it out indoors-even if you get good Wi-Fi in the haunted woods behind your house. Luckily the archived version is accessible via the Wayback Machine, and looks just like it did 23 years ago. The original is no longer active, which means you can’t log onto the message boards and dissect the movie’s mysteries like it’s 1999. It’s also a goldmine for brave souls craving extra Blair Witch material after seeing that eerie final shot. Even if you know the three “filmmakers” are actors, the website makes it easy to buy into the story of their disappearance (especially if you’re reading it late at night). The website even featured bonus material that wasn’t used in the film, like interviews with investigators and excerpts from Heather’s diary.Īs is the case with the actual movie, the site’s low-budget feel works in its favor. Browsers could get a taste of the movie by downloading video and audio clips that were purportedly recovered from the woods. The website included flyers showing the missing filmmakers, photos of their abandoned belongings, and a timeline of unusual events from Blair Township history. Sánchez was the only member of the production team with web-building expertise, so he volunteered to bring the mythology of the movie online. Club, was registered when the internet as we know it was still in its infancy.
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One of the most memorable aspects of the unconventional marketing campaign was the website co-director Eduardo Sánchez built himself.Īccording to The A.V. Williams, and Joshua Leonard (who shared names with their characters) were even listed as deceased on IMDb. To lend legitimacy to the film’s “ found footage” backstory, the filmmakers forbid the three stars from doing press. But when it hit theaters in 1999, an air of mystique still surrounded the production. Most viewers who watch The Blair Witch Project today know the horror movie was made with unknown actors on a shoestring budget.
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