I was a teenager when this came out, and the early internet did a good job of selling the "found footage, it's totally real" viral campaign. I snuck out of the house to watch it when my parents weren't home and I had to walk back home in the dark in my rural town. Huge mistake.
I remember taking my social worker cousin and her teacher boyfriend who are skeptics to watch this movie and when we got home, they wanted to search online for info and we got the very convincing Blair witch site that claimed it was real. lol
You’ve got to give Heather, Josh and Mike credit here. It was just the three of them the entire time. No crew, no director, the directors would leave them packages with film and notes on what to do. The rest they did themselves. I was lucky enough to watch an advance copy of this before it was released and they were going in hard with the ‘found footage’ angle. After watching it my friends and I genuinely weren’t sure if it was fake or not. This movie deserved it’s success and is still the best movie in it’s genre.
But this is the last true horror movie I think (Scream is next which I always feel doesn't count as true horror), it's not enough for this year! One horror movie a month would be so much more fun!
When Heather shouts “What the fuck is that?!” during the chase scene, it’s because there was a woman in a white dress standing on top of a hill looking at them. Whoever was holding the camera at the time was meant to pan over to get her, but was so scared in the moment that he missed it
Heather WAS the one holding the camera for that scene. And it wasn't a woman, it was the art director, Ricardo Moreno, who was wearing white long john, white stockings, and white pantyhose pulled over his head.
The fact that you never see the witch is the scariest thing. Her screaming "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??" when we never see what she's seeing just chills me to the core O_o
The "Witch" was meant to appear in this scene- as the director Eduardo Sanchez in a wig and longjohns. Unfortunately, the sight of Sanchez wasn't caught on film but the reaction was.
@@JohnGraves1985 Wrong, the scariest thing is that lower animal, one dimensional, shallow end of the pool half-wits don't understand that it's a subjective experience, just like any other work of art. (What's also hilarious is judging a horror movie on it's scariness". I've been scared probably three, four times my entire life from a movie, and all of 'em when I was a kid.)
The horror isn't the witch. It's these three kids absolutely falling the fuck apart from despair and isolation. Getting lost in the woods and not being able to find your way out again is a very *real* fear. It's easy to relate to because pretty much everyone has been lost at some point, and whether there was a witch or not, the film captures what it's like to be lost in the woods very well indeed.
and especially because the crew actually intentionally left the cast in the woods and secretly scared them by making noises, throwing sticks and rocks, etc, so what’s left with them is like, genuine fear.
@@hundredandten in an interview Heather actually said that at first the noises were annoying because she was trying to sleep, but as the nights went on and got more intense she was getting freaked out
right but 70% of the cell towers and satellites didnt exist so calling anyone further than 3 miles outside of a town/city is just about impossible @@mastixencounter
Well in Punjabi, Hindi and other languages of that family the word for a forest is "jangal/jungle". In Indian English jungle is definitely more commonly used than forest.
I can give a few little behind the scenes facts. For one: The actors were told almost nothing throughout filming, and had essentialy zero interaction with anyone that was part of production. They would be given their instructions for what to do, and how they should feel for the next scenes, via dead drops left by the crew. They would also be given food and water during these dead drops, but it was always just a bit too little, to leave the actors stressed out and hungry throughout much of production. The crew would also come around and move things during the night, like the moment when the actors awake and find the stones moved around where they were sleeping. They also had crew members in the woods creating scares too. If I remember correctly, the one part where the female actor hears something in the woods and then reacts to something offscreen saying something along the lines of, "What the hell is that?!?" was in response to a crewmember in a white raincoat, I think, that was stalking through the woods. Another thing is that I believe after this movie aired, there was an investigation or threat of jailtime if the actors didn't come forward to say they were ok. I believe the director had told the actors to remain in hiding for a short time, or something like that. I'm fuzzy on a lot of this, as I watched it a bit ago, but my information was through the RUclipsr Karl Smallwood's video on the movie. You should totally check it out!
I freakin LOVE this movie. What you don’t see is always scarier to me than over the top visuals. Let your imagination do the terrifying. Great performances in this film too. Feels so real
I have one of those children's handprints hanging on my living room wall. Years ago that house was torn down, but souvenir hunters got there first. I bought it from one of them. I look at it fondly every day (they were made by the kids of the producers)!
"What if this is the witch's thing, she makes you lost." Well Pat you are 100% right. Its more seen in the 2016 sequel but the Blair Witch has control over the Blackhills Forest and is able to manipulate every aspect of the woods.
You have no idea how many people went to see this film thinking it was a real documentary. This was the first real viral marketing campaign. The internet wasn't big back then but news stations picked up on all the rumours and spread them before the film was released and the marketing worked people thought the Blair Witch was a real thing. Also this made 250mil it's first year and is still making money.
I HIGHLY recommend watching Troll Hunter. It's another found footage movie like this but made in Norway and with its own twists. I thought it was gonna be really weird and dumb... which it still kind of is, but in a good way. And it's surprisingly really thrilling.
Chris and Marketa absolutely losing their s**t laughing at everyone else's reaction to the end of the movie is now one of my favorite Normies moments ever 😆 I really love Blair Witch Project, I distinctly remember watching it in theaters and being terrified for days, but its popularity is kinda a curse. Everyone knows it but they don't expect it to be such a small movie that teases absolutely everything but shows nothing. It's meant to be a fun indie movie but became the ambassador of a wave of found-footage movies.
“The Bay” is also a really good found footage movie that most people have never seen. Everyone who liked Blair Witch or Cloverfield would like it as well.
This came out before internet viral and ARG stuff are common. Most people thought it was real. Looking back, if I was older back then I would've questioned the moral of releasing such real footage in public but I was 10 so I fell for it. I remember my 10 year old heart was furiously racing during the finale and I've never experience such level ever since (despite many scary movies)
This movie was the most successful grossing movie based on its budget of 60,000. The Internet was new when it came out so they had made a website stating that everything was real and no one would stick around for the credits for the first three weeks of the movie to see that after the credits it actually said it was all made up and not real. It scared people and they walked out of the theater and dead silence.
The whole method to making this movie like the directing and how the actors were told what to do is so insane, it's definitely worth checking out. Like for example, the cast would receive notes in their bag every morning directing them what to do. I love this movie so much the deeper you dive the better it gets!
This was the first found footage movie to be made, apart from a film from the 60s. No one had ever seen anything like this. There was no social media and the movie was marketed as actual footage. I was 11 when it came out, and I remember everyone thinking it was real.
I agree i was in middle school went it came out and people were talking about even some the the teachers were seeing the movie and talking about with the student
The Blair Witch knew EXACTLY where they were.. it just enjoyed tormenting them for a while, before it concluded the event. As soon as they entered the forest, it was the beginning of the end.
Do you realized that is a movie that makes you anxious or being terrified, without showing anything and without a creepy soundtrack. BEST SCARY MOVIE EVER!!
When Heather unwraps the torn piece of Josh's shirt, she finds a tooth inside. Also, the story about the Russian hikers that Chris mentions at the end is the Dyatlov Pass incident.
she was told by producers to unwrap it after she threw it away since its a big turning point in the movie. that's the only time the producers had to intervene. Michael also never knew about the remains, neither Heather nor the producers ever told him during the filming. in fact, Heather and Michael didnt expect Josh to go missing in the first place. The producers told Josh to sneak out at night. Them searching for Josh was real, although they probably expected something like that.
I saw this movie in the theater with my ex when we were in our early 20's and back then, the internet was not what it is...there was no social media. This movie was marketed as a REAL documentary. The hype was intense! This movie scared the CRAP out of me! Omg...I can't tell you how long it was till we learned it wasn't a real doc.
I actually think they could've made it scarier if they kept the map but it didn't work like the compass and if they followed the river but still end up going around in circles. Like if the laws if nature or physics no longer worked.
Exactly, if they showed that the compass wasn’t working, because some kind of force or that they had a map but still, they kept going in circles that would have been even more scary. That part was just frustrating lol. -Navi
@@ThenormiesThat's something that I think didn't come across too well: I assume that the compass DID seem to be pointing them right, but they were STILL going in circles.
what made the movie so scary is that alot of the fear was real, the directors of the film didn't give open direction they directed them via pieces of paper inside of old black film canisters and than gave them half assed directions to where to go, than they scared them by making scary sounds. like the tend scene where they woke up to the little kid sounds and the hands on the tent, that was the crew scaring the shit out of them@@Thenormies
I figure they didn’t do that because imo one of the great things about the film is that you don’t know whether something supernatural is going on or if its just their paranoia and hysteria messing with them. And if they did do what you said, that would strongly suggest, pretty much all but confirm that something weird really is happening and ruin the ambiguity. That would be really scary though but wouldn’t fit the movie’s goal imo
This might sound odd, but I think this is one hell of a movie. I get multiple chills throughout. The odd part, I don't get into "scary" movies. Never have. In fact, I get more chills now, than originally. IMO, this was supremely done, and they deserve whatever money they made.
You don't need to show the monster or wathever is out there for a movie to be scary. You just need the actors to do an awesome job, the plot to be good or at least understandable, and the cinematography / sound need to do the job well.
its a misconception theyre looking for the witch, specifically they were only going to coffin rock to film that section of roll then head back to the car. everything after they filmed at coffin rock was them lost trying to leave.
To follow Blair Witch, here are some pretty solid found footage, mockumentary movies for your consideration for next Halloween: Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, Hell House LLC, Rec, Taking of Deborah Logan, The Host (from 2020...the one by director Rob Savage), Paranormal Activity 1 (parts 2 and 3 are decent too), Lake Mungo, and Incantation (from Taiwan). 😊
Oh, these are some solid recommendations. I will add this to the roster. We are filming some holiday movies followed by some Tarantino and Ghibli movies. Cris wants one scary movie each month, I will try my best to make that happen. - Navi
Lake Mungo fucked me up really badly, since until the end credits I was convinced it was a real documentary. Never had a film made me so upset while watching it. I was so relieved it was not real lmao. Hell House is also pretty great, even if it's quite campy at times.
20:19 that's the point of good horror movies. Fear isn't when you get jumpscares or when you get to see monsters, it's when your mind tries to figure out what's happening when feeling vulnerable. The less you get to see, the better. Good horror films are the ones that focus on its characters, not on the monsters.
I love this movie so much. I went through the Blairwitch website with a fine-tooth comb as a kid, trying to figure out if it was all real or not. I have all the books which are written by (according to the mythos) a relative to Heather who never gave up the search for her. As he was researching and looking for her, he came across a multitude of old stories and he turned them into books. The books cover many of the stories we hear about in this movie and most of them are a quick, fun and spooky read.
The thing that made this movie successful is that back then there was no “found footage” genre. The marketing was also genius, they market it as there were some kids that went missing. Even showed news clip of the story and that they just found this tape in the woods. So people went in believing that this people really disappeared and where looking at real footage before they went missing. Wasn’t weeks later after the success that the actors made interviews and revealed it was faked. Imagine going into theaters thinking what you are about to see was real footage of real missing people. Unfortunately this started the “found footage” genres that is so awful now a days.
I definitely recommend listening to the Unspooled podcast episode on this movie. So many awesome facts and details in there. I was shocked that the majority of the movie is improvised, and the actors had very little information as to what was going on in the woods.
This movie is the first found footage movie that I saw. To make it worse I actually watched it alone in the farm without knowing what's this about. I had to drive back to my town.
@35:03 Ahh, what Chris is talking about is the Dyatlov pass incident. It was a 1959 skiing expedition with some university students trying to get their advanced cross-country skiing certificate, or something like that. It happened pretty much as Chris said, but it was considered a mystery for so long, as in "what are the Russians hiding?!" kind of mystery, that conspiracy theories abounded. There's a pretty good movie (I liked it) based on the event called Devil's Pass (2013). If I recall correctly, the movie leans into the "Russians were hiding something" conspiracy. That movie might be worth a reaction. That said, whenever I see someone react to Blair Witch, I want them to follow up with a reaction to Troll Hunter (2010). I know subtitles are hard but it's one of the better found-footage, film-students-stuck-in-the-woods, films out there. I have yet to see a reaction to Troll Hunter.
We want to try to have more horror reactions on the lineup for the rest of the year and not just Halloween! Though we will have to pay for Rana and Pat's therapy lol.
I lived 15 minutes from Burkittsville ! It's such a quaint little town . When the movie came out there were thousands of tourists coming from all over to find the "Blair Witch" The cabin was a total hangout spot for parties
This movie still spooks the hell out of me, I'm in my 30s now; and I also saw the new blair witch movie and... that one showed too damn much honestly, and the lights coming from outside scene, looked too much like a goddamn UFO instead, that one was pure crap lmao
This film is the only one that actually still disturbs me. I’m 43 and I swear that very last scene!😭😭 and I live in Ireland surrounded by forests and I still will not go to a forest.
I like the theory that Mike and Josh lured Heather into the woods to kill her. There's just certain weird things they do. The things moving around their tents at night could just be them messing with her. Kicking the map into the river. Acting like nothing is wrong most of the time while Heather is freaking out. Walking in circles, but ignoring it most of the time and saying everything is fine. And then finally getting Heather into the basement of that house to finish it. It's hard to find a motive, though. Why would they do this? And why would they go through so much bs when they could've just killed her the first day in the woods?
To truly understand this movies impact you really have to have experienced it at the time it was released. It was not marketed as a normal movie, none of us knew it wasn't real. Or at least we didn't KNOW it was real. It was really guerilla marketed as actual found footage and the actors were not known at all. It also had no script. They had GPS coordinates they were given every day and they would hike there and each have their own messages left with instructions on what they were to do that day and to keep that information secret from the other actors. No one knew the map was going to be lost, it was all improv acting.
I'm in that same boat with you. Did not think I would be watching this movie again so early in the morning. I only watched it once. Why we got to be in maryland😢
The marketing for this movie is what tripped some people up. They thought it was real until the actors showed up for an event. There's a theory that this was a murder plot. The guys plotted to delete the girl for some reason or another. The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and End Of Watch are three of the best found footage movies I've seen. Fun Fact: at night while the cast was trying to get some rest, the crew would run around outside and f&£k up their sh*t and leave weird effigies around. Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers (1978)! Can't go wrong with that classic!
I remember when this movie came out. There was a ton of publicity on tv for it. Not just commercials but shows about it on the Sci-Fi channel , ect. At this time "found footage" movies were very new and not as well known. Blair Witch really kicked started the whole genre. At the time there were some people who believed it was "real" based on just seeing and hearing the publicity before the movie was released. I recall a story that a real private investigator believed that these guys were really missing and offered his services to help find them. That's how new "found footage" genre was at this time. Now it's cliche and played out but at the time it was fresh and interesting. A great deal of dialog was improvised. Especially the stuff in the woods.
This is the scariest movie ever because is not about normal terror, is about PHSYCOLOGICAL terror that is even worst because at some point, it mess up with your mind.
I saw this with a group of friends in 1999. I was 18. My friends were into it from beginning to end. The last 30 seconds FREAKED us all out! Then when credits came on they IMMEDIATELY trashed it because “we didn’t see anything”. Idiots! I LOVED THE ENDING. so clever. So effective!
The “WHAT!? WHAT?!!WHAT?!!” At the end had me rolling. I had to watch it a couple times I saw this in the theatres and mostly everyone was just in shock, except my dad I recall him saying “ well that was stupid” and my 16 year old self was shaking in fear thinking it was real. Lol
Willow Creek is another movie just like this from 2013. It's about bigfoot/sasquatch rather than a witch. Still terrifying and makes me never want to camp again.
No, they were fucked the moment they came across the stick figures in the trees. The director stated that it acted as sort of a portal, and the moment the group discovered those they weren’t coming back out. He confirmed it during an interview with watchmojo.
im so happy yall liked this film....i hung out with my friends in deep woods partying for years and after this film i still went into the woods buuuut my mind went into the spooky places from then on
I heard somewhere that the producers even paid the people of the town to lie to the cast in order to make it more believable that there’s a legend of the Blair witch in their town.
I remember when this came out in theatres, I saw it in the middle of the afternoon and 3/4 into the movie it was dead silent in the theatre and I coughed….. everybody f’n jumped out of there seats. 😂😂😂
There's a sound you hear at 15:29 that, to this day, I have no idea wtf it is but it scares the hell out of me every time I hear it. It didn't sound human at all and I've always been curious if there was ever any story behind what it was.
I think Chris was referring to the dyatlov pass incident at the end right? When I watch blair witch it always reminds me of the Khamar Daban incident instead. It is such a eerie story with much not known about it besides theories and such. People seeming ok then the next moment they drop dead from apparently nothing, yet it seems to be agonizing. I feel like the mystery in this movie is what draws people. The what ifs are something we all think of. I've always been a fan of horror movies and such, but I can tell you it definitely gets me at times lol. Always watching over my shoulder and shit, but it's quite fun!
The power of old timey tales and local legends is very real. Where I grew up in central Pa., just up the mountain from where I lived we had the White Lady of Wopsy, who supposedly inhabited the area . There was a road that paralleled the top of the mountain, and frequently I drove it, and was always on edge at night that I might see her in the road. I never did, but it was fun and suspenseful that I might. This film really walked that edge of "might this be found footage?", before people could instantly research it being fact or fiction.
Everyone thought this movie was real in 1999. That this footage was actually found footage of a lost group of people. That was the big selling point and this movie was a big deal leading up to its release. It had an urban legend kind of ground swell like 'Have you heard of the Blair Witch?'
How can no one ever see that the thing in the shirt is a bloody teeth? Like they are the most stereotypical looking teeth, yet I have not seen a single react channel who realized what it was. They named every possible body part except tooth lol
I think I heard the first time the three actors made a public appearance after filming the movie was at the 1999 MTV movie awards to present an award which was like half a year after this movie hit theaters.
This was the only movie ever to literally make me shiver of fear at the movies. No other film ever did that. And to make it worse I was on holidays with my family and a friend and we had to walk exactly through a little "forest" with very tall trees. It was a very safe place I walked during all my life (we had a house in that place so I grew up walking it) but that evening after this movie, it turned into the most hostile place I can remember.
oof the end still gives me chills cuz you just hear Heather completely losing her mind and that's it. my inner child is healed watching yall watch this 🤣 when i saw it for the first time, i was at a friend's house who lived in the woods. i promptly went home lmao
Hey guys, great reaction! I am from Maryland and I actually had an opportunity to visit the house that Heather and Mike find at the end. It has since been torn down, but it was pretty creepy seeing it in person.
My problem with this film was that I just dont get whats supposed to be scary. I run at night through woods like this by myself, I feel comfortable there. Its just not scary. I see what it does, but it relies on you finding the setting inherently disturbing, so if you dont, then it just does not work. still I was at uni when it came out, we went to see it, then had to walk through the woods from the bus stop back to our dorms, hilarious how apprehensive the rest of the group was :)
The scary stories in the beginning set tension, the rocks being outside the tent is creepy because someone had to have set them up while they were sleeping. The stress of getting lost is something anyone can relate to, creating empathy so the audience can feel more in tune with the stress and fear the characters are feeling. The friend disappearing and the thing with the tooth, all that is plenty scary and unnerving, same with the ending
I was a teenager when this came out, and the early internet did a good job of selling the "found footage, it's totally real" viral campaign. I snuck out of the house to watch it when my parents weren't home and I had to walk back home in the dark in my rural town. Huge mistake.
Loved the marketing. The actors had been listed as missing or deceased. I remember seeing the missing posters 😅
Yeah... This was when writing movies and how to market them were so creative...
Oh my god I would've ran the whole way 😭
I remember taking my social worker cousin and her teacher boyfriend who are skeptics to watch this movie and when we got home, they wanted to search online for info and we got the very convincing Blair witch site that claimed it was real. lol
I saw this in theaters as a teenager as well and I never believed that it was real or found it the least bit scary.
If you didnt understand why mike standing in the corner. The witches always let one kid in a corner standing while she killing the other kid.
just pieced this together and holy fuck.
You’ve got to give Heather, Josh and Mike credit here. It was just the three of them the entire time. No crew, no director, the directors would leave them packages with film and notes on what to do. The rest they did themselves.
I was lucky enough to watch an advance copy of this before it was released and they were going in hard with the ‘found footage’ angle. After watching it my friends and I genuinely weren’t sure if it was fake or not. This movie deserved it’s success and is still the best movie in it’s genre.
Ah, torture Pat and Rana season started early this year, yay!
Enjoy our misery lol - Rana
But this is the last true horror movie I think (Scream is next which I always feel doesn't count as true horror), it's not enough for this year! One horror movie a month would be so much more fun!
@@Thenormies Ooh! Misery! You should all watch Misery!
I would have put a stick figure with rocks in their bedrooms for when they went home. lol
You should watch the 2nd one of these that came out a couple years ago@@Thenormies
When Heather shouts “What the fuck is that?!” during the chase scene, it’s because there was a woman in a white dress standing on top of a hill looking at them. Whoever was holding the camera at the time was meant to pan over to get her, but was so scared in the moment that he missed it
My head-canon is that she saw Slender Man.
Heather WAS the one holding the camera for that scene. And it wasn't a woman, it was the art director, Ricardo Moreno, who was wearing white long john, white stockings, and white pantyhose pulled over his head.
@@robertcampbell8070i bet he looked like slender man
i feel like there are a million comments saying what was really happening during the making of the film like this lol
@@robertcampbell8070that sounds funny now but in the moment that had to be scary as all hell
The fact that you never see the witch is the scariest thing. Her screaming "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??" when we never see what she's seeing just chills me to the core O_o
The scariest thing is that people think this movie is actually scary.
The "Witch" was meant to appear in this scene- as the director Eduardo Sanchez in a wig and longjohns. Unfortunately, the sight of Sanchez wasn't caught on film but the reaction was.
@@JohnGraves1985if that scares you you're not a very brave person
@@JohnGraves1985 Wrong, the scariest thing is that lower animal, one dimensional, shallow end of the pool half-wits don't understand that it's a subjective experience, just like any other work of art. (What's also hilarious is judging a horror movie on it's scariness". I've been scared probably three, four times my entire life from a movie, and all of 'em when I was a kid.)
@@TTM9691No need to lose your composure. 😂
The horror isn't the witch. It's these three kids absolutely falling the fuck apart from despair and isolation. Getting lost in the woods and not being able to find your way out again is a very *real* fear. It's easy to relate to because pretty much everyone has been lost at some point, and whether there was a witch or not, the film captures what it's like to be lost in the woods very well indeed.
and especially because the crew actually intentionally left the cast in the woods and secretly scared them by making noises, throwing sticks and rocks, etc, so what’s left with them is like, genuine fear.
@@hundredandten in an interview Heather actually said that at first the noises were annoying because she was trying to sleep, but as the nights went on and got more intense she was getting freaked out
Hearing Navi call a forest a jungle is so adorable 😂😂😂
That and hearing Pat be all 'pull out a cell phone'. Sir, this was the 90s, I'm not sure you understand what you just told them to do.
cell phones existed in the 90's@@CrystalisQ
@@mastixencounter They were rather trash tho and 2G cellphone service would not have been available in the woods.
right but 70% of the cell towers and satellites didnt exist so calling anyone further than 3 miles outside of a town/city is just about impossible @@mastixencounter
Well in Punjabi, Hindi and other languages of that family the word for a forest is "jangal/jungle". In Indian English jungle is definitely more commonly used than forest.
For its time, this film was groundbreaking. It was an event watching "The Blair Witch Project" in theaters.
Yes it was the first found footage movie that made 100 millón at the box office
17:25 is facts. The amount of people that disappeared because they decided to immerse themselves in the US National Park's is pretty large.
I can give a few little behind the scenes facts.
For one: The actors were told almost nothing throughout filming, and had essentialy zero interaction with anyone that was part of production. They would be given their instructions for what to do, and how they should feel for the next scenes, via dead drops left by the crew. They would also be given food and water during these dead drops, but it was always just a bit too little, to leave the actors stressed out and hungry throughout much of production. The crew would also come around and move things during the night, like the moment when the actors awake and find the stones moved around where they were sleeping. They also had crew members in the woods creating scares too. If I remember correctly, the one part where the female actor hears something in the woods and then reacts to something offscreen saying something along the lines of, "What the hell is that?!?" was in response to a crewmember in a white raincoat, I think, that was stalking through the woods. Another thing is that I believe after this movie aired, there was an investigation or threat of jailtime if the actors didn't come forward to say they were ok. I believe the director had told the actors to remain in hiding for a short time, or something like that. I'm fuzzy on a lot of this, as I watched it a bit ago, but my information was through the RUclipsr Karl Smallwood's video on the movie. You should totally check it out!
This is my favorite horror film, probably. What you don't see is way more frightening than what you can see
There is nothing "horror" about this dumb movie.
And the horror it's here with us?
@@JohnGraves1985 well that's something that's completely subjective, isn't it?
This movie is a litmus test for who has an imagination and who doesn't.
@@zammmerjammerexactly 💯 👏
I freakin LOVE this movie. What you don’t see is always scarier to me than over the top visuals. Let your imagination do the terrifying. Great performances in this film too. Feels so real
I have one of those children's handprints hanging on my living room wall. Years ago that house was torn down, but souvenir hunters got there first. I bought it from one of them. I look at it fondly every day (they were made by the kids of the producers)!
"What if this is the witch's thing, she makes you lost." Well Pat you are 100% right. Its more seen in the 2016 sequel but the Blair Witch has control over the Blackhills Forest and is able to manipulate every aspect of the woods.
You have no idea how many people went to see this film thinking it was a real documentary. This was the first real viral marketing campaign. The internet wasn't big back then but news stations picked up on all the rumours and spread them before the film was released and the marketing worked people thought the Blair Witch was a real thing.
Also this made 250mil it's first year and is still making money.
I love how stressed they are from the beginning of the video. 😂😂😂
I HIGHLY recommend watching Troll Hunter. It's another found footage movie like this but made in Norway and with its own twists. I thought it was gonna be really weird and dumb... which it still kind of is, but in a good way. And it's surprisingly really thrilling.
troll hunter is wicked and a better movie
Yesss!!!! Such an under the radar movie but soooo good
that is true hidden gem
Chris and Marketa absolutely losing their s**t laughing at everyone else's reaction to the end of the movie is now one of my favorite Normies moments ever 😆
I really love Blair Witch Project, I distinctly remember watching it in theaters and being terrified for days, but its popularity is kinda a curse. Everyone knows it but they don't expect it to be such a small movie that teases absolutely everything but shows nothing. It's meant to be a fun indie movie but became the ambassador of a wave of found-footage movies.
“The Bay” is also a really good found footage movie that most people have never seen. Everyone who liked Blair Witch or Cloverfield would like it as well.
This came out before internet viral and ARG stuff are common. Most people thought it was real. Looking back, if I was older back then I would've questioned the moral of releasing such real footage in public but I was 10 so I fell for it. I remember my 10 year old heart was furiously racing during the finale and I've never experience such level ever since (despite many scary movies)
This movie was the most successful grossing movie based on its budget of 60,000. The Internet was new when it came out so they had made a website stating that everything was real and no one would stick around for the credits for the first three weeks of the movie to see that after the credits it actually said it was all made up and not real. It scared people and they walked out of the theater and dead silence.
The whole method to making this movie like the directing and how the actors were told what to do is so insane, it's definitely worth checking out. Like for example, the cast would receive notes in their bag every morning directing them what to do. I love this movie so much the deeper you dive the better it gets!
As a Marylander I have to watch this every Halloween, it's written in the laws.
This was the first found footage movie to be made, apart from a film from the 60s. No one had ever seen anything like this. There was no social media and the movie was marketed as actual footage. I was 11 when it came out, and I remember everyone thinking it was real.
I agree i was in middle school went it came out and people were talking about even some the the teachers were seeing the movie and talking about with the student
The Blair Witch knew EXACTLY where they were.. it just enjoyed tormenting them for a while, before it concluded the event.
As soon as they entered the forest, it was the beginning of the end.
When they knocked over the stones it definitely was
@JonCom3dy when they crossed that log I think they were done. But mostly given their blase attitude towards it all sealed their fate.
Do you realized that is a movie that makes you anxious or being terrified, without showing anything and without a creepy soundtrack. BEST SCARY MOVIE EVER!!
"How did it cost this much!?"
Marketing is expensive.
When Heather unwraps the torn piece of Josh's shirt, she finds a tooth inside. Also, the story about the Russian hikers that Chris mentions at the end is the Dyatlov Pass incident.
she was told by producers to unwrap it after she threw it away since its a big turning point in the movie. that's the only time the producers had to intervene. Michael also never knew about the remains, neither Heather nor the producers ever told him during the filming.
in fact, Heather and Michael didnt expect Josh to go missing in the first place. The producers told Josh to sneak out at night. Them searching for Josh was real, although they probably expected something like that.
This is the most reactive reaction video I've seen on any channel ever.
This movie deserved all the money.
I saw this movie in the theater with my ex when we were in our early 20's and back then, the internet was not what it is...there was no social media. This movie was marketed as a REAL documentary. The hype was intense! This movie scared the CRAP out of me! Omg...I can't tell you how long it was till we learned it wasn't a real doc.
"Bats are known to slime"
"really?"
"no"
had me rolling
I'm the type of person who never goes "really?" to a statement so i would've taken that to my grave unless told otherwise
I actually think they could've made it scarier if they kept the map but it didn't work like the compass and if they followed the river but still end up going around in circles. Like if the laws if nature or physics no longer worked.
Exactly, if they showed that the compass wasn’t working, because some kind of force or that they had a map but still, they kept going in circles that would have been even more scary. That part was just frustrating lol. -Navi
@@ThenormiesThat's something that I think didn't come across too well: I assume that the compass DID seem to be pointing them right, but they were STILL going in circles.
what made the movie so scary is that alot of the fear was real, the directors of the film didn't give open direction they directed them via pieces of paper inside of old black film canisters and than gave them half assed directions to where to go, than they scared them by making scary sounds.
like the tend scene where they woke up to the little kid sounds and the hands on the tent, that was the crew scaring the shit out of them@@Thenormies
I figure they didn’t do that because imo one of the great things about the film is that you don’t know whether something supernatural is going on or if its just their paranoia and hysteria messing with them. And if they did do what you said, that would strongly suggest, pretty much all but confirm that something weird really is happening and ruin the ambiguity. That would be really scary though but wouldn’t fit the movie’s goal imo
@@fyoutube2294 they did something like this in the blair witch 2016 movie, which was decent.
I saw this at 15 and it was so scary to me. The whole theatre was freaking out
So the whole theater are pussies.
This might sound odd, but I think this is one hell of a movie. I get multiple chills throughout. The odd part, I don't get into "scary" movies. Never have. In fact, I get more chills now, than originally. IMO, this was supremely done, and they deserve whatever money they made.
Im a sucker for suspense and being left to my own imagination. Why I always liked this
I was laughing so hard at how stressed y'all were. I couldn't sleep a week in the dark after watching this haha
You don't need to show the monster or wathever is out there for a movie to be scary. You just need the actors to do an awesome job, the plot to be good or at least understandable, and the cinematography / sound need to do the job well.
its a misconception theyre looking for the witch, specifically they were only going to coffin rock to film that section of roll then head back to the car. everything after they filmed at coffin rock was them lost trying to leave.
I love this movie. It builds suspense so well. A great example of fear of the unknown.
To follow Blair Witch, here are some pretty solid found footage, mockumentary movies for your consideration for next Halloween: Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, Hell House LLC, Rec, Taking of Deborah Logan, The Host (from 2020...the one by director Rob Savage), Paranormal Activity 1 (parts 2 and 3 are decent too), Lake Mungo, and Incantation (from Taiwan). 😊
Willow Creek (2013)
@@summerrunner1755 that and the first season of the tv show was good too!
Oh, these are some solid recommendations. I will add this to the roster. We are filming some holiday movies followed by some Tarantino and Ghibli movies. Cris wants one scary movie each month, I will try my best to make that happen. - Navi
@@Thenormies Awesome, thanks Navi! If you're part of the react crew for any of those movies, hope you enjoy them as well!
Lake Mungo fucked me up really badly, since until the end credits I was convinced it was a real documentary. Never had a film made me so upset while watching it. I was so relieved it was not real lmao.
Hell House is also pretty great, even if it's quite campy at times.
20:19 that's the point of good horror movies. Fear isn't when you get jumpscares or when you get to see monsters, it's when your mind tries to figure out what's happening when feeling vulnerable. The less you get to see, the better.
Good horror films are the ones that focus on its characters, not on the monsters.
I love this movie so much. I went through the Blairwitch website with a fine-tooth comb as a kid, trying to figure out if it was all real or not. I have all the books which are written by (according to the mythos) a relative to Heather who never gave up the search for her. As he was researching and looking for her, he came across a multitude of old stories and he turned them into books. The books cover many of the stories we hear about in this movie and most of them are a quick, fun and spooky read.
Anyone remembers when Scooby Doo parodied this on a Cartoon Network Special back in the 90s. Good days right there.
lmao I love Pat saying IS THIS REAL OR NOT?!
I'm definitely loving the horror movie reactions y'all been doing lately. Hope there's more to come! 👍
The thing that made this movie successful is that back then there was no “found footage” genre. The marketing was also genius, they market it as there were some kids that went missing. Even showed news clip of the story and that they just found this tape in the woods. So people went in believing that this people really disappeared and where looking at real footage before they went missing. Wasn’t weeks later after the success that the actors made interviews and revealed it was faked. Imagine going into theaters thinking what you are about to see was real footage of real missing people. Unfortunately this started the “found footage” genres that is so awful now a days.
For what I've heard, the marketing for this film was brutal : Missing posters for the actors at screenings
I definitely recommend listening to the Unspooled podcast episode on this movie. So many awesome facts and details in there. I was shocked that the majority of the movie is improvised, and the actors had very little information as to what was going on in the woods.
This movie is the first found footage movie that I saw. To make it worse I actually watched it alone in the farm without knowing what's this about. I had to drive back to my town.
@35:03 Ahh, what Chris is talking about is the Dyatlov pass incident. It was a 1959 skiing expedition with some university students trying to get their advanced cross-country skiing certificate, or something like that. It happened pretty much as Chris said, but it was considered a mystery for so long, as in "what are the Russians hiding?!" kind of mystery, that conspiracy theories abounded. There's a pretty good movie (I liked it) based on the event called Devil's Pass (2013). If I recall correctly, the movie leans into the "Russians were hiding something" conspiracy. That movie might be worth a reaction. That said, whenever I see someone react to Blair Witch, I want them to follow up with a reaction to Troll Hunter (2010). I know subtitles are hard but it's one of the better found-footage, film-students-stuck-in-the-woods, films out there. I have yet to see a reaction to Troll Hunter.
Navi said "film sercretly". Cameras could never be secret back then lol.
Loved this reaction, gang, finished both edit and uncut one right after the other. Your scary movie reactions are always the best. ❤
We want to try to have more horror reactions on the lineup for the rest of the year and not just Halloween! Though we will have to pay for Rana and Pat's therapy lol.
@@Thenormies If you do one horror movie a month, I'll try to contribute more $ to help pay for their therapy! 😂
I lived 15 minutes from Burkittsville ! It's such a quaint little town . When the movie came out there were thousands of tourists coming from all over to find the "Blair Witch" The cabin was a total hangout spot for parties
This movie still spooks the hell out of me, I'm in my 30s now; and I also saw the new blair witch movie and... that one showed too damn much honestly, and the lights coming from outside scene, looked too much like a goddamn UFO instead, that one was pure crap lmao
Check out the movies Host(2020), As Above So Below(2014), and Rec(2007).
1:24 - it wasn't 20 million. It was 200 million. It is one the most profitable films ever made.
This film is the only one that actually still disturbs me. I’m 43 and I swear that very last scene!😭😭 and I live in Ireland surrounded by forests and I still will not go to a forest.
Bro has that plush pillow in the headlock the entire movie 🤣
I like the theory that Mike and Josh lured Heather into the woods to kill her. There's just certain weird things they do. The things moving around their tents at night could just be them messing with her. Kicking the map into the river. Acting like nothing is wrong most of the time while Heather is freaking out. Walking in circles, but ignoring it most of the time and saying everything is fine. And then finally getting Heather into the basement of that house to finish it. It's hard to find a motive, though. Why would they do this? And why would they go through so much bs when they could've just killed her the first day in the woods?
To truly understand this movies impact you really have to have experienced it at the time it was released. It was not marketed as a normal movie, none of us knew it wasn't real. Or at least we didn't KNOW it was real. It was really guerilla marketed as actual found footage and the actors were not known at all.
It also had no script. They had GPS coordinates they were given every day and they would hike there and each have their own messages left with instructions on what they were to do that day and to keep that information secret from the other actors. No one knew the map was going to be lost, it was all improv acting.
watching this on a rainy cool saturday in Maryland lmaoooo
I'm in that same boat with you. Did not think I would be watching this movie again so early in the morning. I only watched it once. Why we got to be in maryland😢
Same but NYC 😂
Wait people actually live in Maryland??
As many have said, I was a kid when this came out and I that there was a possibility this was actually real and that’s what made it truly terrifying.
The marketing for this movie is what tripped some people up. They thought it was real until the actors showed up for an event.
There's a theory that this was a murder plot. The guys plotted to delete the girl for some reason or another.
The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield and End Of Watch are three of the best found footage movies I've seen.
Fun Fact: at night while the cast was trying to get some rest, the crew would run around outside and f&£k up their sh*t and leave weird effigies around.
Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers (1978)! Can't go wrong with that classic!
I remember when this movie came out. There was a ton of publicity on tv for it. Not just commercials but shows about it on the Sci-Fi channel , ect. At this time "found footage" movies were very new and not as well known. Blair Witch really kicked started the whole genre. At the time there were some people who believed it was "real" based on just seeing and hearing the publicity before the movie was released. I recall a story that a real private investigator believed that these guys were really missing and offered his services to help find them. That's how new "found footage" genre was at this time. Now it's cliche and played out but at the time it was fresh and interesting. A great deal of dialog was improvised. Especially the stuff in the woods.
This was before social media so couldent leaked stuff on line and it work people thought it was real
Even the soundtrack album for this film was presented as, like, a mixtape found in Heather's car or something 😂
This is the scariest movie ever because is not about normal terror, is about PHSYCOLOGICAL terror that is even worst because at some point, it mess up with your mind.
'We're not; we're gonna find the car and the POLICE can find Josh.' 😂 Classic.
I saw this with a group of friends in 1999. I was 18.
My friends were into it from beginning to end. The last 30 seconds FREAKED us all out!
Then when credits came on they IMMEDIATELY trashed it because “we didn’t see anything”.
Idiots!
I LOVED THE ENDING. so clever. So effective!
The “WHAT!? WHAT?!!WHAT?!!”
At the end had me rolling. I had to watch it a couple times
I saw this in the theatres and mostly everyone was just in shock, except my dad I recall him saying “ well that was stupid” and my 16 year old self was shaking in fear thinking it was real. Lol
There's a legit scooby doo parody of this and it's fucking hilarious.
Rana is absolutely right about those stone piles being their grave markers.
Willow Creek is another movie just like this from 2013. It's about bigfoot/sasquatch rather than a witch. Still terrifying and makes me never want to camp again.
I genuinely teared up watching this😢
No, they were fucked the moment they came across the stick figures in the trees. The director stated that it acted as sort of a portal, and the moment the group discovered those they weren’t coming back out. He confirmed it during an interview with watchmojo.
im so happy yall liked this film....i hung out with my friends in deep woods partying for years and after this film i still went into the woods buuuut my mind went into the spooky places from then on
- It cost $35,000-60,000, the film had a final cost of $200,000-750,000 after post-production edits.
- It made at the Box office $248.6 million.
I heard somewhere that the producers even paid the people of the town to lie to the cast in order to make it more believable that there’s a legend of the Blair witch in their town.
I remember when this came out in theatres, I saw it in the middle of the afternoon and 3/4 into the movie it was dead silent in the theatre and I coughed….. everybody f’n jumped out of there seats. 😂😂😂
There's a sound you hear at 15:29 that, to this day, I have no idea wtf it is but it scares the hell out of me every time I hear it. It didn't sound human at all and I've always been curious if there was ever any story behind what it was.
I think Chris was referring to the dyatlov pass incident at the end right? When I watch blair witch it always reminds me of the Khamar Daban incident instead. It is such a eerie story with much not known about it besides theories and such. People seeming ok then the next moment they drop dead from apparently nothing, yet it seems to be agonizing. I feel like the mystery in this movie is what draws people. The what ifs are something we all think of. I've always been a fan of horror movies and such, but I can tell you it definitely gets me at times lol. Always watching over my shoulder and shit, but it's quite fun!
Pat, 24 years after the movie came out "Is this real or not?!?"
The power of old timey tales and local legends is very real. Where I grew up in central Pa., just up the mountain from where I lived we had the White Lady of Wopsy, who supposedly inhabited the area . There was a road that paralleled the top of the mountain, and frequently I drove it, and was always on edge at night that I might see her in the road. I never did, but it was fun and suspenseful that I might. This film really walked that edge of "might this be found footage?", before people could instantly research it being fact or fiction.
Honestly, the most horrifying thing in this entire video is Pat praising the film "Jack and Jill."
You guys should react to REC (2007) next. One of the scariest-found footage films to date.
I remember leaving the movie theater crying, I felt really sick because of the camera shaking
Totally agree with you guys, it helps the movie that you never see anything. It really doesn't matter at the end of the day
Everyone thought this movie was real in 1999. That this footage was actually found footage of a lost group of people. That was the big selling point and this movie was a big deal leading up to its release. It had an urban legend kind of ground swell like 'Have you heard of the Blair Witch?'
How can no one ever see that the thing in the shirt is a bloody teeth? Like they are the most stereotypical looking teeth, yet I have not seen a single react channel who realized what it was. They named every possible body part except tooth lol
People have gotten dumber that’s why.
Jack and Jill in the witch's house :DDD Sounds like a real horror movie.
I think I heard the first time the three actors made a public appearance after filming the movie was at the 1999 MTV movie awards to present an award which was like half a year after this movie hit theaters.
The movie came out in sept of 1999 it was at the 2000 MTV awards they won for the scary movie of the year
Scariest part was at 23:45 when pat called jack and jill a good movie😂
This was the only movie ever to literally make me shiver of fear at the movies. No other film ever did that. And to make it worse I was on holidays with my family and a friend and we had to walk exactly through a little "forest" with very tall trees. It was a very safe place I walked during all my life (we had a house in that place so I grew up walking it) but that evening after this movie, it turned into the most hostile place I can remember.
oof the end still gives me chills cuz you just hear Heather completely losing her mind and that's it. my inner child is healed watching yall watch this 🤣 when i saw it for the first time, i was at a friend's house who lived in the woods. i promptly went home lmao
You guys should do As Above So Below 💚
Hey guys, great reaction! I am from Maryland and I actually had an opportunity to visit the house that Heather and Mike find at the end. It has since been torn down, but it was pretty creepy seeing it in person.
My problem with this film was that I just dont get whats supposed to be scary. I run at night through woods like this by myself, I feel comfortable there. Its just not scary. I see what it does, but it relies on you finding the setting inherently disturbing, so if you dont, then it just does not work. still I was at uni when it came out, we went to see it, then had to walk through the woods from the bus stop back to our dorms, hilarious how apprehensive the rest of the group was :)
The scary stories in the beginning set tension, the rocks being outside the tent is creepy because someone had to have set them up while they were sleeping. The stress of getting lost is something anyone can relate to, creating empathy so the audience can feel more in tune with the stress and fear the characters are feeling. The friend disappearing and the thing with the tooth, all that is plenty scary and unnerving, same with the ending
Not only is it not scary at all, it's pretty fucking boring.
dude, most teenagers these days never go into the woods in daytime, much less at night. They would be terrified, you know better.
Much respect from southwest Baltimore Maryland.🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼🤘🏼
RANA WAS LIKE WHAT??!!