Blair Witch is a horror film franchise distributed by Artisan Entertainment (now Lionsgate) and produced by Haxan Films that consists of three feature films and various merchandise products. The development of the franchise's first installment, The Blair Witch Project, started in 1993. The filmmakers Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick wrote a 35-page outline of a story with the dialogue to be improvised. Filming began in 1997 and lasted eight days. The film follows the disappearance of three student filmmakers in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary on the local legend known as the "Blair Witch".
After premiering at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival, the film was released on 30 July 1999 after months of publicity during a controversial promotional campaign. The film went on to be a massive commercial success, and a sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, was released on October 27, 2000. A second official sequel, Blair Witch, was released on September 16, 2016. Series of video games, books, novels and comic books were released to accompany the films.
The backstory for the movie is a faux legend fabricated by Sánchez and Myrick which is detailed in The Curse of the Blair Witch, a mockumentary broadcast on the Sci-Fi Channel in 1999 prior to the release of The Blair Witch Project.Sanchez and Myrick also maintained a website at BlairWitch.com which added further details to the legend. It is now the official site of the 2016 installment.
The fictional tale describes the murders and disappearances of some of the residents of Blair, Maryland (the fictitious former name of Burkittsville, Maryland) from the 18th century to the 20th century. According to the legend, residents always blame these occurrences on the ghost of Elly Kedward (also a fictitious person), a Blair resident executed in 1785 by exposure for practicing witchcraft. The mockumentary presents the legend as real, complete with manufactured newspaper articles, newsreels, television news reports, and staged interviews, all in an attempt to deceive viewers.
The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Heather Donahue, Michael Williams and Joshua Leonard, student filmmakers, set out to shoot a documentary about the Blair Witch. In the Black Hills forest near Burkittsville, Maryland, many children have vanished in the 1940s and people still avoid going too deep into the woods. The party sets out to look for facts that prove the legend, equipped only with two cameras and a little hiking gear. First, they find little piles of stone that must have been arranged artificially, later, they find themselves lost in the woods. Eerie sounds at night and more piles of stones in places where they have not been before cause the already desperate group to panic. One night, days after they should have been back home, Josh disappears. While searching for Josh, Heather and Mike find a derelict house in a clearing and go inside, where they see runic symbols on the wall next to child-sized handprints. Josh's voice seems to be coming from somewhere inside the house, and Mike rushes upstairs. Mike then realizes that the voice is now coming from the basement, and rushes down the steps. Suddenly, Mike is rendered silent and the camera falls. A hysterical Heather follows and sees Mike in the corner of the room, faced against a wall. Suddenly Heather's camera is knocked down and she too is rendered silent. The film runs for a few seconds, then dies.
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 returns to Maryland's Black Hills region in the wake of The Blair Witch Project and the prodigious media coverage devoted to its conflation of documentary style and supernatural legend, fans and curiosity-seekers have descended upon the movie's real-life setting of Burkittsville, Maryland. Jeff Patterson (Jeffrey Donovan), a black-sheep "townie" only recently released from a mental institution, has turned his obsession with the Blair Witch into a business and has lured four young people to Burkittsville for a tour of the Witch's purported Black Hills' haunts. Jeff's clients are also fixated on the film, for reasons they themselves may not fully comprehend. Erica Geerson (Erica Leerhsen) is a practicing Wiccan who has immersed herself in Blair Witch mythology, even though she decries the film's portrayal of her fellow witches. Grad students Tristen Ryler (Tristine Skyler) and Stephen Ryan Parker (Stephen Barker Turner) are writing a book about the Blair Witch, but disagree completely about the story's basis in fact, with folklorist Tristen arguing that it must contain some grain of truth while Stephen insists it's a textbook case of mass hysteria. Completing the group is Kim Diamond (Kim Director), a hard-edged, sardonic Goth aficionado possessed of striking psychic abilities.
After spending a strange and disorienting night at one of the most sinister sites in Blair Witch lore, the five campers awake to a scene of destruction and no memory of having gone to sleep. They return to Jeff's abandoned warehouse loft to try to piece together what happened. But as Jeff leads Erica, Tristen, Stephen and Kim across the rickety drawbridge and unlocks the metal door to a chorus of barking dogs, they are entering a place no safer than the woods they just left. Inside, the legend seems to begin to bleed into reality as their mass hysteria ensues. Erica mysteriously disappears and Tristen ends up hanging herself from the second floor railing of the warehouse.
The end of the film reveals that Jeff, Stephen, and Kim have been arrested. Each is interrogated separately, with the police showing each person footage of their crimes. Security camera footage shows Kim stabbing a cashier in the neck. Surveillance camera footage shows a naked Jeff killing Erica, arranging her clothes, and putting her dead body in the closet. Jeff's video shows Stephen assaulting Tristen, pushing her over the second floor banister, and accusing her of being a witch. All three, close to a nervous breakdown, proclaim their innocence.
The tie-in mockumentary to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Shadow of the Blair Witch, establishes the events of the film being a film within a film; the in-universe mockumentary reveals that Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is "a film adaptation" based on the "Black Hills murders" that took place shortly after the release of The Blair Witch Project. Shadow of the Blair Witch follows "the real James Patterson"’s defense team as the case prepares for trial and as the public reacts to plans to fictionalize the case’s events for the big screen from the defense's point-of-view. Protests of the film Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are discussed within the documentary coming from both the families of those involved with the case and from the Wiccan community as a whole. Rachel Moskowitz and Andre Brooks respectively portray the "real" Kim Diamond and Jeffrey Patterson within the documentary.
Blair Witch (2016)
On September 2, 2009, Ed Sánchez and Daniel Myrick announced their intent to produce a third Blair Witch film. The film was a sequel to the first film, would potentially contain the actors from the first film in some context, and would not reference any of the events from Book of Shadows. In 2011, Sánchez remarked that further development on a sequel depended on getting Lionsgate to approve the idea and for his and Myrick's schedule to match up. The film went into development hell.
By January 2015, a third Blair Witch was still in talks. Sanchez stated that the film was "inevitable".
In July 2016, it was revealed at the 2016 San Diego Comic Con that the film marketed with the faux-title The Woods, actually turned out to be the sequel Blair Witch. The film was released on September 16, 2016.
In 2014, James Donahue finds a video on YouTube containing an image of a woman he believes to be his sister Heather, who disappeared in 1994 near Burkittsville, Maryland while investigating the legend of the Blair Witch. Believing she is still alive, he heads into the woods, accompanied by friends Peter Jones, Ashley Bennett, and film student Lisa Arlington, who wants to film James' search as a documentary, The Absence of Closure. Locals Talia and Lane, who found and uploaded the video, join them.
While walking through the woods and upon setting up camp for the night, Lane and Talia discuss the disappearance of Heather and her film crew, the 1940-41 murders by Rustin Parr, and other mysterious occurrences, which they ascribe to the Blair Witch. They hear noises during the night, then awaken at 2 p.m. to find strange stick figures hanging from the trees. When Lisa notices twine in Lane's backpack, he and Talia admit to creating the figures in order to convince the group to believe, but also point out that there is no explanation for the strange noises during the night and sleeping through the day. James and his friend banish Lane and Talia from their group and head out of the woods.
After hours of walking, the four surprisingly arrive back at their original campsite. Lisa pilots a drone to obtain their location, but it malfunctions. Ashley becomes sick due to a wound on her foot, forcing the group to camp again. When Peter inspects Ashley's wounded foot, he notices what he thinks may be a parasite inside the wound. Peter leaves the camp for firewood, soon being chased by an unknown entity; a tree falls on him, then he disappears.
Lane and Talia appear in the night, claiming they have been wandering for five days without a sunrise. Lane believes the camp is a hallucination and runs off, leaving the dishevelled and ravenously hungry Talia. The next morning, James and Lisa are stunned to find that it is still dark outside at 7am and discover larger stick figures. Talia sees clumps of her hair tied to one of the figures. Ashley accuses Talia of crafting them and snaps the figure with Talia's hair in half; Talia is then snapped in half. An unseen force lifts their tent and the group is separated. Ashley finds the drone and climbs a tree to recover it, but is knocked out and falls from the tree, the unknown entity dragging her away.
A rainstorm ensues as Lisa and James stumble across Rustin Parr's house, which James had previously stated to have been burned down after his execution. James hears Heather scream upstairs, enters the house and sees Peter standing in the corner. He chases after the figure he believes to be Heather, confronted by a teleporting dishevelled figure; upon its vanishing he barricades himself.
Lisa spots the unknown entity, a tall, pale, long-limbed creature moving through the trees, and she runs into the house's basement. She finds an aged and hostile Lane who traps her in an underground tunnel as “you have to do what she tells you”. The tunnel connects to a different part of the house, where Lisa stabs and kills Lane when he attacks her. Lisa flees when the long-limbed creature emerges from the tunnel and chases her through the house. Lisa runs up to the attic with Lane's camcorder, creating the paradox video that lured them all to the woods.
She reunites with James in the attic and they try to barricade the door. A bright light shines from outside the building, moving until stopping at the door, indicating the arrival of the witch. James tells Lisa to face the corner of the room and desperately apologizes to her for their fate before the witch enters, alongside her creature. James is tricked into turning around, believing that he hears Heather's voice, and vanishes from sight. Lisa uses Lane's camcorder to view what is behind her and begins walking backward. However, hearing James' apology again, she turns, and vanishes, leaving her camera behind before it gives out, leaving their fates unknown.
Four mockumentaries on the Blair Witch were produced to promote the films. The first being Curse of the Blair Witch which aired on the Syfy Channel in 1999, prior to the release of The Blair Witch Project, and the second being Sticks and Stones: An Exploration of the Blair Witch Legend which overlaps quite a bit with Curse of the Blair Witch. The latter two documentaries, The Massacre of The Burkittsville 7: The Blair Witch Legacy and Shadow of the Blair Witch, both directed by Ben Rock, aired in 2000.
Curse of the Blair Witch (1999)
Before the release of The Blair Witch Project in 1999, the Sci-Fi Channel aired a 45-minute mockumentary about the Blair Witch called Curse of the Blair Witch.
The program offers firsthand interviews with several fictional colleagues and relatives of Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard and Michael Williams, including their Montgomery College film professor.
One of the highlights of the video is the first mention of Elly Kedward, the woman who would go on to become the Blair Witch.
Curse of the Blair Witch was created to give credibility to the idea that the events of The Blair Witch Project actually occurred, which was how the film was marketed upon its initial release.
Sticks and Stones: An Exploration of the Blair Witch Legend (1999)
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, considered for inclusion in the theatrical release of The Blair Witch Project and released to VHS as part of a special promotion that ran when The Blair Witch Project was released on home video, Sticks and Stones runs 30 minutes and overlaps with the mockumentary Curse of the Blair Witch. The mockumentary primarily consists of alternate cuts of many of the previous films’ interviews, but there is some new material to be found, including a brief 1995 conversation with Joshua Leonard’s father about his son’s disappearance.
Sticks and Stones also includes an extended conversation between Heather Donahue and Michael Williams from a deleted scene, that was cut from the theatrical release of The Blair Witch Project.
The Massacre of The Burkittsville 7: The Blair Witch Legacy (2000)
When The Blair Witch Project premiered on Showtime, it was accompanied by a new 40-minute Blair Witch mockumentary named The Burkittsville 7, which delved into the murder case of Rustin Parr that was mentioned in The Blair Witch Project. Within the mockumentary it is theorised that Kyle Brody, the lone survivor of the murders, may have himself been involved in the murders. Within the mockumentary, it is mentioned that after Parr was hanged, Brody grew up to become a troubled adult who spent most of the latter part of his life in mental institutions before committing suicide in the year 1971.
Shadow of the Blair Witch (2000)
Directed by Ben Rock, and airing on the Sci-Fi Channel in conjunction with the release of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, the mockumentary Shadow of the Blair Witch takes an objective look at the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. Running 45 minutes, it examines the troubled life of "the real Jeff Patterson" and his obsession with The Blair Witch Project. Within the documentary, the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are presented as a film adaptation based on the "Black Hills murders" that took place shortly after the events of The Blair Witch Project. This documentary presents Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 as a film within a film.
Shadow of the Blair Witch follows "the real James Patterson"’s defense team as the case prepares for trial and as the public reacts to plans to fictionalize the case’s events for the big screen. Protests of the film Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are discussed coming from both the families of those involved with the case and from the Wiccan community as a whole.
