The fact they "don't show anything" is, in my opinion, what makes this solid.

The crazy thing about the Blair Witch Project is it literally is halfway between documentary and a fictional movie. The directors and crew planted actors in the town that the main actors believed were real town residents. The crew also would make noises in the woods and scare the actors at night, and they fed the actors less and less each day to make their moods worse. They also only had a very loose scripting of the film (basically very brief written instructions each day) so everything was basically improvised. So while the story of the Blair Witch was entirely fabricated, a lot of the emotions and frustration and fear on screen was actually pretty authentic. It's part of why it works so well as a found footage film, versus some of the more scripted bigger budget ones of recent years. The movie scared the hell out of me when I saw it as a young teenager. I lived in a pretty forested area of Washington State, and hated driving through the trees at night for a long time after seeing the movie.

that scene where they're running and the chick stops her train of thought to scream "WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!!!???" is the realest kind of hysterical screaming i think i've heard in a movie. there's so many solid moments where she's got these genuine reactions that feel too goddamn real hahhh

This was much more effective in a darkened movie theater, it was a hot topic for a short while. It inspired tons of copycats.

I was the ONLY PERSON in a big theater watching this in 1999! Very creepy experience.

That last scene with Mike standing in the corner gave me nightmares when I was younger. Such a well executed horror from the marketing to sell the style of film to the performances. Everyone thought it was real.

The way they marketed this movie is amazing

The moment when Mike screams, "Tell us where you are Josh!" will forever be stained into my mind, his cry of fear is what makes that moment so haunting.

This movie is so impressive, honestly. I love how it was filmed with minimal direction notes from the filmmakers for the actors who were literally out in the woods for days recording. They would get general instructions of the scenes they should film that day, what their motivations were, and how their characters were feeling, etc., but that was it. The actors had a lot of freedom with how to accomplish what the filmmakers were hoping to get from them. There are some cool articles and behind the scenes information that have been published since the movie's release that talk about how they did it. I saw it in the theater in 1999 and left that night afraid to go home alone. There's not much to this movie, but it is extremely effective. This wasn't THE very first found-footage movie ever made, but it certainly can be given credit for being the one that popularized the subgenre and paved the way for a whole slew of similarly styled films.

I had a sidejob as a 'ghost' for a spooky trail people could walk in the forest. After I watched Bair Witch I was more scared than the people I had to scare. A nearby rabbit almost gave me a heart attack. I have anxiety deja-vu just watching your reaction haha.

The film perfectly plays with people's psyche and fears. I watched the film in the dark for the first time and have never felt so uncomfortable on the way from the living room to the bedroom

By far the scariest movie ever made. I lived in the woods when this came out. Being fcked in the middle of nowhere by something is truly terrifying.

The last scene with Mark standing in the corner is what stuck with me the most since of first watched this movie back then, because of what that guy at the begging about taking the kids down the basement by twos, make one face into the corner, then killing the other one. A creepy, but great callback to the story.

Me while watching this movie for the first time: "FOLLOW THE GODDAMN RIVER YOU KEEP CIRCLING BACK TO, YOU MORONS!"

Blair Witch Project is the most intense cinema experience I’ve had. Packed theatre, and no one made a sound the whole time. Over 20 years ago and I remember it vividly.

My girlfriend at the time and I went to see this in theaters at release and it absolutely freaked us out. For whatever reason it really resonated with us. She lived about 30 minutes from me but the route from her house to mine went by a lake on a somewhat isolated road. I dont normallky get too spooked after watching a scary film but those miles were some of longest of my life. We havent spoken in years but I guarantee if I asked her about us watching this film she'd remember how scared we were.

Hahahaha.. it was marketed as a found-footage, and people actually believed it. I did! HAHAHA. And it was thrilling that time. I remember I watched this with my classmates on a packed theater, and we were allowed to watch the entire film just sitting on the stairs because there were just so many people who wanted to see it. I only learned it wasn't real months after when I finally started using the internet. I searched the names of Heather and the two blokes and found they were very much alive hahahahah!

As a Marylander, they definitely got Marylanders in the opening interviews. The accents were accurate. Particularly the believer at the river.

Promos for this movie ran constantly on the Sci-Fi channel. There were people who generally thought this was "real". A private investigator contacted the powers that be and volunteered his services because he believed that this was a real "missing persons" case. I was fortunate to have seen this movie in a dark theater and grateful for the experience. Iconic.

The trick to surviving in the woods, when you have a book, you actually need to read the book to know how to survive.

I've never been afraid of the "witch" or any fantastical creatures, but I HAVE been lost in the woods before and that sh*t was terrifying. It was only for a few hours, but I was just a kid (maybe 12 at the oldest) and knowing you're walking in circles and don't know how to get out... no thanks to that.

Inside the bundle of sticks was human teeth, hair, and blood

This is still one of the scariest films I've ever seen even though it doesn't show anything. I used to love going camping but never again after this movie.

I’m obsessed with these reactions. There’s a Blair Witch fan theory that I love, and it claims the boys planned to kill Heather the whole time... throwing the map away, seeming carefree while she was terrified, announcing where they were running in the house at the end…There are some pretty convincing videos about it on KZfaq. 😅

The story isnt real but they did create webpages and other stuff so the legend looked real when you searched the internet for info. There used to be a bunch of fake evidence to make it harder to not believe the movie was real found footage.

When I saw this in the theater in 1999, the bulb in the projector went out about midway through, but no one in the audience could tell. There had already been so much 'blackout' footage we had no way of knowing there was a problem. The theater gave all of us free passes, but they could just as easily shrugged and told us that was the film.

There was an hour long documentary that aired on PBS shortly before the movie hit theaters that went into detail explaining the history and lore of the Blair Witch, explaining everything in detail. Watching that documentary before the actual movie made it so much more terrifying because you roughly understood everything that was happening to them.

Yes, this movie gets so much credit (rightly so) as the first "found footage" movie. There have been a number of others since then. What's gotten lost (for those too young to remember) is that this movie was a 'viral hit' before the term existed. There was no KZfaq yet, no Instagram, no Twitter. But word of mouth spread on the nascent internet, with many saying "you gotta see this documentary...is it for real?" There was an official website {made by the studio or the filmmakers} offering more info about the legend of the Blair Witch. If you saw an ad for the movie in the papers, it directed you to go to their website to learn more. No hint was ever provided that "this is just a movie." With no such thing as social media sharing, this movie made its reputation on the internet, and you just had to see it for yourself to decide. So, yes, this movie changed the ways movies are made, in that "found footage" became legit story-telling strategy. But this movie also changed the way movies are marketed. Your movie had better have its own website, it better have "sticky" content that people want to talk about and share. Oh, and also, back then there was no such thing as a hashtag. Nowadays, the hashtag is a prominent part of any social strategy.

This movie was perfectly cast & believably acted.

In college, our film club showed movies weekly for the students (real movie projectors with 35 mm reels, big screen, good enough sound, seated a few hundred), and the week before this one we "decorated" some of the trees nearby the walkway pretty much everyone used to get to the campus with these kind of stick figures...and this was when the hype and discussions whether it was real or not was still high...if I remember correctly, we had some "fun" reactions to that little stunt... ;)

Fun fact: With a budget of only 60k $, it had a record shattering 414000% return on investment.

It really is a perfect film... Nothing else that copies this genre even comes close. Shoestring budget, impending sense of doom and isolation throughout the film, top notch acting, lost of natural feeling reactions, etc. It looks like genuine recovered footage... When this came out a tight lid was kept on the fact that it was fiction, so it added to the allure.

Yep, the marketing was phenomenal. They played it up as it was real found footage and they did not let on that it was a fictional movie with actors. Going in, I thought it was real. It made the movie-going experience insane. It was creep AF in that dark theater. Also, I lived next to a deep woods and my friends and I would venture through that woods occasionally when we were younger. That gave me a perspective and real fear of how it would feel to get lost in the woods. That made it 10x worse.

Watching it in a movie theater was great. One guy yelled, "Oh hell naw!" after a tense scary scene and everyone laughed. It was a great tension reliever. The acting wasn't scripted & felt natural. I was about that age and that's how my friends & I talked. Found footage/ shaky cam trend hadn't started yet. The website revealed nothing but made it sound like a real thing. Viral marketing and fake news in the very early days of the internet. The movie does so much with so little. 3 piles of rocks, rocks in a tree held up by sticks, hanging figures made out of some sticks... and a guy standing in a corner. That's it. No cheap jump scares. Everything is the actors. The movie's tension builds and holds you until the end. The movie costed nothing to make, made a ton of money and became a cultural phenomenon. Not for everyone but I feel everyone should watch it. I haven't seen Blair Witch 2016, so I vote that. Also how about something like Signs?

"Found footage" films really took off after this movie (no disrespect to "Cannibal Holocaust," but it was THIS film that paved the way), especially considering its low budget (about $700k) & huge profit (roughly $250 MILLION). We'd probably have no "REC," "Paranormal Activity," or "Chronicle" had this little independent venture never been made! Lol, I was one of those suckers who initially thought the footage was real xDDD

probably my favorite video on your channel rn. thanks markus!

I remember seeing this on the latest showing one night. There were only a couple other people in the theater. I've never been so grateful for sitting in the back against the wall.

"Before the internet was a thing." You got me thinking, you think this internet thing will ever catch on?

The part where they hear Josh screaming at night….that part scared the shit out of everyone in the theater….

This made me think that you should watch The Mothman Prophecies. That's more of a suspense thriller, but it's darn frightening.

"who eats ice cream with their pumpkin pie?" nobody, but it sounds bomb

The only thing that truly scares me is what I can't see, and as a young kid when I saw this it really traumatized me at the time Lol

Saw it at the Neptune Theatre in Seattle, 1999. The Marquee, top line - Blair Witch Project ----------- below it: "Go Stand in Your Corner"

If I remember correctly, the house at the end wasn't a set, it was just a creepy house they found in the woods.

She found a tongue and teeth. Some legends say a powerful witch can emulate a person's voice by way of a ritual involving removing the tongue.

This movie was so popular, they even referenced it in a MaryKate and Ashley movie 😂

When I was in Boy Scouts, we had those same tents. So those particular scenes impacted me more.

I'm half tempted to donate to said "patreon" just so you BOTH have to watch "Pink Flamingos" 1972

The psychological horror is imminent from the start. The creepiest part is the thought of hearing your "dead" friends voice in the woods, at night, calling out. That just plays on our subconscious fears. And the anxiety induced from the black & white camera shining into the black abyss of the forest- *The darkness is unsettling.* 😱

I was in high school when this came out, and was intrigued by it in the months leading up to its theatrical release. II grew up not far outside of Adams, TN, which has the most famous witch folklore in the country...the Bell witch (the inspiration for this movie, as it turns out). Because of my proximity to that area growing up, I assumed there were just as potent witch folklores across the entire country...so this really pulled me in. There was a "documentary" on TV leading up to the movie that was probably an hour long that spelled out the entire "history" of the Blair witch going back over a hundred years. It went so far as to say the film footage was found neatly packed in Heather's backpack under the foundation of an old house that was long gone. But the ground hadn't been disturbed since the foundation was laid, well over 100 years ago. So it was a backpack with cameras and film equipment under the foundation of a long gone house, and the ground around it hadn't been disturbed since the house was built...impossible without some strong paranormal power. At the time, I lived on a farm surrounded by woods, old dilapidated houses in the woods, and old forgotten cemeteries in the woods. And keep in mind, when this movie came out, there was no such thing as a "found footage" movie...this was the original. There were a lot of people who hated this movie because "It's not scary because you never see the witch." To those people... 1) You have no sense of imagination 2) You never lived in the middle of nowhere. Because I have a sense of imagination, and grew up in the middle of nowhere...and this movie absolutely FUCKED ME UP!!! It's funny now, noticing that the first credits are given to the writers. lol

This is by far one of my favorite horror movies ever made. People who dont like it seem to be people who cant get in to the mindset of how u wouldd feel in that situation, when it starts to get dark and u cant find your way out of there so u have to spend yet another night in there. Its hard to imagen the feeling u would have in their situation. Truly a terrifying movie.

Mockumentaries began with "Meet The Ruttles" and took off with "Spinal Tap". For my money, "Best In Show" is the peak of the style. To anyone with the slightest experience in deep woods hiking, "Blair Witch" is a Keystone Cops slapstick dark comedy.

“Have you ever heard of the Blair Witch?” “Didn’t she go to Bel Air High?” 🤣 Great tip of the hat to the Bawlmer accent! My favorite moment lolz

1:08 "its real". Thats exactly what i told everyone while working at the movie theater.

What’s scariest is that it’s people lost in the woods and their final desperate moments. The whole “witch” and “murder mystery” aspects are honestly secondary reasons as to why the concept is so scary.

This movie is a production companies dream! Less than a million to make and gross nearly $250m!

Loved this reaction! You guys are always fun to watch along with. :)

The girl in this, Heather Donahue, went to my school, University of the Arts.

i love that he told her that it was real beforehand, even though she denied it i feel she questioned it at times lol, which is the best way to experience it and wish i did. the marketing for this movie was crazy, i wish to experience something like that in theaters during a time where you really dont know and for some completely believed it

Great reaction, by the way your wife is absolutely adorable and hilarious! Congrats, keep up the great work my friend!

I read once that apparently there was meant to be a witch in the film, but they never swung the camera around and caught the old lady portraying her. It was when they run out of the tent, you hear Heather say "What the f**k is that?" and apparently that was her talking about an old lady in a ragged dress standing on a tree stump waving her arms around.

I like how the actress thought she was walking into a snuff film shoot so she brought a combat knife just in case.

The object that was wrapped up was a bloody tooth.

Damn! Was this really from 99? I remember watching this in the cinema, but I didn't think that was 22 years ago. Where does the times go. 🤦‍♂️😂

I was in 5th grade when this film came out, this was very early commercial internet days and the creators ran with an effective ad campaign. People really thought it was real, one of the earliest examples of effective viral marketing and the semi-birth of the handycam genre.

Haha - my kids had seen Blair Witch on home video, and some long time later we went to play in a tiny wood in back of my Tennis club. This wood is sooo small, that standing dead centre, you can see out the perimeter on all sides. My kids were enjoying larking around, swinging on branches, having stick sword fights. One of them asked me what the wood (copse, really) was called. Carelessly, I replied "Blair Witch Wood". That was that. They high-tailed it out of there PDQ. "Hey, I'm only joking! For God's sake, the place is tiny! Come back - don't be ridiculous!" We never again returned to 'Blair Witch Wood' - they wouldn't go near the place. (I'm a terrible father)

Every time she questioned the bloody pulp I was screaming…it’s a damn tooth woman!!! 😆

I still remember when this came out the marketing for it was insane. I specifically remember reading the in local newspaper something that looked like a news article that made it seem like it was real. Made me so scared to watch it. Still a classic!

Its the scariest movie for me until today. Being in a forest, at night, not knowing whats out there? 😟

Hey, hey, now hold on there. I eat ice cream with my pumpkin pie.

The waking up to see the stones and the sticks, it gave a foreboding dark mood and a sense of dread. They're being hunted.

an old joke I've always loved about this movie: The moral of the story is that the real evil monster is film school students.

I met and interviewed the cast at a horror con in the mid ‘00s. They were very nice and posed for a few photos The movie rated up there with “The Shining” as top horror movies with our reader poll. A master-class in film-making and marketing in the early days of the internet. My future wife and I even took a ride to Burketsville, Maryland back in 1999. We loved the movie then (we saw it during an early release) and still love it today. But it’s been well-known to NOT be real for decades.

When this originally finished in the theater, there were no credits. The film stopped and the audience just sat there for three minutes. Because it was supposed to be found footage, they would not have credits.

1999 - The Neptune Theater in Seattle's marquee: The Blair Witch Project - Go stand in your corner. "CHILLS"

A film that will be debated in marketing ethics classes from now until the end of time.

Still one of my favourite horror movies. I remember being convinced that the Blair Witch was going to get me when I was around 13 - started writing my proof on classroom whiteboards and everything for my friends xD

You can tell when they are driving on the highway its not found footage. it was supposed to be set in the early 90's but LOOK AT THE CARS. They are clear 1999 new models on the road. The film makers stuffed up on that one

You gotta watch film theories version of this movie. After seeing this the explanation Matt comes up with is great

When Heather say's she hungry. I wonder if you're actually hungry when you're scared out of your mind. Stress and anxiety usually makes you less hungry. Maybe I'm just looking too much into this haha. Anways I'm glad both of you like this movie. And I wouldn't mind to actually see you react to Blair Witch 2 and the one from 2016 as well.

Crazy how they were able to find the sequel in the same woods 🙃

The fact that it was barely scripted and they actually had them camping and didn't tell them about the scares made it so much better like the crew making all the noises outside the tent, having Mike screaming off in the distance like that, it all worked so perfectly !

The first decent reaction that I have come across for this movie. Thanks. 👏👏👏👏👏

My buddies wife made him go to this movie. He had seen 5-10mins of the "fake" documentary on TV earlier in the week promoting the movie. He thought it was a true found footage documentary. (This was before that was even a thing) He was so freaked out, his wife had to explain to him afterwards that it was just a movie.

If you ever read Stephen King's "Salem's Lot," there's a great scene in the book where a cemetery worker is filling in the grave of a boy who was bitten by a vampire. It takes place after the boy's funeral, and throughout the scene, the digger is quietly thinking about his life - things he's done or would like to do; really, just daydreaming. At first glance, it appears to be a bit of boring, dragged out, unnecessarily excessive writing on the part of King, but suddenly it cuts short as the worker realizes he's been standing there contemplating his life next to an open grave for hours...and the sun is setting. This is what most fantasy fiction calls "glamour." It's the peripheral effects of magical spells. It's why the cops never respond or average people tend not to notice when weird things happen around them. It's why the grave digger wasn't paying attention to the time when he was in the process of burying a soon-to-be vampire in the middle of a graveyard. So I suspect it's also the reason why the characters in his movie weren't walking while they were arguing, or why Michael kicked the map into the river, or why Heather couldn't get her bearings straight with the compass. It was the "glamour" of the Blair Witch's spell, delaying them before the inevitable.

I like how Markus told you its real. Although not true its what the producers did before this was released. I saw a pamphlet in a cinema about a month before the film premiered. It didn't mention a film, it was just information about the Blair witch and the stories surrounding it. I read it and it seemed real. When i saw the film i had that in mind. Imagination is key to this film. If you put yourself in their shoes, its terrifying. If you just watch it as a film most find it rubbish.

Fun Info Heather actress used to do Steak N Shake commercials

I remember MTV had a special about the movie a year before. So I was excited about the movie for a whole year waiting. I also had some friends that lived in the woods and when they got home ran in to their houses. Haha

I remember I made my brother believe the first Paranormal Activity was real found footage. Then I showed him an interview with the actors 15 minutes later. Good times. 💀

I'm obsessed with these movie reactions and this channel. I love this film. It's still one of the best found footage movies of all time. I remember watching this in the theater.

Part 2 is awesome. Also, big props on that cowboy hat, dude!

You guys are awesome!!! Fun reaction channel, new subscriber, btw that thing in the cloth was a bloody tooth!!! Wish the guy chimed in a little more but u guys are great watched lots of ur reactions x

Man, the dude was really selling the story to her lol...

When I watch the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT for the first time there was one seen when you hear the children laughing and making noise outside the tent, that scared the HELL out of me

The advertising for this was the best ever for a movie! I live in Maryland and believed the mockumentaries. Went to see it in the theaters and am never scared. Took me about 6 years too watch the very last scene. It was fantastic!

I remember when this came out, I was like 9. Such a great movie and essentially the first of its kind to reach such success that I'm aware of. Been watching horror since I was like 3 and fell in love with it. There were rumors when this came out that it was actually based on true events lol. Such a classic !

Amazing that a handful of college students had a budget of $300,000 and made basically the first "found footage" film, and grossed millions! Well done!

Great reaction! This is one of my all time favorite films. Being a horror fan,I've seen lots of scary movies. But none of them has scared me like this one did. I had to sleep with the lights on for a week after seeing this. It still creeps me out. I think reason some don't like it is because people are so used to jump scares,tons of gore and endless CGI monsters. But this movie played on simple fears. The fear of the dark,of getting lost and being alone and all the fears you create in your mind. And people also forget that this was a small independent movie. The filmmakers didn't have a huge budget for much of anything. They used creativity and ingenuity to create and brilliant story. By the way,I think that for a while they did get lost,but ultimately the witch or whatever force out there really altered the forest in some way so that Heather,Mike and Josh would never find their way out. They were doomed from the start.

I live in Georgia and with lots of woods around, We would hear and see weird noises and things

"Who knows if it is real or not..." ummm... it says written and directed at the end lmao