1999 was the pinnacle year in terms of film. There were two horror films that were in the pop culture that have made an impact. The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project each utilized a unique way to make their films unique and grow the genre in terms of depth. Blair Witch specifically used the internet in its marketing which was brand new at the time. I’ll talk about that later, anyways, here’s what I think.
1. Three people in Search of a Witch
The film is roughly simple in the whole story. Three college students go hiking and make a documentary to find the elusive Blair Witch. Since you probably know what kind of movie this is just by seeing the poster. It doesn’t go well. Soon weird stuff starts to happen and the trio each bicker of being lost in the woods.
While the approach is very simple, given the fact that the whole movie is presented as a thing that may have happened. What I like is that the performances of the trio sell it. Mind you, the entire film was improv on the spot. Specifically, when they were hiking, the director would leave messages in canisters that the actors had to be in a specific mood to sell their performances as they were recording themselves. And they have walkie-talkies to communicate if they have to do another take.
To me, it works since we get to see the anxiety gradually build up as the movie progresses. At first we see them as close friends, then have the level of uneasy spring up as they each argue and fight. Aside from potentially seeing the witch, or other supernatural happen in the woods. One can interpret the movie as being deliberate since the two guys were getting tired of the director’s quest of finding the witch.
There’s one word to describe this movie. Verisimilitude is one since the whole film appears to be based on an event that really happened. Found footage movies weren’t actually evented by this film to start with. Cannibal Holocaust is attributed as the first horror film to be labeled as found footage. Additionally, the whole idea of something documented isn’t even new in any artful medium. Books such as Dracula and Frankenstein each contained diary-like entries to give an idea to the readers that what they’re reading did happen. 
Lastly, the whole storytelling method is like a retelling of a fable. The be careful what you wish for is old, but the way the film goes about it makes it fresh. Since they ask the people in the rural Maryland town about the witch, they decide to go deeper. Unaware of what exactly is lurking in there. It mixes well the suspense and how one’s hubris becomes the downfall.
2. Internet Marketing
It must be lauded that this film successfully marketed itself in the internet. No one knew about the endless potential that this new way of information can expand the movie’s mythos and advertise it. I can imagine that the studios thought the internet was just a digital advertisement board of promoting a movie. Which it is sometimes, but the level of dedication to create the whole missing people and the witch must be commended. I think the real irony is that the marketing was probably too good, since many people believed that the stuff that is shown did happen.
3. Is it Scary?
This is the thing that is going to draw lines in the sand, whether it was scary or not. Well, I can understand that people walked into the film expecting to see the witch and not getting to see it. And I can hear that people just wanted to be scared off their seat and was let down. Now those perspectives can mean well, but I think what the filmmakers had in mind was old-fashioned but warranted.
Honestly, I prefer this method of being ambiguous on purpose. If no one hadn’t read the extra info about the witch, then the movie will just have a creepy thing going for itself. Since we don’t have the expert in the group to really explain what’s going on is the advantage. It’s the mystery and not knowing is the film’s redeeming and best asset.
4. Legacy
The Blair Witch Project was massively successful despite having the budget of half a million. Any film grossing 200 million with that budget is a success story in of itself. I think the only bad thing that came after was the sequels. Blair Witch 2 was a disappointing movie, because the original intent was to expand the whole idea of the first film and make it more ambiguous. But the studio made it into a horror movie that took itself too seriously and ruined a potentially great sequel.
It wouldn’t be years later until J.J. Abrams produced the film which brought back the found footage sub-genre with the monster movie Cloverfield. Just the following year, Paranormal Activity made the found footage mainstream since it created a series. That got progressively worse, but that’s another topic. In 2016, there was another film called Blair Witch. A direct sequel were one of the main characters has ties to the trio. Like most things, it wasn’t good and it briefly showed the witch.
If I may just briefly talk about it. I feel that the film does everything wrong as a follow up. It doesn’t feel like it’s found footage, just look at any clip. The camera’s they use are too good and that there’s special effects that are used. All that intrigue that was shown during the first movie is gone since we all had no clue what the witch looks like. And the key thing is that it feels like a movie. It's a bit of an oxymoron, but it should've at least been shot on a cheap camera or phone. Having it use pro cameras made it too fancy, lacking the limitations the documentarians had in the first film.
5. Overall
The Blair Witch Project is an ambitious film that tries to breath depth into horror. While it’s not the first film to act as a found footage, it can at least be credited by using the internet to market itself and build the mystery of if the witch exists.
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