The Blair Witch Project

By Sophia Doshi

Found footage horror movies dominate the 21st century as a premier genre that thrilled audiences as much as terrified them. The Blair Witch Project was a trailblazer for the genre, with PR and marketing techniques that tricked people into thinking the missing fictional characters were real people lost in the woods. With such a limited budget and minimal resources, the minds behind The Blair Witch Project had an impressive lasting effect on audiences. 

By blurring the line between fiction and reality, and taking advantage of the recent inception of the internet, the film’s creators pioneered a disturbingly authentic story that they spread through many media. One of the most notable ways they achieved this was by placing heavy emphasis on the homemade feeling of the media used. 

The website, the driving factor of its marketing success, increased the anticipation surrounding the movie. Gradually, the mythology and stories about the characters built up interest and blended reality and fiction. Chat rooms and message boards online, which were still in their infantile stages, were alive with speculation about the status of each actor. The film’s creators fueled this with the fact that the characters go missing, and they did this with online Missing Persons Posters, IMDb’s label of the actors being missing, and more. The film’s marketing changed the narrative for successive horror films, such as low-budget films like Paranormal Activity, which leaned into the same raw, unfiltered production value. 

Cover image from Collider