#21 The Blair Witch Project: Deeper Into the Woods

Hello everybody and welcome back to the podcast! This week, we're delving into one of the most iconic psychological horror films of the last couple decades: The Blair Witch Project. From its horrifyingly realistic found footage shots to its public controversy and morally gray area, it sure makes for an interesting episode as we delve into some obscure and lesser known trivia about the making of the film, the odd choices on set, the cast and crew, and our own general opinions. Enjoy!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

We will keep dive into the world of music, movies, and focus, and everything in between. Welcome to the Goger Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Today's podcast episode is called the Blair Wish Project.

unknown 0:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Trying to sound descriptive. Okay, so what was the Blair Witcher Project? Um, it's a movie from 1999, and we all watched it together last week. And it is basically a mockumentary. If I'm gonna give a little summary, it's like three what teenagers? Yeah, are they teenagers? I think they're gonna aspiring filmmakers anyway. And they have like actual cameras. I think they're probably film students, I'd say um, and it they go into the woods looking for footage of the Blair Witch, which is a local, you know, they're like making a documentary. Yeah. Like the film is about people making a documentary. Uh-huh. And it's it's fixed between footage of them and footage of the actual documentary that they make. Yeah. Um and yeah, it's sort of a horror psychological thing. Very, very good. It's quite short. And it what? It didn't feel short for Sophie. Yeah. Um, very famous because of the story and also because of many controversies surrounding its production, which we're going to get into now. So I should also say it stars three people, one called Heather, Josh, and Mike. And those are like their real names. And they use the same names in the film. And then it was directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Dan Daniel. Daniel. Dan Daniel Myrick. So sorry. Just reading Sophie's name and say Dan Danny whatever. Well, I couldn't spell it, I couldn't spell it. Oh, you can't even spell Danny. That's like shocking. But yeah, so the two of them, um, there's a lot of controversy around the the standards of production and all sorts of laws that were presumably violated in the making of this film. And they made it when they were in film school. And with just a budget of 60,000. Yeah. Because they clearly didn't expect it to do as well as it did, because it ended up making like over 250 million dollars. Unreal. That was like the best return for a not for an independent film until the big fat frequency. And um the Guinness the yeah, in 2002. The Guinness Book of World Records said it was the all-time winner of top budget box office ratio, but it was surpassed by paranormal activity in 2007.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

It had made eleven thousand dollars for every one dollar they spent on the budget.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

That's mad. And for for people who don't know, 60,000 for making any film is ridiculously low. Yeah, they even think it's a lot, but it's not. They even returned one of their cameras after filming because they couldn't afford it. And they couldn't even afford some song rights. They wanted to play a song in the car at the start of the movie and they just couldn't afford it. Oh. Well, no, not all. I feel like they're kind of evil, not gonna lie. Well we'll we'll see. We'll we'll go through all the facts and we'll make a decision at the end. Um, so who would like to who would like to start? Does anyone have anything they want to bring to the table? Well, there is a lot to unpack to be honest. Yeah, like I said. So I think we should start with the fact that the actors were not really given a script. Every every line in the film is improvised, but they basically knew sort of the general outline of what would happen. But basically, when they go into the woods, they get lost, and they're in the woods for a couple days, these three filmmakers, but like they basically start getting haunted. Like they okay, an example is they like in their tent when they're trying to sleep at night, and you know the camera's recording, but it's not recording them, it's just like the camera's on because they just wanted to record, and you can hear like the tent stuff moving against the tent. Yeah, like that was one of the directors came and did that, and they had absolutely no knowledge that they'd be disturbed while they were asleep. So that's why they were recording, because like that wasn't part of it, you know what I mean? Yeah, sort of like genuinely scared. So stuff like that every day. Or they were given sort of basic, like, say, act more, um like act more suspicious towards one of the others on this day, and stuff like that. But um, yeah. Yeah, maybe a good place to start would be at the audition process, um which wasn't very conventional. Um, I know that Heather Donahue, um, she gave an interview a few years later, and she said that she read an ad in Backstage. I don't know if you guys are familiar. It's um it's a magazine in America. I think you can get it abroad as well, and that's where a lot of casting calls for like anything, like a like you'd find big movies in there and short films and everything. That's sort of the place to look would be the website now, I suppose. So she found an ad in there that said it was an improvised feature film shot in wooded location, and it is gonna be hell, and most of you reading this probably shouldn't come. So you'd know from the get-go there something's a bit off, but you decided to sign up, anyways. And then the actual day itself, as each candidate entered the audition room, he or she was immediately told by the director, You've been in jail for nine years, we're the pearl board, why should we let you go? And if the actor like um hesitated for even one second, they're like, No, you're out, you're not good enough. So they had to like think on their feet and be like alert as soon as they got into the water. Yeah, because they like really had to be good improvisers. Because this is what's gonna happen when they get into the woods, they're gonna be hit with something and they instantly have to get in that mindset, be like, Okay, how can I convey this to the camera? So, and also like a lot of it ended up being quite realistic and their realistic reactions, but like they still had to be like switched on. Wow. Yeah. And it was meant to be three men. Really? Yeah, but her audition was they were so blown away by it that they were like, Yeah, you can you'll actually be in it, and you'll be the lead builder. Wow. Little did she know. A lot of people say they don't like Heather's character. What do we think about it?

SPEAKER_00 6:26

I feel like you need Heather. Like you can't have it without Heather because she's kind of the back one of the group.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, she was the one who really liked Well, they obviously didn't get a happy ending. But she was the one pushing, trying to get out of the woods to keep going when they were just like lying, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

She had the fuel of it, really.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Yeah. If I was to be lost in the woods with any of them, I'd pick her any day.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Like, is she okay? Maybe she wasn't that good at reading a map, but she had the right attitude towards it, and I feel like if she wasn't there, then they wouldn't really have had that much motivation to get out of the forest of the woods in the first place. True.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

And Mike couldn't even read the map at all.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

Yeah. It's kind of like if I was going into the woods and only a new guy knew like half how to read a map. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

How can you not how like I feel like that's kind of unrealistic in the film that they can't read a map? Yeah. Like it's a map, it's literally a picture. What do you mean you can't read it? I suppose. But I guess figuring out their bearings, yeah. Yeah. But um actually, yeah, say the three of us were in that situation. Oh gosh. And we were lost in the forest. Would we know how to find north, south, east, and east and west? Yeah. Right. Oh yeah. And like the thing that got me is like they had a compass the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

So but they didn't really seem to use it all that often. But that would have if they just like been like, okay, we're gonna go like east now. That's where like there's a civilization. You just want the compass east. I love that line in the film where it's just Heather and Mike. And this is sort of in one of their towards the end, when they had sort of lost all hope. Well, I still find this funny. When he was like, Which witch was worse? The wicked witch of the East or West. And she was like, the West, and he was like, right, we'll go east. Or that's another interesting, how the witch isn't actually like we never see the witch, you know?

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, I think it was better because then like well, to be honest, I don't think they would have had the budget for the makeup or the hair that was really needed to be like to make it actually scary. But I think making it faceless is really it was a really smart move because each person has a different idea of what scary can be. So like it can be different for each person.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Or what's interesting is that in the start of the film, before they go into the woods, for their documentary, the three of them like interview townspeople and ask them about the legend and stuff. And the townspeople who were like, Oh yeah, I heard about that back in high school. So think about all these kids going missing in the woods. They were all actors, but our three leads um they didn't they didn't know they were actors, they like thought it was real. Real, like townspeople. Yeah, so they thought that the legend was an actual legend that people followed. They didn't know it was invented by the directors. Isn't that mad? Like, how can you do that? Like, I feel like I understand it's to make it more realistic, yeah. And obviously it worked. The film is very like very realistic, and you feel like you're there with them, but like it's really like almost like an experiment. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. It's like the line between movie and social experiment is really blurred with this, you know. It is like it's it's probably crossed a good few times. Um, do you guys know, like at the start, I I don't know why, but this always stuck in my head when Heather calls Josh Mr. Punctuality. Yeah. I don't know, I just thought that was funny, whatever. But anyways, it was a joke because your man was actually late that morning. Josh, like to to shooting. Yeah. So the directors were like annoyed at him, and so they decided to kill him off first, then. Oh sorry, there's spoilers in this. Oh yeah. Um, but Mike was originally meant to die first or die at all. Um so then after Josh was killed off, he like got to go get a meal at a restaurant and they gave him concert tickets. And so he went off to a concert and it was fine while the other two were still in the woods. That's crazy. So I find that a bit interesting. What concert was it? Was Jane's Addiction a band? Oh! You know that yeah, they have um they have a song called Something Jane, and it's it's really good actually.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

I can't believe that though. Imagine, imagine, like, would you not feel guilty that your the two like people you had spent days in the forest of the woods with were are still in there being like absolutely like terrified.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah. Well, I guess probably in the moment he's like, I'm just glad I'm out of that situation. Jane says is the song by Jane's addiction, it's a really good song. Well, there you go, check it out. Um okay, so what else do we want to talk about? Um well something slightly disturbing is that at one point in the movie, after your man has been Josh has been well he's disappeared, um they find like a bundle of twigs, and inside the twigs there's like a some fabric, and then inside the fabric are teeth and hair and blood, and it turns out that the teeth were actually real that um one of the directors, Edward, his dentist, gave him and then um the hair was actually the actor Josh's real hair. Like it's just imagine seeing that even as like as the actors, they just it gets to the point where they have to know it's fake, but like in your head you just be like this isn't impossible. Well it wasn't fake, it was real. Well, yeah, but like it's not like some Josh is actually. How did you just ask your dentist for teeth? What's good to degree, like gentlemen? Yeah, it only took them eight days to film it. Yeah, it took eight months to edit it. Oh, and they all did sign a form agreeing to let the producers mess with their heads. But like, I think they do need a print like and you know they got lost three times, like actually lost.

unknown 12:47

Crazy.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, like they had GPSs, but um and they were the GPSs led them to milk crates with three like plastic calisters in them, and then in there would be like their instructions and then where the storyline goes. I was like, Yes, that's how they moved. Okay, interesting. The original cut was 150 minutes in G's. There was nine they took 19 hours of footage, I think. Wow. They were filming constantly, and it was mostly the actors filming as well, that's where it's saying. Yeah. Or there's one point in the film, I don't know if this is out of character or not, but like they're they're saying to Heather, like, oh, this is all because of you, R were lost because you wanted to come out here and make movies. And I was wondering since they say movie and not documentary, are they like real life arguing? About like the entire production. But how is it her fault if they both agreed to it? I don't know. They're just blaming her. Um oh, and they were given less and less food every day. I feel like that's really bad to heighten tensions. Yeah, that doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I feel so bad for her though. You know, allegedly she brought a knife into the woods with her because she knew she had to sleep in a tent with two men every night. Jeez, wow. See that that in itself, and with like And the two directors are two men, like you know, you never know what could happen, especially in the nineties.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, wow. Yeah, but I feel like you couldn't do it as like these days because of the way that like well you have phones and then you have um like people could track them down in the woods and actually genuinely put them in danger.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Hmm. Yeah. And another fun fact is the shooting finished on Halloween in 1997. Pretty creepy. Oh really? And they headed straight to the local local Denny's restaurant to get a big meal. Right. Um but I think they also said that coming out of the woods was quite like traumatic and shocking to like have to integrate back into like even like after the house. And they have to pretend to be dead, because when the film was released, it was basically a big hoax. They wanted people to believe it was actual found footage, like viewers in cinemas. So they pretended that like the three actors had died, so they had to like stay hidden for months, and like their parents would receive all these cards saying like I'm so sorry about your child. Yeah. Like that's even for the parents, that's quite yeah. Oh I think that was mainly up to the studio. I think it was called Artisan, it's now default, it doesn't run anymore. But then even Oh wait, is that the the one they sued? Could be. Yeah, that could be it. And they won. They got $300,000 each. Hmm. It's it's not really enough, I don't think. Especially with the amount of profit that they made off the films, you know. Well no, that's suing the remake company. Yeah, I know, but I'm sure they still did well, because it's money field industry. But um yeah, like even on IMDb that said that the actors were dead for a good while. And they didn't like the studio was aware of this, they didn't correct it because we were like, oh, we'll just go with that.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

This is wrong. Yeah, because they put up the missing posters because if you think about it right, the filming was finished in nine October 1997 and then it was released on the 30th of July 1999. So that's quite a bit to be hiding away from people.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

That's true. It's a long, long time.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Imagine like seeing your childhood friend in a missing poster, and then it comes out like a year later that she was uh it'd be terrified.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

But um, yeah. That that's sort of it changed the way that films were marketed. I think in the way that it was like very realistic and very you know, all of this stuff with them being missing and lying about their deaths, but like that hasn't really happened since. Do you remember when that movie Smile came out? I was just about to say And they'd have people all over New York or something, and in matches and stuff, like you know, the smile face. That's so creepy. If I was one of them, I'd oh I probably laughed for myself. Yeah. Or um Stephen King. His son showed him the Blair Witch project when he was in hospital and he asked him to turn turn it off because it was too scary. Like Stephen King himself wrote like the shining and it. Yeah. Like, oh my god. I'm not like I didn't find it too scary. I just thought it was it was interesting, like sort of thought-provoking. Like afterwards, I was like, whoa, I thought I was sitting on that. Yeah. When I watched it the first time, I didn't know about the background of the film and just thought it was really good. When I watched it the second time, I felt almost kind of like guilty because you know what these three people were going through, and you're just like watching, it feels a bit like ugh, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:01

Yeah, yeah. At the final scene, like when they were in the house, I was genuinely so scared for every corner that they'd turn because I thought Deirdre had lied about there being no jump scares because there was like it was just it got to a point and like the little handprints when it really like tied back to the end was just sickening.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Yeah. Oh yeah, or when the kids are like laughing in the forest. Oh, that was so creepy.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I think the final shot is the way it is, is because apparently they ran out of the budget to do anything else.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Really? Really? So the final shot's the best thing about the film. Yeah, that was unreal. But the one with him standing in the corner, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

I think.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Oh really? That's crazy. And you know, like it was filmed well, it was meant to be based in Burkitsville. That's the name of the town. Um that only has a population of 150 or did. You know, it's very, very small. And the sign, they still have the sign as a start, don't they? Yeah. Town that's been like stolen multiple times and they replaced it and he's getting stolen. And then the mayor of the town, one day she just woke up and there was some guy in her living room. Oh my god. And he was like, Is there a tour on or like the heck? She was like, Oh my god. Oh, creepy. So creepy. Like, why didn't you go downstairs? But like he wasn't there like just like breaking into her house. Well, I guess he did, but like he just he just thought there was a tour on there. I was like, In her house, yeah, like how's it? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Um anything else? In the movies, apparently, like the film footage was like so shaky that the cinema would like supply like bags for like people watching to get sick in. Because they felt like motion sickness.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Oh yeah, I read about that, or the ushers in the aisles would tell them like please don't get sick on the person next to you.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah. I would walk out. That's disgusting. That is disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 19:55

So yeah, no, it's uh oh it is recording. So what is our general consensus? Was it was it worth it for what they did?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I know. I don't think it was worth it. I think well, I think they should have really given them more clues as to what would go on. True, and then it wouldn't be as good. Then it wouldn't be as good, but I think they kind of deserved the right to understand what was going on, especially because of uh oh especially because of the like I wonder if they had thought of the legal issues that they could have run into.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Yeah, well like it was America in the nineties, like there wasn't many that would actually like come about, you know. Yeah, I don't know, because it it's a really, really good movie, and I feel like it's an important one as well. But like why? Because it's it's different, you know, anything different is important, sure I find. Because like the way it was went about, and like people know now not to do that, but it has to be done before you know. I get you, like a lesson. Yeah, yeah, but like at the end of the day it has been done, this happened, we have this film now, you know, and you can't you can't undo that, and I it you gotta you gotta go with that mindset and be like, yeah, it's a good film. It's a good film if you just saw the backstory to be honest. Yeah, this one I can agree. I think I enjoyed it more the first well, you enjoy any film more the first time, but I was sort of more like, oh, this is interesting, rather than watching it the second time being like, Oh god. Yeah. Because you can see like the actual terror in their eyes. Because they recorded like everything, because anytime anything weird would happen, they record so that they'd have proof. Or like maybe now I don't know, but maybe if they planned on suing or something, the directors they were filming what was being done to them. So they filmed like everything. Yeah. And then so you get to see like everything. Did you did you like find it scary?

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I like I didn't really find it that scary, but I found it scary the parts Where it was like the end because you just didn't know what was gonna happen. The end, yeah. The end was unreal. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like we didn't give too many spoilers. Like a few, but not too many. Well, we we really need to start including spoiler warnings in the start of the episode.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

It's not even important. I'll put it in the description. But um, I I do like really, really recommend that anybody watches this. Like, I know a lot of people aren't very good with horror films, and it's not too bad. I like horror films. I watched the first time I watched it, I watched it when I was sick and home alone. God was so warm.

SPEAKER_00 22:31

I thought you were about to say so. I don't know. And I was about to say there's no way you watched the Blair Witch Project when you were six.

SPEAKER_01 22:37

No, I I always like watching horror films when I'm sick, because I don't know, it's fun. Because nothing else is fun when you're sick. Well yeah. You didn't find it scary though. No, but I don't think I ever find films that scary because I know I'm just looking at loads of pixels on a screen and I'm safe in my own house. That's all fake. Yeah, so like nice. Yeah, but really, really, really good. And it's it's different. It's always nice to see something like shot in a different way. What's the scariest film you've ever watched? Um, well, I've only seen three, including this, I suppose. Horror films. So, I mean, yeah, none of them were that scary.

SPEAKER_00 23:23

Guys, coincidence or not coincidence? When Claudia was going home, right? Oh my gosh, yeah, so this was so this was like it was kind of late, so it was it was pitch black outside. Yeah. And we were Clodo was going home, and like halfway going like into your driveway, uh huh. This like what DJ thinks it was a fox like screaming, but it sounded like what else would it be? It was so it was shrieking because it was genuine. No, but I've never heard that before, and like it was so sleepy.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

It w it was like within whatever animal or human it was, within their soul, they like like I don't know what it was, just let out this sound. No, foxes do that, and it's really creepy because I'll be in my room at night and genuinely hear a sound from outside that it will like they'll sound they can sound like a woman screaming. Fun fact that's actually probably where the whole banshee thing comes from in Ireland, people hearing foxes and thinking it's a woman screaming, but um, or they will literally sound like a child crying, like it's horrible. Like I'll be in my room and I'm like, oh my god, what's going on outside? Because you can't hear like it sounds like a child's by themselves, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

So it's so creepy. But like then Cloda like turned around with the fear of God in her eyes. She was like, Oh my god, like the Blair Mitch is coming for you. Yeah, like a ran to my door.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

That night so guys, we had pizza that night, and after we met the the others left, I was putting the pizza out in the recycling bin in my back garden, and it was dark outside, but I was like, it's grand, it's just 30 seconds or something. But I stepped outside in the darkness, and a raspberry no, not raspberry, a blackberry bush like branch tripped me off and I genuinely thought something had grabbed my last oh my god, and at the same moment that happened, a cat I'm wondering I don't know whose cat this was, but it was in my garden, and I must have given it a fright because it was a white cat too, and it just like shot out across the garden, and I was like, Oh my god! Because I didn't know what it was, I just thought, yeah. Oh my god. So I ran back inside and I was like, Dad, dad, oh my god, and he was like, What?

SPEAKER_00 25:35

I was like that was an odd coincidence, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah, that tomorrow is might be real after all. Low key. Um, but yeah, I think that that's it, that's it from us this week. Yeah. We'll we'll leave you there. Okay. Um, thanks for listening. Bye. Bye.

unknown 25:58

Why don't I wave? Who am I waving at?