The Blair Witch Project

The year is 1999. The internet is young. A website emerged describing a small group of students' trip to Maryland to shoot a documentary on local lore. Their footage was found, but they weren't. The site was frequently updated with police interviews, news clippings, interviews, and eventually news of the footage being released in theaters. The IMDB page for the students listed them as missing and presumed dead. At college campuses and festivals where the footage was screened, missing flyers were posted and distributed for the missing students. Message boards were posted discussing the legend and the students. The site received over 20 million hits before the footage was released, and the Blair Witch Project became a cultural phenomenon. Hello, Sydney.

Hi, who is this? It's your killer host! My name is Parker, your resident horror fanatic. I'm Caroline, Scaredy Scream Queen. I'm Ian, Scary Movie Skeptic. And welcome to. Guys, we have some exciting news. And I'm not talking to Parker or Ian. I'm talking to you, listeners. Brrrrrr. If you can't get enough of us, who could? We're here to give you more. And we just launched a Patreon page. Live right this second, right now, baby. Giving it to you. There are three levels, three different options for paying for everything that you want out of what's your favorite scary movie. And we got some great stuff in store for you. Oh yeah. Whether you want just a simple, subtle newsletter.

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So if you become a Lori or an Alice, you will receive a signed postcard from us. Oh yeah. A special custom may spooky. What's your favorite scary movie postcard? Very spooky. Even from, dare I say, hot dog. It may be our cat. Oh my gosh. You may not hear him on the podcast much, but he's always here in spirit. Yeah. He loves scary movies. Hmm. Well, I don't know if he could hang for the one we watched tonight, though. He had to go in another room. Yeah, he had to leave. Hey Caroline, what did we watch tonight? We watched the spooky, thrilling, shaky Blair Witch Project. Oh. Getting into the facts. The Blair Witch Project was released in July of 1999.

So we've just surpassed its 20-year anniversary. Thrilling. I was alive back then. So was I. It was written, directed, and edited by Daniel Meyrick and Eduardo Sanchez. Where are they now? Well, this seems to be both of their main claims to fame. But Sanchez has also directed a segment on VHS 2 from 2013 and episodes of Lucifer, Supernatural, and Queen of the South. Alright, so we got some interesting things going on with the stars. All of the actors actually played themselves. They were no names to fit the film's marketing, which Parker filled us in on. So we have Heather Donahue. Playing Heather Donahue. Yeah. Playing Heather Donahue. Michael C. Williams. Who was he? Um Mike Michael Williams.

And Joshua Leonard, who seems to have taken off after this movie. He was in the town that dreaded dreaded sundown from 2014, Bates Motel, which we just watched. The first episode at least. Unsane from 2018 and Depraved, which was released on demand this past September. The IMDB summary reads, quote, three film students vanish after traveling into a Maryland forest to film a documentary on the local Blair Witch legend, leaving only their footage behind. The Rotten Tomatoes critic score is an eighty-seven percent, and the audience score a fifty-six percent. The critics consensus is quote full of creepy campfire scares, mock doc, the Blair Witch project keeps audiences in the dark about its titular. Oh chess. We've been waiting for that.

Did you know that was coming? Oh yeah. Now you guys, we were having a an interesting conversation after that movie where we were discussing the Rotten Tomatoes scores. And I have a question that I would like to pose the world. Pose it. It has now been over 20 years since this movie came out. Obviously, a big disp um disparity between the critics and the audience scores. This movie is regarded by many to be a horror classic. So I wonder if the Rotten Tomatoes audience score is still being affected by young modern horror movies watching the Blair Witch Project and being like, oh, this is not what I thought this was being hyped up to be. You know?

Curious. I wonder. I imagine seeing this in 1999, especially under the pretext of the um viral marketing that we discussed. I wonder if that affects Oh yeah. I sat there thinking, I wish that I would have like been convinced beforehand that this was real. Me telling you didn't convince you. I I I don't know. I wish you could have like tricked me into being like, oh my god, they just found this film, blah blah blah. So just for context, Rotten Tomatoes started in ninety-eight. So I mean, even though it was around technically before this, I mean you got you still have to think like over time. Yeah, can you find out if an odd if the audience score is cumulative of all time or if there's like a cutoff date after the release of the movie?

I can keep searching. Keep searching. Because I just want to this movie I've only ever heard incredible things. So for me to, you know, read that lower score from the audience, I'm just, you know, curious. Which sometimes the audience score uh just reflects the fans' opinions. So maybe it's not as highly regarded as I thought, but so I guess we have no answers. If anyone knows, tell us. So as we discussed last week, I uh none of us had seen the Blair Witch project before we saw this. It's when you hear about and you hear about and you read about and you just never get around to seeing. And there's a reason. I thought it was gonna be a lot different.

I think what got me really is like they're like night at night time when they had the light on with the camera, they kept panning back and forth in the woods, and I was waiting for something to like pop out, and it never did. Um so I got really scared. I think like one of the first prolonged scenes where they were doing that. Like cover your eyes scared, or just kinda like uh. I kept staring at Ian's bag of Cheetos that was on the tables because I was afraid to look at the like darkness. Those Cheetos are good. Yeah. I think anything in the woods is always like kinda eerie to me. Cause I remember when I was like younger and just like would w walk around our woods, like on our farm, and like you stay long enough in there by yourself, and then like you start thinking that you're by yourself, and then it like perpetuates this like very eerie feeling.

I didn't know you grew up on a farm. Well, we have a farm. What was on the farm? Woods. Woods and plants. No animals. No animals. Okay, I'm less interested. But there were wolves. Or like wolves or um whatever you call those things. Yeah. Wolves? I feel like I've had like the the opposite experience. I have a lot of like woods. My like my my house is in the middle of like 10 acres of like nothing but woods. And I used to go out there and play with my sisters and like my friends and stuff. So I always had like good, I don't know, maybe I haven't spent enough time alone in the woods. But I think I never got that creepy feeling.

With woods. I've I've uh when I was a kid, I was like that where I thought the woods were cool and I'd try and like if we went hiking with my family, I'd try and like run off and hide by myself and like do my own thing and like run around. But now that I'm older, my parents lived in well, they still do live in New Mexico, but they lived in this uh house that was right on the edge of like a pine forest, and to me that feels a little more sinister because it was always dark and colder and the trees feel a little more scary. But you realize how easy it is to get lost in something like that.

Oh yeah. But see, the whole time I was on kind of Caroline's wavelength, where I was like, look how like bright, beautiful fall colors. If I were them, I'd be like, wow, what a blessing. There was one time when I was I was like in like third or fourth grade, and me and my friend were playing in the woods, and we came across this like big hole, probably like the size of our kitchen table. I'm serious, and we got so freaked out because it like curved a little bit, and we were like, me and my friend were about to go down there and it like explored. I was like, maybe I should go get my mom.

So I brought my mom out and she looked at it, and like we threw like a rope down there to see how far it went, and so then my mom had to call someone to like survey the land, and like less than half a mile away from us, they found basically like what would have turned into a sinkhole, and they pumped yeah, they pumped like four or five truckloads of like cement down into it to like basically keep that area from collapsing in on itself. Damn. Yeah, so if we would have gone down that hole, you would have died. I would have died. Shit. You know what one of my favorite activities is? What? Exploring a hole.

Well, someone asked me what I thought. Yeah, what'd you think, Parker? Parker, what'd you think? Thanks for asking you guys. Y'all are so sweet. Um, I actually enjoyed it a lot, but the thing is, is um, I don't disagree with either of you. I don't know why I liked it a lot. I just was watching it and I was like, this feels so like cozy and nice. I don't know. I thought I like I said after the film, I was like, we should go camping together sometime. This looks like fun. So I don't know why. There was just something like uh the movie felt very like comforting to me. And I I was personal I think towards the end my heart was beating a little bit faster, and I never realized when that started.

But there were a few points in the first probably three quarters where I was like, I'm definitely not scared right now, but there's something about this movie that's really speaking to me. I feel like I wasn't like scared watching it, but like the next time I'm out hiking or like doing something in the woods and I get a little bit uncomfortable, then this is gonna come back and I'm gonna be like, get me out of here. Like one of the things I really wanted to do because like on Thanksgiving was go to the woods and walk around. I'm trying to think about how to discuss this movie because I usually write down the order of the scenes and we can kind of hop to the most important ones.

But yeah, like you said, it's kind of like just an endless flow of things. It's really one scene. I really enjoyed how I I liked the absence of music. At first I was like, oh, I you know, hor so much about scares is the music scaring you, but I actually think I liked the the quiet. I think it made a lot of sense because again, going back to the perception of people going into this movie back in '99. Oh, ancient. If you would have put music on it, they would have been like, oh, this is manufactured. This is Yeah, definitely that. But also I just I liked it. I thought it felt made sense. Can we talk about like the history a little bit?

The legend. Going into the movie, I it was a completely different than what I thought it would be. Because I thought it was like gonna be this movie about a bunch of witches in the forest, like doing witchy things. Blair witch and like Salem come to mind, and that's what I thought this was gonna be. Well, it's all of the the lore of the movie is rooted in that uh type of story where um I actually have it pulled up. So the website is still in existence. You can go find it at um Blairwitch.com slash project, and because they've the other movies have also made their way onto the website. So if you want the original one, BlairWitch.com slash project, and it's really cool.

It looks like it's made to look like the college students made this website. So it's here, you can click on mythology and it has this little timeline, looks very 90s. You can click on filmmakers and it has Heather, Mike, and Josh just like doing their thing. Isn't that fun? That's cool. So if we click on the mythology tab, straight from the website, the main pieces of information is it starts February 1785. Several children accuse Ellie Kedward of luring them into her home to draw blood from them. Kedward is folk is found guilty of witchcraft, banished from the village during a particularly harsh winter, and presumed dead. I read online that this original first part of the story was inspired by the Salem Witch trials and the crucible, the play.

Huh. Are we ever gonna watch the Salem Witch? Is that a That's an event in history? So there's no movie about that? No, but I mean I'm sure there is a apparently Salem at Halloween time is very fun. Yeah, I think there's Sal there's also, I think, a big museum there. You can go live the witch trials. Uh the next date is the very uh next year. It says by midwinter, all of Kedward's accusers, along with half of the town's children, vanish. Fearing a curse, the townspeople flee Blair and vow never to utter Ellie Kedward's name again. Then it skips forward to the founding of Burkettesville, which is where Blair was, and then it gets into the lore of Reston Parr, who is the hermit who lured children into his home and then admitted guilt, and found they found he'd murdered seven children in his basement.

And that's the main spooky part of the movie is that you know he'd have one face the wall, he'd murder the other, and then murder the other one. Here's the thing that I thought about it's an odd number of children. Yeah, plot hole. I noticed it's that too. I was like even number seven. Okay, so there was spook already happening. Well, it doesn't say anything on the website about how many children the Blair Witch took. Maybe that corresponds, I don't know. Because uh Parr, the hermit, said that he did it because a spirit, the witch's spirit, told him to. Do you think it's seven because maybe he's always luring someone else to take the spot? Oh, maybe.

Because, like, you know how they were going in there to rescue Josh, and then, you know, they get killed. But maybe, maybe Heather is actually still in there because she went after. Oh, that would explain the trailer that we watched. Mm-hmm. I see. Well, yeah, it looks like that's where Blair Witch 2016 uh picks up, is it's a guy who thinks that Heather Donahue is his sister and he's going back to try and find her. Exactly. That's why it's uneven. Hmm. Uh also like seven is a holy number, so maybe it's another like, you know, witchcraft is all about subverting religion. So maybe seven is just a number that they're making scary. Well, witchcraft isn't all about subverting religion, but kind of in fiction.

That's what I mean. I have to express my um get it off your chest. My emotions towards Heather. Oh my goodness. Let it out. I really don't like her. I said I thought you looked like her. I take offense to that. Offense noted. Yeah. I wrote it down to be revisited. If you want to see what I really look like, join our Patreon for our behind the scenes photo. Um, I don't look like her. I also think that she is incredibly obnoxious and just like talking the entire time to talk. But I also thought she's on a mission. You know when you just really want to get something done and everyone's heckling you? Everyone knows another in their life, and like if you're smart, you would have avoided her in your like seventh grade classroom.

I can empathize with her though, because I feel like you have this one shot, you've been worried. This is the biggest thing going on in your life. You have this one shot to get all these shots. You're not gonna let them go to waste. Yeah. If we were Mike, Heather, and Josh, who would we be? I would be Heather. He'd be Heather. That was an easy one. Josh? You you're Josh? Sure. I'll be the first one to go. No, you would be Mike. You'd be Mike because you'd get really aggravated about like the direction stuff really quickly. Yeah, well, I also would not get mad and throw the map down the river. So the jury's still out.

I think I would be Josh because I'd be the one who's like, let's just go, like, get on with it. You know? Yeah. I think I think those are safe roles. So you dislike Heather. I dislike her. Here's a fun fact. I don't love her, but the Blair Witch Project was nominated at the Razzie Awards in 2000 for Worst Picture. What? It did not win. And the winner of the Razzie Award for Worst Actress in 2000 was Heather Donahue. Oh my god. So you're right on the money there. That's hilarious. I didn't even know that existed. But this movie also won a lot of other things, like the Independent Spirit Awards in 2000. It won Best First Feature under$500,000.

So it's a really mixed bet. The budget was sixty thousand dollars. So really uh probably counting pennies there. Yeah. And then it grossed in the box office worldwide over 200 million. I feel like they probably could have made this whole movie on like 30,000. It's going back to that whole I know we've had this conversation before, but the whole genre of um I guess budget like you know like you know, we've talked before about like uh what like paranormal activities and those type of movies that are aren't they on like pretty slim budgets, but they know how to really like turn them. Uh well what I was thinking is we've talked before about movies like this with small budgets like Halloween or something like that, then inspiring more mainstream larger budget movies.

Uh I personally don't think looking through the history that Blair Witch really created a a trend in horror, even though it definitely is considered a more influential one, because found footage horror didn't really take off until paranormal activity hit in 2007, and then after that you have like Cloverfield and Rack and VHS and all these other ones. So I would consider found footage to be more of paranormal activity stake. She can be the worst actress of the year, she's still rolling, rolling in it. I think for yeah, we just well actually we started our stars free trial and watched it for free, but we would have had to have given her four dollars. No one eats for free.

Well, what I was going to say is I I I do think that they very well utilize their means here because it's spooky and you never see anything, but I felt creeped out the whole time. Yeah, I mean bundled sticks and teeth and formated stones. Yeah. I I do wish that there had been like one or two just little extra things. Like when they kept yelling for Josh and he kept yelling back in the distance. I thought one of the times when he yelled back it'd be really loud. Like it was right behind him. That would have been cool. I would have liked that. Like Caroline said, maybe if just once the camera had been like panning past and you just saw like a face or something.

Or just like a white like movement. I did read that one of the directors had a white costume that he wore, and at the end you were supposed to see him, but they just didn't get the shot. And they didn't refilm it. I think the house was interesting. Yeah, the house was scary. But I didn't get to see enough of it to like actually be scared. I was like, oh, we're moving, we're moving, we're moving, done. But what I liked about the house is that it was kind of also like the forest where I felt just as disoriented in the house, which at first when I saw it, I was like, finally, answers something stable that they can hook on to here, but inside the house, I was still kind of stressed out and confused.

That's exactly how I felt. And it felt like there were it felt like there were just endless floors. I I thought the same thing. I was like, hear him upstairs, I'm going. And then he got to the second floor. He's like, He's upstairs, I'm gone. And I was like, And then he's like, Wait, he's downstairs. And then she was like, Mike! And I was like, Oh my god. No wonder they can't get anything done. They're just yelling. I did, did you guys notice that like so we had footage from two cameras? Sometimes the audio was from the opposite camera. I noticed that at the end because um it seemed like all of the audio was from Mike's camera, even though they would switch to the view from Heather's sometimes.

Yeah. It was a little confusing. Are you sure it wasn't all from the audio guy? No, because sometimes it would be black and white and sometimes it'd be color, but the audio always had Heather in it at the a distance. Yeah. Yeah. I thought it was kind of interesting when um like the perspective of the camera would change. Like when Heather would be like when it would change to Heather being in frame. I felt like it was kind of like a treat every time we got to see Heather because you never saw her and very much, and then when you did see her face, it's like, oh, Heather. That's kind of how I feel like when I'm vlogging and I like it.

There's no treat seeing your face. If the camera like the camera gets switched and I'm not the one behind it. Yeah. It's like, ooh, I don't like this. Do you think that the black and white camera was like a really good camera? She kept being like, you gotta get it in 16. It was like actual picture. Yeah, it was film. Yeah. Yeah, but she was saying it like you like it was a lot better than another one. They had rented that camera specifically for the DOM. Yeah. Alright, I guess, yeah, you gotta get it on the good camera. Gotta get it on the good. And the audio equipment they had rented. Yeah, I kept trying to figure out what they were calling it.

Dad. Or I thought maybe it was bat. Oh, Dak. Dak? Quite honestly, I don't know what it means. They are not so fortunate to have their own audio equipment like us. And you know what? We need some new XLR cables. So if you get a chance, we could really use your support on Patreon. Uh Caroline, I thought you were going to bring up something. I was. Um please include that. I think. Okay, first of all, if we got lost in the woods like that, somehow, not I, just like the the map got lost. It was you. It was you. We found ourselves in a situation. There's no cell phone service. We we can't use our phones.

We D D in first. Our map gets lost. What's the strategy to get out? You know, the issue with that is we would never be in that position because I have a geolocator beacon that I would take with me. No, technology is damn. Yeah, it's 1999. We have no technology. We're college students, we got maps and compasses. What's your strategy to get out? Do you think there's a strategy to keep walking and eventually get out? Do you think that's a good strategy? I think it is. Also, I think following the the stream is a sound strategy. Do you think there was also a lot of like sitting around yelling at each other? Like we can yell at each other as we keep walking, you know?

Do you think that the Blair Witch was messing with their compass readings? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, so follow the stream. Yeah, there you go. I kept thinking you have flashlights. Why don't you just keep walking? I thought that too during the night. Do you think we'd need to stop and camp? Yeah. You don't want to be doing that at all. Yeah, I guess if you like fall down and hurt. Have you ever tried like hiking at night? Oh, and I'm an adventurer. I do all sorts of stuff. You have it. I hike super disorienting. Rock climb. I don't know. I play a lot of Lar Croft video games. Oh, yeah, then you're qualified for I know if there's a cliff, you just gotta jump to the next one.

And go, ah. It's super disorienting even if you don't have trees everywhere. So I can't imagine that's my only experience with night hiking. So Yeah, I just don't think how long were they out there? Was it six days, five, six days? Oh no. I just kept thinking, man, they gotta be hungry. They bought all that rice, but they were too afraid to light the fire. I think this is this movie's all about putting you in place of I I feel like it's like if you were to walk in the woods and come across stick figures hanging from trees. Yeah, I mean witches is probably not the first thing. I'd probably be like, oh cute. No, I've I've come across some weird stuff.

Like old abandoned, like hunting canopy thing. I think that's freaking creepy when you're like ten years old. Those are everywhere. No, but like old like shed ones made out of wood. I've come across like rusted out ovens. That's more creepy than the cabin? Maybe, you know, if I would have come across the house in the daytime, I would have been like, cute, an old preschool. Yeah, how cute. That's so nice. Yeah. I really am struggling to think of what to say about this movie. I'm never really at a loss for words. So the guy said the one mention that we got of the hermit who like was killing children. Didn't that happen like in the 50s?

Uh, it uh said 1940s. How old is this guy in the cabin? Well, the thing is is that they're it's all lore. He they're all sharing legends. What? Who's who's in the cabin killing people? It's the witch, we don't know. It's the it's a figment. Yeah, we don't know. It's a legend. Oh, I was thinking it was the man that like admitted that he was It's not like a real person. Oh yeah, that's what's scary, is that it's it's this like urban legend mythology stuff. And they're going to investigate like the truth behind the Blair Witch legend, and they just stumble upon something a little more real than anticipated. So I think we're not supposed to know the answers.

Alright. That's what's scary about it is that the lore is still, you know, still passed on and perpetuated through like us seeing the movie, and then you know, you tell other people. That's how our brilliant legends work. What how do you feel about the rock piles? Piles of rock, yeah. They're just there's really nothing to hard. Yeah, and here's what I want to hit on. Here's what I want to hit on. So uh the one of the famous scenes of this movie would be Heather's scene where she has the camera close up on her face. I'm scared to close my eyes. I'm scared to open them. I thought yeah, I thought that was pretty effective. You could see those tears welling up in her eyelids, and it wasn't like a lot of people.

I also couldn't stop like on her, I guess what is it, her right eye, like different lights that were moving in her eyeball. I thought maybe like she was gonna like that was I don't know, it was a pretty intense scene. I thought that that was going to be the last scene of the movie. Yeah, it could have been like she was gonna see something and scream, and then that was gonna be it. Yeah. Yep. No, I'm emoting what I feel like she could have emoted. She could have been like scene. Wow. Acting credits. Ian, you should have played Heather in this movie. If you would like a remake of this movie, shut up. Subscribe on Patreon.

How do you feel about um Mike and Mike not knowing the other two going into this project? Mike to me was the most irritating character. I didn't mind Heather. I was just like, this trouble causer. Not uh it's not just that he kicked the map into the creek, but it's that he's just yelling and heckling and just like, stop filming, move on. On his side though, Heather should have stopped filming at a certain She said it's all she had left. Disagree. But no, you can keep it. Yeah, if you're gonna die, if you're gonna die in a forest, if you're gonna die in a forest, you might as well get the footage. Yeah. And then you're gonna she probably didn't know, you know, but she was hoping maybe someone will find this, put it in theaters, and then I'll make 200 million dollars documentary.

I just kept thinking though, like, are you gonna stop talking long enough to breathe? Because it doesn't sound like it. It was just constant dial on. You just have an heather because you looked at her and you saw yourself so vividly in her that you just can't handle it. You're not gonna hate on Heather this whole time. Yeah, Carolyn, keep it going. What am I gonna say? I don't like her off the chest. I don't like her. And you're only putting this on me because I'm the only woman and I have brown hair. She's the only woman. That's what explains me and Ian not minding her and you hating her. Yeah. We're just man as Ian says.

No, this movie's the conspiracy. It was uh thought to be the earliest example of successful viral marketing because they they really utilized the you know new uh what do you call it? Internet? The new internet. They really utilized the internet uh up and coming, and at the time, you know, you couldn't research and just debunk something so quickly. What I think is so cool about this movie is that you couldn't replicate that marketing now. There's no Twitter. Yeah, I mean, even Sespiria from 2018, was that last year when we saw that? Yeah. They tried to play this hoax where Tilda Swinton, spoiler, plays a man in the movie, and they had him build like online as an actual German man that they had found to play this character.

And at an award ceremony, Tilda Swinton read a letter from the man being like, I'm sorry I couldn't be here for this awards ceremony. And so they tried to go so hard into this weird trick, and people from the beginning were like, No, that's Tilda Swinton. And they the uh Tilda Swinton got mad about it. She was like, Stop it, we're just trying to have fun, and nobody's letting us. So there's your proof. You wouldn't be able to pull off a trick like Blair Witch in 2019. Guys, challenge accepted. We're not gonna talk to you. We're not gonna talk to anyone that we know for like two weeks, and we're gonna go out in the woods and we're gonna film this.

You know, Heather Donahue actually said in an interview that her mother received like condolence cards and people would stop her in the street to be like, I'm so sorry that's your daughter. That's terrible. Do you think going to that point, do you think it's possible in a internet-driven world now that that type of hoax marketing could work in some form? Well, I think no, in the same way that like this worked because there was very little, I think it could benefit us that there are so many channels and like people would share so quickly. I think people are more likely to believe. But at the same time, if somebody was like, Caroline Lloyd is dead, there are just too many ways to easily track you down, or you know, you could be on someone else's like Instagram story, or like if even if people didn't know you, it'd be so easy to like find your Facebook page and confirmation.

And it could get stalker real quick. You gotta commit to it. I don't wanna I don't wanna fake my dad. Yeah, and then like imagine like if people, you know, we try and be so like don't share your personal information on the internet, but if someone really tried, they could probably find our address and find us so quickly. Don't don't put that in. But no, I'm just saying, like we talk about that a lot on here. I'm just saying, like, somebody could easily find that and camp out and be like, there's Caroline Lloyd, she's not dead. No shit. Shut up. It's the witch. Uh something I did think was kind of cool about this movie is that when the actors were called in to audition, uh the script called for them to mostly improvise most of what was said in the movie.

So they had to improvise in the audition, had to improvise in the movie, and they shot 20 hours of footage and had to cut it down. And what we had was an hour 20 minute movie. Can you imagine having 20 hours of video and somebody being like, Alright, you gotta come out of here with an hour and a half to be miserable. That's insane. I have trouble editing down our podcast from like an hour and a half to an hour every week just because I don't want to listen to it. It's insane because of the movie that we just watched, like 19 more hours of that. I mean, I imagine a lot of it is just like them walking.

Yeah. Something I was curious about is if they were really lost the entire time, do you think they were actually finding the landmarks they were looking for? Or do you think like the witch quotations was orchestrating these new landmarks for them to find? You know what I'm saying? I'd like to think that because they were like, let's find the graveyard. Did they actually find the graveyard, or did the witch create a graveyard for them to find? That didn't seem like a graveyard to me. Uh-uh. Well, I think the rocks were the graves that they were talking about. So I think the witch made I think the witch, I'd like to think the witch controlled the whole narrative.

I think also like when you're out in the woods, you like, if you're looking for something, you're like, that kind of looks like that. Sure, that's that kind of looks like sticks organized into a do you ever like like hiking trail markings on trees and stuff, and you're like, is that red or is that orange? Like, yeah, it's red. Sure. And it's actually orange, and then you see the red one later and you're like, man, I could have gotten really lost here. I'm just figuring out not to go anywhere with you, Caroline. That's all this conversation has gotten to me. I think the scariest part of the movie was the half-second of I think it was Mike standing in the corner with his face to the wall.

It all kind of comes like to you a after you see that, but that for me was what I was hoping we would get more throughout the film. Yeah. In spurts. But we didn't. Yeah, and I'm assuming that would mean that maybe Heather was murdered and Mike was next on the docket. I wish there was a way that they could have cut out of the movie that wasn't both of their cameras just dropping to the floor, you know? Or maybe I don't know. There's something more exciting that I that could have happened. Yeah. And I'm I'm not trying to be like 2019's way better than 1999. But you are kind of. No, I'm just saying I think they don't need to give me something more glamorous.

I think with the means they had, something more could have been done. Left me a little thirsty. Putting away all the um Blair Witch remakes or new fangled films. Yeah. Do you think this film, if done verbatim today, with today's technology? And I know it's kind of contradictory to the whole point of the film, do you think that would enhance it at all for you personally? Experience wise? Like if it was the exact same movie but it had been released now? Yeah, and it's done maybe in a more glammy. No, because it's not that the movie wasn't glamorous. I just think they could they they I kept thinking you can do what you're doing, but they didn't give us very much imagery to be afraid of throughout it, besides just the sticks and the rocks.

Yeah. The rest was purely in the brain. And I think that can be effective and it can be exciting, but they just asked us to rely on that for an hour and 20 minutes straight. And I just wanted a few things to more visually latch on to. I mean, for me, I thought the most exciting scene was in the tent when the tent was being rustled and they had to run out of the tent. I thought that to me was more exciting than the house. Yeah, I agree with that. Especially because I think the open space of the woods is more scary than the house, even though I said earlier that the house wasn't. I was a little disappointed that like more didn't happen in that scene.

Like they ran away and like that was it. But what does Blair even want? Like, it seems like she just wants to be a Her name's not even Blair. Blair Waldorf. Blair Witchdorf. We really don't see anybody get murdered. So what's your most memorable moment? I really kind of liked the sticks with the teeth in it. Ugh. Something about you just speaking right now just is putting me off. Really creepy. You've become Heather. Every time you talk, I'm just like her again. Come out. I'm out. I think my one of the most memorable points, curveball here, is when they actually go to the older lady's home and get her insight into what she's seen. The ballarina.

Yeah. Yeah, she saw that was quite eerie. Very hairy person. Yeah. But what I didn't like about that port is that Heather was not doing her job in the sense that she was like interrupting, that's what I thought was annoying, was everything the woman said, Heather was like, Right. Yeah. Uh-huh. But the face? Yeah. In the shot. I was like, Oh my god, let her tell you. Yeah, Harry Body. Like you just led the answers, and it's like Yeah. I think my favorite scene was Heather speaking. End of the camera. I thought I liked all the characters, and I think his strength of the movie was that they did things that were were believable. Like I was never like, ugh, don't go in there.

Like I was like, Yeah, I'd definitely go into that house if I heard Josh screaming out. That is true. That's a it it was a very believable. Yeah, I and I think for what the premise was that it's footage that someone actually found from this crew, I totally could have been tricked in '99. I would have been like, oh my god, I just saw someone die. Yeah, I don't think they ever like I was actively looking for during while we were watching the movie, I was actively looking for moments where if I were in theaters watching that when it came out, I'd be like, oh, that's where it breaks for me. That's where it goes from home footage to um movie.

Kind of movie-esque. So I think they did a good job. Sure, it was like very like cut well and like do you think if we'd seen something more exciting, like we were asking. It would have ruined it. It would have ruined it. It would have ruined it. And that's why I don't think they did it. So it was like a chicken and the egg. See, yeah, maybe we want something, but we just don't know what's good for us. Exactly. Caroline, any thoughts? No, yeah, I don't want to hear it. Am I allowed to speak? No, I don't think so. I mean, Caroline. Alright, so on a scary scale, one to five, what would you rate this movie?

I gotta be honest. Be honest. We didn't come on here for lies. I'm gonna give this a two. Okay. I mean, that's not nothing. But that's under the pretext that it is 2019 going into it with much less than someone going into it in 99. Yeah. Much less build-up. I think I'm gonna give it uh I'm back and forth between a three and a three and a half. Okay. I think um halves. Yeah, let's I'll I'll go with a three then. Because I I don't want to give it a four. But I'm gonna give it a three because I think my experience, I s surprised myself because for as many times as I thought, like, I'm not really scared right now.

By the end, I was, and I don't know when I started being scared, but by the end, I was like, oh, I am unsettled. So it snuck up on me. Caroline sly bitch. Going with a three. Oh wow, copycat, I see. Yeah. If I could have done a 2.5, I I would have. You're the one who just says no hats. I know. I know. If you would have gotten away with a 3.5, I would have gotten away with a 2.5. But 3.5. You're the one making the roll. It makes it easier. It makes it easier. If you want Caroline off of the podcast, donate to our Patreon. Garbage without me. Garbage. Oh my god. Okay, well, explain that to.

You know those things in theater, the the hooks that they would like put around the neck to pull them off stage. This whole episode is just hating on me. Tomatoes. I'm throwing tomatoes. I gave it a three. If anyone cares to know, DM me on Instagram because apparently I can't talk on here. Oh, you're just thirsty for the followers. Everybody go. I gave it a three because I kept waiting for something scary to happen, and that and alone was like a little bit titling. But it never happened, so it let me down. So down to a three. So it was scary because it wasn't scary, but she thought it was going to be scary. No, no, no.

That was my reason for going to the middle. I think that's okay. Yeah. I'll let it pass. Thank you, Ian. Caroline, you're on thin ice here. Titillating ice. Alright. So final thought. Would you give this movie a smash or a slash? I would give it a smash. What kind of smash? I would give it a like just a smash. No, just just no frills, no second call, smash. I think I'm not a huge it's not like the best movie ever, in my opinion. It's not even like the, you know. But I think everyone everyone needs to see it. You need to see it, and then you need to move on with your life. Smash. I'm gonna give it a slash.

I think I got a little bit of vertigo watching it. Um it was a little bit too shaky for me, and it was kind of a tease. It was a real tease. And you don't like Heather. Yeah, and I hate Heather. Hey, um Parker. I was just Caroline. I hate Heather! Yeah, the Heather, what's your stance on her? Please. Slash. Wow. Violent all of a sudden. Um, I'm going to give the movie Smash. Similarly to Ian, I am glad that I watched it. And like I said, for some reason I just really liked it, and I couldn't express in words why. It just felt like a very cozy movie to be watching tonight. But um, it was one that I always thought, you know, I don't think that movie is going to speak to me, even though I've heard it's good.

And it didn't necessarily speak to me. But I am, yeah, I I was pleasantly surprised. I liked it more than I thought than I thought I would. So I kind of went in negative and I came out on the positive side of indifferent. Yeah. That's exactly how I feel. All that said, again a nail biter this week. But what's your favorite scary movie? Well, I it's gonna come as no surprise, but my favorite scary movie is The Shining. Sticking with the Shining. Yeah, and I mean a slip a what? I'm gonna stick with Doctor Sleep for this week. Next week, we're sticking to a bit of a theme here, and we're going to watch 2015's The Witch.

Hmm. I want a good witch movie. I'm craving a good witch movie. Is this Salem? Don't ask me questions until I've done the research. This isn't the witch episode. Well, Ian, I specifically put this movie on the program because I thought Ian will like this. This one? No, the witch. Oh, next week. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't want to overhype it because if you don't like it, then sorry. But um, yeah, I specifically put this on. And if you are craving more witch than you got tonight, then you might just get more witch next week. Fuck yeah. And you as well, listener, will get more witch when you tune in to our episode on the witch.

Until then, you can head on over to Apple Podcasts, leave us a rating and a review, and you might just hear us screaming over the airwaves. And like we said, just a little thing happening right now called our new Patreon page. So get on there, get your fix of what's your favorite scary movie, and exciting things coming in the future. Yeah, we're super excited. You're gonna keep keep hearing us talk about it. We're gonna keep giving you little uh little pieces of titillating uh content to try and get you over there because we think it's worth it. We're excited to start diving in deeper. My name is Parker Heron. You can find me on Instagram, Twitter, Letterboxd, and the slasher app at Parker Delray.

My name is Caroline, you can find me uh on Instagram at Carol Manifesto. And my name is Ian Hoyt, you can find me on YouTube and Instagram at Ian I-A-N Hoyt H O Y T. Caroline, you're trash. Um really not feeling loved this episode. And you can find the entire crew on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram at Scarymovie Pod. You can find our website with calendar and reviews and more news at scary moviepod dot com. You can send us an email if you have thoughts at Scarymoviepod at gmail dot com. And guess what? You can also find us on patreon.com slash scary movie pod.