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Funny I thought it was misleading. I fell for the hype. I haven't done that since the Blair's Witch Project http://www.blairwitch.com/ and other info here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0185937/ Either way I just looked it up and the domain name was created on 2011/07/14 UTC. So if they have been around wouldn't they have been on the web a lot sooner, since they were to have been an intuition about the web?

Maybe they can use this device to finally find those poor kids out in the woods near Burkittsville, MD. They've been missing since 1994, I understand.

I agree with the parent. There are only so many Blair Witch Projects one can take!

http://www.blairwitch.com/

If you want to see the website, and don't want or can't use the plugin that the main page requires, go to http://www.blairwitch.com/mythology.html, you can access the content of the site without needing plugins (just don't hit the "Home" link).

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*** MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD ***




*** READ AT YOUR OWN RISK ***

One of the best (and most objectionable) parts of this movie is the amount of effort put into the backstory. After I saw the movie I checked out the web page to see what else was there. On the site have the a timeline describing the Blair Witch legend from its supposed beginning in the late 18th century. A lot of the gaps from the movie are filled in by the site. The amount of effort put into it is staggering, including faked interviews with the child-killing hermit, police evidence film of the "found" tapes, and interviews with one of the mothers.

My biggest problem with the movie was that none of this material was included in the film. The site has footage of the hermit talking about the 'voices' that made him kill the children and his description of what sounds like the Blair Witch. This could have easily been included without loosing the documentary feel of the film (have Heather mention it, or show it to one of the guys). The house at the end of the movie is supposed to be his. The last scene of the movie takes place in the same cellar where the children were killed. Most people who I've talked to who saw the movie didn't get the significance of Matt standing in the corner till I told them. Any mention of this earlier in the movie would have made it twice as scary.

If you haven't seen the site yet, do so now. To put it simply: after I saw the movie I was scared, after I saw the website I was terrified.

Neal

The SciFi Channel is running a special called The Curse of the Blair Witch. I waited until after seeing the movie to watch it, because I feared spoilers. However, I wish I had watched it first, because it filled in the backstory quite a bit and made things somewhat clearer.

The special is in the style of a one-hour documentary almost like that old Leonard Nimoy series, "In Search Of...". The story of the original Blair Witch and the other spooky happenings in the area is told by splicing together a bunch of (fictional) interviews. They talked to Burkittsville townspeople, Mike's brother, the sheriff, the town historian, and experts on witchcraft. By far, the most colorful character was a 1970s hippie-type witch that came from (fictional) footage from 1971. There are also (fictional) local news reports and clips from the movie. (Some of this is available on the BWP Web site.

The style of the special makes it seem just like a real news program, so unfortunately it won't do much to disabuse people of the misconception that the events of the BWP are real.

According to the _Curse of the Blair Witch_ special, the original Blair Witch was the influence behind all the freaky things that happened in the woods: the men killed in the search party, the 1940s child killer, and even more stuff. The final scenes of the movie appear to draw from several different legends, but the special makes it clear that they're all deeply intertwingled.

I was actually pretty impressed with the movie.. although when it ended I was like "woah, that's the end?" I was expecting alot of news coverage afterward and maybe some freaky stuff about when they found the film. But I like it.

Then I went to the website. This website was very well done in support of this flick. They made a complete mythology and gave hints of the characters lives outside of what you see in the movie. They have interviews with the investigators and the parents. They even have Heather's Journal, complete with all of the "been rotting in a duffle bag under a cabin for a year" look.

Make sure and check it out.
www.blairwitch.com

I loved the Blair Witch project. Amazing movie, very unique, extremely powerful, quite impressive.

But.

I am incredibly disturbed by the complete and utter lack of attention being given the lead players in Blair Witch. While I fully accept that directors can be shortchanged in the media spotlight, Mike, Josh, and Heather did an *amazing* job.

First, these three acted excellently, with far more convincing performances than you're likely to see from most. Did anyone for a second not completely believe their *confusion*, their distrust, their pure fear? The directors did an outstanding job creating an environment in which the actors could shine, but we should not ignore the fact that these actors did shine, quite outstandingly.

They also spoke a damn nice script, considering their was no script to speak from. Again, the directors did beautifully defining scene outlines, but as Hollywood has much trouble learning, good storyboards do not a compelling story make. Edited with oscar-worthy aplomb, the cast's dialogue, while hokey at times, reflected the nature of stranded, real people in the middle of a disturbingly surreal environment.

Speaking of the editing, have we forgotten that the filmwork of the entire movie was also executed beautifully by these three? Granted, the footage would have worked *awfully* without the amazing work of the directors and editors, but done right their work was critical to the success of this film.

I don't want to take away from the stellar performance of the directors. But Heather, Josh, and Mike deserve more than they're getting.

Of course, there's a reason they're being left out of the loop(for now): The marketroids want people to believe the movie is real.

This happens to be a good thing.

Now I know this is going to make some of you yell and scream, but the fact was if I could have seen this two months ago with absolutely no prior knowledge, I would have been scared out of my fucking mind. Suspension of disbelief is far easier when there's no disbelief to suspend, and while it's somewhat dishonest, it's dishonesty in an environment where the entire industry is built upon creating the most convincing lies possible. Arnold Schwartzenegger is not a cyborg creature sent back through time, and Shitbrick didn't get it on with Stiffler's Mom.

Blair Witch bent the rules. Consider how much more they could have broken them. They could have divulged that BW was fake in September(imagine how pissed you'd be!). The way they did it, everybody going to the movie sorta heard some people saying it was real and some people not--not altogether perfect, but a giant aid to suspending disbelief and a huge contributor to the success of the movie.

If one of the big studios tried this, they'd hang us out to dry with their ability to simultaneously assail the public with their "this is a true story!!!!!!" message, unrebutted, on all media fronts. There would be no doubt, no undercurrent of truth. It'd be so overdone, so disastrous-in-retrospect, that the studio would have no choice but to attempt to suppress any news that the original movie was fake.

I don't have much more faith in the Big Studio's plans for harvesting Net sentiment. Blair Witch and The Matrix have set the standard for what makes an excellent movie site. (The Matrix comic strips, incidentally, are required viewing for any Matrix fan. They add to the movie immensely, and increase my respect for the universe they've developed immensely.)

If the Studio's can actually express more originality than they could press onto the Celluloid into the web site, great. I'm just afraid of fake web sites, fake web rings, and most of all, fake "o i saw this movie it r000led O MY GOD JOHN DOECAPRIO IS SOOOOOO HOT!" manufactured 15 year old geocities pages that are really hacked together by some marketroid committee.

What do they have to lose? The worst they could do is discredit the Internet as a medium for movie discussion...which hurts them, how? If they can't own it...destroy it.

I know not everybody in Hollywood thinks this way. I know that there are some very hard working and ethical people out there.

I also know that there a very real chance that the three actors/screenwriters/camerapeople will get shortchanged by a media looking to move on to some new summer flick. This must not occur. Sooner or later, the Blair Witch Three need to be recognized for their excellent work. It's only fair.

I've talked long enough. What do the rest of you have to say?

Yours Truly,

Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com


Once you pull the pin, Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend.

One of the reasons TBWP "already had so much positive buzz" was *because* of the astroturfing. Then again, I stumbled on the official website months ago, and it made me vow to see the movie when it came out. I think I'm going tonight.