Blair Witch Project Trivia: 18 REAL facts about the movie!

The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American found footage psychological horror film written, directed, and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez and produced by Haxan Films. Let’s see some amazing facts and trivia about it!

1. The film relates the fictional story of three student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard) who hike in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch.

2. The movie’s opening text says that the three disappeared, and that their video and sound equipment (along with most of the footage they shot) was discovered a year later; this “recovered footage” is the film the viewer is watching

3. This film was in the Guinness Book of World Records for “Top Budget: Box Office Ratio” (for a mainstream feature film). The film cost $22,000 to make and made back $240.5 million, a ratio of $1 spent for every $10,931 made.

4.  Numerous fans were so convinced of the Blair Witch’s existence that they flocked to Maryland in hopes of discovering the legend. They apparently did not read the closing credits of the fil.

5. Actually the 1999-2000 hunting season suffered badly, due to this film. The movie was so popular that fans all over the country were hiking into the wilderness to shoot their own Blair Witch-style documentaries.

6. As a result, they kept most of the wildlife scared away from hunting areas.

7. The 3 actors, Joshua, Heather and Michael, were only given a 35-page outline of the plot before shooting began. They improvised their lines and most of the on-camera events were surprises to them.

8. Remember the scene where they’re sleeping in a tent and the tent suddenly shakes and they’re all scared? Their reactions were genuine because it was unscripted. It was the director who shook the tent!

9. When Heather O’Donohue screams “What the f**k is that?”, she’s actually looking at the film’s art director Ricardo Moreno, dressed in white long-johns, white stockings and white pantyhose pulled over his head. Terrifying, right?

10. The footage was originally much higher quality, but was deliberately deteriorated to look more authentic for the 1994 setting it was allegedly shot in.

11. Heather thought her whole face was in the shot during her now infamous snot-filled closeup (above). It wasn’t, but the directors love how it turned out.

12. The directors kept in touch with actors Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard with walkie-talkies, to ensure the three would not become lost during their trek. Reportedly, they got lost at least three times.

13. To promote discord between actors, the directors deliberately gave them less food each day of shooting.

14. Many people believed the film was real and that the three actors were dead: The viral marketing campaign was so convincing that many people thought the film was real and more of a documentary than a movie. Once it was over, there was a lot of concern raised by movie-goers who truly thought that Heather, Mike, and Josh were dead.

15. The first cut of Blair Witch to be screened was 2.5 hours in length.

16. This film uses the word “fuck” 154 times.

17. SPOILER: The teeth found by Heather near the end (supposedly Josh’ teeth) were real human teeth, supplied by director Eduardo Sánchez’s dentist.

18. There was indeed a safety word: Considering the majority of the film was improvised, there was some difficulty knowing when they were acting and when everyone was just talking. In order to break character, the cast members would have to first say “taco.