- March 2000
 One of the biggest film phenomenons has been The Blair Witch Phenomenon. Since it's release, actually since it's first marketing appearance, the Blair Witch has now become part of American folklore. People want to believe in something. UFOs and ghosts are so scattered and diluted in the media but the Blair Witch experience, now that was real. It had to be. It was on film by "actual" filmmakers who disappeared. Or so we were all lead to believe.
The biggest blunder that the public made was one that magicians use to their advantage throughout history - creating the illusion that you think you see something that isn't there. In this case, the missing ingredient to the "true" story was the actual word "TRUE". Everyone believed that the original ad said "true story" when, in fact, it never said any such thing. It merely said, "this is the story of...". The pulic wants to believe in something unbelievable so bad that they have allowed the Blair Witch to become entwined in our psychis.
What makes the Blair Witch phenomenon work so well?
- First was the advertising. It came out of nowhere on a whim. It was just a website that had stuff added to it every so often. Just like the film, the story was created as it went along. In the KAOS2000 interview with Heather Donohue, she talks about how they were to improvise on basic daily ideas. They created much of the story while on camera. The website was dark, it was ominous and it was spooky, but most of all, it seemed to almost reach out to touch the hearts of the public. In a modern day world of violence and kidnapping, here was a supposedly true news story - replete with sheriff's "testimony's" - about the disappearance of three college kids who were only out doing a project. The public wants to know what happened. We are so conditioned to watching the news and being strung along with misery stories that we had to know, nay, demanded to know what happened to these poor kids.
How did the film create such an impact?
- When the film came out, the marketing had done it's proper job. It had created such a buzz that rivaled only the Clinton Forni-gate trials. People were curious. The film had all the look - the grainy film, the video and the realism of three kids out in the woods, lost. Was it real? How could we know? It never stated anywhere that it was not a fake story. Only the wisest caught on that it never claimed to be real. So, we should cautiously assume that it "could" be real. Everyone got to talking with their friends and the word spread. There were no answers so people kept coming to the theaters.
What should have just been a fun, yet grueling, student project had become a huge blockbuster that made a lot of money. The sad part is, even after visitors to the Heather Donohue interview get finished reading all about how she is alive and well and fully describing how the entire film was completely made-up, we at the magazine still get emails that ask "Is the Blair Witch true though? What part of the Blair Witch is true?" You can shove the truth hard in someone's face but they still choose to live in the more colorful fantasy. So the question comes to mind - How long before the public settles down and the easily illusioned come back to reality? Perhaps never.
Written by Philip Anderson
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Philip Anderson is a musician, in addition to being a writer/photographer. He has performed as a guitarist/vocalist, as well as songwriter, in several bands over the past 20 years. As a writer and photographer, he has been published by several magazines and in several books, and had his works appear on television. |
