Oct. 24, 2025

Cutting Deep into Horror | The Blair Witch Project (1999) — Folklore & Fear for the Spooky Season

Cutting Deep into Horror | The Blair Witch Project (1999) — Folklore & Fear for the Spooky Season
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A must-add for any Halloween watchlist: The Blair Witch Project (1999) gets the full Cutting Deep into Horror treatment with hosts Henrique Couto & Rachael Redolfi, diving into why this low-budget phenomenon rewired horror audiences and turbo-charged found-footage storytelling.

We unpack its unsettling folklore, improvisational performances, and the way fear, survival, and group dynamics collapse in the Burkittsville woods.

Directed by Daniel Myrick & Eduardo Sánchez, this cult landmark still crawls under the skin more than two decades later.   

Inside this episode

  • Into the Woods — Setting the stage: Burkittsville mythos and mood. 
  • The Horror of Found Footage — Why vérité camera work amplifies dread. 
  • The Blair Witch Legacy — How a micro-budget classic changed horror. 
  • Early Found-Footage Roots — What came before—and what Blair perfected. 
  • Rustin Parr & Local Lore — Myth-building that feels dangerously real. 
  • The Disappearing Map → The House in the Woods → Final Confrontation — Beat-by-beat tension to that chilling last image. 
  • Theories & Interpretations — Time loops, ritual hints, and ambiguous terror. 
Where to Watch:


🎧 LISTEN NOW and subscribe for spine-tingling horror stories every week!

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👉 WeeklySpooky.com/Join

📬 Contact Us / Submit Your Horror Story!

🎵 Music by Ray Mattis 👉 Check out Ray’s incredible work here !
👨‍💼 Executive Producers: Rob Fields, Bobbletopia.com
🎥 Produced by: Daniel Wilder
🌐 Explore more terrifying tales at: WeeklySpooky.com
WEBVTT

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Excuse me, miss? What seems to bring you to the

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forest tonight?

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Oh? Just looking around? You know, it's beautiful night. I fine,

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look at the stars.

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Why Okay, you're not You're not trying to creep yourself

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out because it's nearly Halloween or anything like that.

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No, just looking for a nice peaceful time, you know.

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Oh I'm sorry, where are my manners? I'm the Blair Witch.

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It's nice to meet you.

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Oh that's a very interesting name. Is that Polish?

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It is? Yes, my father was Polish and my mother wasn't.

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That's an interesting way of putting it.

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Okay, you clearly have opinions about me.

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It's just weird. You came up like right on me.

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Well, I'm not trying to be aggressive, but I live

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in the woods, obviously.

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I think I'm gonna go oh okay.

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I mean what what about me was rude? I don't

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understand it.

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Just like if if you live out here, I feel

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bad intruding on your Well.

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The entire woods is my domain and dominion, just as

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it is the birds and the bees and the hummingbirds

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as well, which is another kind of bird.

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Yeah, that's why I you know, I I think that

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I should Wow, what's that on the ground? How'd that

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get there?

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Well? I put it there because this is my dominion

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it but yeah.

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But it wasn't here when I was like, how'd you

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get that there?

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No? I mean, a witch never reveals his secrets, but

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I have my ways. You saw that movie, didn't you?

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Everyone saw the movie which which, yes, the Witch movie.

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There's several though, which one though.

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If you're going to be obtuse like this, I'll just

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have to make you get lost out here until you

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go mad and die in some strange way.

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That's why I'm leaving now.

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Right, that's why you're leaving. I'm winking at you a big,

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big wink. Uh. I'm so lowly.

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This podcast is about why horror scares us, what deep,

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dark secret scary cinema shines a light on. The discussions

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are frank and involve conversations about abuse, trauma, and mental health.

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There are also spoilers, so keep that in mind too. Now,

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sharpen your machetes and straight raisers, because this is cutting

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deep into horror.

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Hello, my spookies, and welcome back to cutting deep into horror.

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I am, of course, what's that? What's that?

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Scared? Was really goofy to me?

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What was a goofy about it? I was trying to

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get across that the Blair Witch is unfairly maligned in

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today's society.

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I get that. No, thank you, do you? Thank you

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for standing up for the rights of which Americans everywhere?

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I try, I try my best. But anyway, I'm your host,

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Enrique Kuto of course, here with my co host on

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cutting deep into horror, Rachel Ridolfi. Rachel, how are you?

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I'm doing pretty all right?

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Good, good, good October. We're nearly through it. It's hard

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to believe it not for me. It's been like a

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time war. Things are moving so fast, so often it

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feels like but this is airing on the twenty fourth

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of October, so we're nearly to the big day. We're

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a week away from the big day. And tonight we're

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talking about one of the first horror movies I remember

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seeing in the theater that scared me very very much,

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A movie that was very polarizing in the back in

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the day. But I don't know that it's so polarizing now.

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I think most people, most people just like nineteen ninety

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nine's The blair Witch Project. I think they just dig

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it now, but there was a long period of time

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where they did not. I remember as far back as

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maybe twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, there was a lot of

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malignment towards found footage movies in general, and that really

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died out. Yeah. I remember in twenty fourteen when I

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wanted to make my first found footage movie, which ended

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up being Alone in the Ghost House. I actually like

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put it to Facebook it said, like, would you guys

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be like down if I made a found footage because

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people there were a lot of people were like I

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hate them, I never watch them. That mentality is like

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gone now, yeah, it really is completely gone. So and

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I'm glad because found footage is not only a very

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valid storytelling technique for filmmaking, but it's also one that's

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very cost effective, which is important if you're going to

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democratize the art form. And then on top of that,

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it's really nothing that different. Like Dracula, the book by

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Brown Stoker is a found footage book. It's a diary.

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Yeah. Yeah.

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There are tons of famous books, especially in the horror genre,

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that are reading diary entries. And the entire point of

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reading a air quote diary is that it really happened

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and you're reading the record of it. It has dates

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and times on it. It is a found footage movie.

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It's just a found footage book. Yeah. Absolutely, So with

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that all being said, the Blair Witch Project was not,

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by any means the first found footage movie, not at all.

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There were many precursors to it, some of them more

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famous than others. One of the absolute most famous films

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of all time that was technically a found footage movie.

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And I guess we should explain what a found footage.

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Movie is for those who don't know well, and.

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More so for the sake of the discussion. But found

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footage and this is something I'm very passionate about because

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I love what you can do with the found footage subgenre.

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I think that it's a very exciting way to tell

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a story and it's very accessible. And as time has

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gone on, people have only gotten more used to literally

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watching raw footage on their own phones, so it's even

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more comfortable to watch raw footage of a movie of

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a story being told exactly. But so for the for

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this case, it's basically having a film presented to you

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as actual footage discovered and shown to you of something

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that happened. That's probably pretty terrible. And although I will

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say it's thinly a found footage movie, it is a

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found footage movie would be nineteen eighties Cannibal Holocaust.

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I'm glad you brought that up because I was gonna

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talk about that.

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It's one of my favorite horror films. I know it

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sounds like and it is. I mean, it's a disgusting, nasty,

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Italian cannibal horror movie. But it has a lot to

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say about the media. It has a lot to say

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about the involvement of well to do first world people

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who go into the third world and just start messing

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things up. It has a lot to say about presenting

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yourself as virtuous when you're not. Cannibal Holocaust has so

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much going on for it. Directed by Rigio Dia Dado

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Italian film and I've always loved the movie, even though

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it can be hard to stomach at times, and it's

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literally about a documentary crew going into the Amazon and

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never getting out and then their footage being found. The

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difference between this and kind of the more modern era

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of found footage movies is that is that in the

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film there is a like narrative movie where they are

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viewing the found footage, the footage that is discovered, right,

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and that is a major delineation. And there are a

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few others like that, because then the found footage movie

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has a cousin, which is the mockumentary. Yes, the mockumentary

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or fake documentary is a whole other ballgame, but very similar.

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Blair Witch Project starts as kind of a mockumentary of sorts,

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but it devolves into raw footage of scary shit, right,

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and honestly, found footage movies I find much scarier than

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a mockumentary in general. Well, it's more intimate, well true, no, absolutely,

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And on top of that, Blair Witch Project had one

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of the best mockumentaries of all time as it's marketing,

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which was the Curse of the Blair Witch The Sci

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Fi Channel special TV specials like forty four Minutes that

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they ran add nauseum on the Sci Fi Channel leading

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up to the release of The Blair Witch Project. And

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I watched that must have been five or six times

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on TV before I went to see the movie, and

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it got me scared.

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It's scary, it's spooky.

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It's a really spooky and fascinating dive into the mythos

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that the filmmaking team went really hard into creating. And

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we'll talk a little bit more about found footage films

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and then get into the Blair Witch project right after this.

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So after Cannibal Holocaust and I'm sure I'm missing something,

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I'm going relatively off the top of my head. I

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don't have like a Google list in front of me

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or a chatch ept research thing in front of me.

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One of the next contenders for early version of a

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found footage movie to go at least moderately mainstream is

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nineteen ninety two's Man Bites Dog. Have you ever seen

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Man Bytes Dog?

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No, but I feel like I've heard of it.

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It's a very interesting movie. It followed. The film follows

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a crew of filmmakers who are following a serial killer,

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recording his horrific crimes for a documentary they're producing. At

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first dispassionate observers, they find themselves increasingly caught up in

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the chaotic and nihilistic violence, eventually becoming accomplices who It's

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really good. It's a Belgium movie, of course it is,

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and very similar to Man BYTE's Dog. There was a

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much smaller budget American movie around the same time called

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America's Deadliest home Video, which doesn't even have a Wikipedia page,

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so I'm trying to figure out what year that came out.

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I think it was ninety three or ninety four, obviously

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playing on America's most are not funniest home videos. Yeah,

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but it stars Danny Bonaducci, of all people, from from

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Gosh It Okay nineteen ninety three, so it's very similar

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to Man Bites Dog. I don't think it's ripping it off,

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but it could be. But yeah, Danny Bonaducci from Oh

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what's that show with the kids in the school bus?

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The Partridge Family. Oh, and it's actually very good. It's

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a man videotaping a road trip, although that's not really

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perfectly described, is taken hostage by three criminals and forced

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to tape their crime spree, including robberies and murder. Ooh yeah,

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and it's actually like really fun, it's really sleazy. Well yeah,

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and it works very very well. So that's another one

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that's that's really really fun. I was actually involved in

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the remastering of that movie to come out on home video,

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and now it's out through our buddies at Terror Vision,

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which you can find at terror dot Vision dot com.

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They put out the Blu ray. But so you had

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ban BYTE's Dog, you had America's Deadliest Home Video, and

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there were a few other ones I'm sure that I'm

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not remembering. And then you come up to the blair

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Witch Project in nineteen ninety nine. But what's really interesting

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is in nineteen ninety eight there was an independent film

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released called The Last Broadcast, And when blair Witch was

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coming out, everyone was talking about how The Last Broadcast

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was very similar to the blair Witch Project. They were

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both made in the same part of the country around

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the same time. But and it's a big butt. The

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Last Broadcast is a mock youmentary.

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Right, there's a difference.

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It's not really a found footage movie. It's like it's

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put together. It's clearly edited all the way through. But

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I do like it, and it works really well, and

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it's this is so stupid. It says the film is

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credited as the first feature on length film shot on

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and edited entirely on consumer level digital equipment. That's not true,

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not in nineteen ninety eight. I knew people doing it

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in ninety seven. But uh yeah, let's see, uh told

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in a pseudo documentary format and employing found footage technique.

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The fictional film appears to tell the story of a

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man convicted of in nineteen ninety five of murdering the

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members of his team during an expedition to find the

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mythic Jersey Devil in the New Jersey Pine barrens. Ooh,

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it's a really fun one. It really is. It's not

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the Blair Witch Project though it's it's honestly, it's it's

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more glossy, and in that way it makes it less interesting.

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I get that, but I do love it. I do

225
00:13:41.039 --> 00:13:43.799
think that the Last Broadcast is a worthwhile movie. But

226
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people were just all over saying this knocked off the

227
00:13:47.480 --> 00:13:50.360
blair Witch Project, this did this, this did that, which

228
00:13:50.639 --> 00:13:52.919
caused me to go to my local Hollywood Video and

229
00:13:52.960 --> 00:13:55.519
rent it because they didn't have it at Blockbuster, but

230
00:13:55.559 --> 00:13:57.759
they had at Hollywood Video. So I rented and watched it.

231
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I liked it, but it was not the Blair Project.

232
00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:03.399
It was much more like Curse of the blair Witch. Okay,

233
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I will say I hated the very ending though, but

234
00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:08.480
that's I don't want to spoil it, even though the

235
00:14:08.480 --> 00:14:12.200
movie's very old at this point. But it's a pretty

236
00:14:12.200 --> 00:14:15.120
good one. So, and then The Blair Witch Project comes

237
00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.679
out in nineteen ninety nine, and basically it basically gives

238
00:14:18.759 --> 00:14:22.600
us the concept of found footage, almost a blueprint in

239
00:14:22.679 --> 00:14:26.440
many ways up until Paranormal Activity then takes it one

240
00:14:26.480 --> 00:14:29.000
step further. And there are a lot of great I'll

241
00:14:29.000 --> 00:14:30.120
never be able to name them all. There are a

242
00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:32.159
lot of great found footage movies out there that are

243
00:14:32.200 --> 00:14:38.399
really interesting. Paranormal Activity obviously, that's a pretty pretty solid one. Wreck. Yeah,

244
00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:39.440
have they showed you Wreck?

245
00:14:39.759 --> 00:14:41.519
No, But you've talked about it, so we need to

246
00:14:41.559 --> 00:14:42.240
watch it since.

247
00:14:42.159 --> 00:14:44.759
I have the box set. Oh, it's a Spanish found

248
00:14:44.759 --> 00:14:48.559
footage movie about a news reporter who gets caught in

249
00:14:48.600 --> 00:14:52.399
the middle of the zombie virus beginning the world ended.

250
00:14:52.879 --> 00:14:56.840
It's super good. The second one is also pretty damn good.

251
00:14:57.159 --> 00:14:58.639
I don't know if i've I don't think I've seen

252
00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:00.159
the third and fourth ones though, but I have the

253
00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:02.679
box set. But Reck is a really good one. It

254
00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:07.600
was remade into the film Quarantine in America. Okay, and

255
00:15:07.720 --> 00:15:10.399
Quarantine's all right, but rec was way better. It's rec

256
00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:13.799
r e C like record rec. Yeah. I was always

257
00:15:13.799 --> 00:15:15.320
confused with people to say, oh, have you seen rec

258
00:15:15.360 --> 00:15:18.679
and it'd be like, what like WRC cam, Yeah, that's

259
00:15:18.679 --> 00:15:20.919
what I thought they were talking about. So but yeah,

260
00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:25.399
So that's my little, like early diatribe about found footage.

261
00:15:25.840 --> 00:15:28.320
I think there's a lot to love about found footage

262
00:15:28.360 --> 00:15:32.200
as a filmmaking style, at whether you're making the movies

263
00:15:32.279 --> 00:15:34.679
or you're viewing them. I think there's a lot to

264
00:15:34.799 --> 00:15:38.200
enjoy about it. I think just the fact that as

265
00:15:38.240 --> 00:15:43.320
you're watching, as you're watching the camera pan around, you're

266
00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:45.639
constantly thinking about what you're not able to see or

267
00:15:45.679 --> 00:15:50.120
what you're about to see. Yes, because it feels more random,

268
00:15:50.519 --> 00:15:52.960
even though you know it's not. Then if it was

269
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a scene being cut together bouncing between cameras, where you're like, oh, yeah,

270
00:15:56.399 --> 00:15:58.759
of course here comes the scare. In this way, you're

271
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like every time the cameras pan around, you're like, what

272
00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:01.600
am I gonna see? What am I going to see? Oh?

273
00:16:01.600 --> 00:16:02.799
Did I see something? Was that something great?

274
00:16:02.799 --> 00:16:03.000
There?

275
00:16:03.200 --> 00:16:06.519
Yeah? Yeah, it's a really interesting it's a really interesting

276
00:16:07.279 --> 00:16:08.440
way to watch a movie.

277
00:16:08.799 --> 00:16:09.559
I agree.

278
00:16:09.799 --> 00:16:12.480
And we'll talk a little bit more about that and

279
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:16.200
then we'll really dive into the boer Wish project. Right. Oh,

280
00:16:16.200 --> 00:16:17.840
they're used to it by now, if they listen to

281
00:16:17.840 --> 00:16:33.759
Cutting Deep right after this. So, with all that being said,

282
00:16:34.679 --> 00:16:38.159
do you remember the first time that you became aware

283
00:16:38.200 --> 00:16:41.879
of the concept of found footage?

284
00:16:42.200 --> 00:16:46.080
Well, that's a I've got a two part answer, because

285
00:16:46.279 --> 00:16:49.720
you were talking about found footage books.

286
00:16:50.559 --> 00:16:54.080
Yes, well yeah, like fake diaries, fake journals, fake but

287
00:16:54.399 --> 00:16:59.320
fake diaries, fake journals, fake ship logs, yes, all kinds

288
00:16:59.360 --> 00:17:00.080
of stuff like that.

289
00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:06.000
Yeah. So, being being someone who plays video games, uh

290
00:17:06.559 --> 00:17:09.559
in a lot, uh in a lot of games, you know,

291
00:17:09.759 --> 00:17:13.279
like BioShock is a good one, you uncover a lot

292
00:17:13.400 --> 00:17:15.640
of It's a horror game. It would terrify you. I've

293
00:17:15.680 --> 00:17:18.599
heard of you, you'd love it. But you uncover a

294
00:17:18.640 --> 00:17:22.640
lot of the backstory and a lot of the plot

295
00:17:22.759 --> 00:17:26.920
is revealed through logs and through recordings. So I think

296
00:17:26.960 --> 00:17:30.119
that's a you know, to gamers, that's a very common

297
00:17:30.599 --> 00:17:35.160
uh storytelling tactic. But for me, the first time I

298
00:17:35.359 --> 00:17:42.240
was made aware of presenting something as real and that

299
00:17:42.400 --> 00:17:46.240
being part of the story was War.

300
00:17:46.079 --> 00:17:49.119
Of the World's m m okay, that's a really good idea.

301
00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:50.119
That's a really good thought.

302
00:17:50.240 --> 00:17:54.759
Rather, because you know, my family, we did not celebrate

303
00:17:54.839 --> 00:17:58.039
Halloween because we were you know, we're a good Christian home.

304
00:17:58.720 --> 00:18:01.559
So what we would do on Halloween night, on like

305
00:18:01.640 --> 00:18:04.519
Beggar's Night, is we would turn off all the lights

306
00:18:04.559 --> 00:18:06.440
and we would like go down in the basement and

307
00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:11.799
just watch wholesome movies downstairs. That's kind I mean, it

308
00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:15.160
is like it's it's some good memories looking back. Like,

309
00:18:17.759 --> 00:18:21.119
but when I was like twelve thirteen, one year, my

310
00:18:21.240 --> 00:18:23.759
dad wanted to change it up and he had an

311
00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:27.599
old vinyl recording of the broadcast of the War of

312
00:18:27.640 --> 00:18:31.200
the Worlds and he was like, well, this is something fun.

313
00:18:31.359 --> 00:18:34.200
Let's all listen to it as a family. And I

314
00:18:34.240 --> 00:18:39.359
was like entranced with it, and that very interesting it is,

315
00:18:39.480 --> 00:18:42.599
and it's especially interesting looking at the history of it,

316
00:18:42.640 --> 00:18:46.079
and you know, there's there's a lot of contention over

317
00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:52.440
how much panic did actually spread, and there's also like

318
00:18:52.920 --> 00:18:56.680
it seems like Orson Wells in interviews with him, he

319
00:18:56.720 --> 00:18:58.279
wanted it both ways that.

320
00:18:58.440 --> 00:19:02.799
Yeah, totally, there's nothing better for you than the legend

321
00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:05.720
of a thing you did. Right, Yeah, no, because if

322
00:19:05.759 --> 00:19:08.119
you listen to it, which the first time I ever

323
00:19:08.160 --> 00:19:11.000
heard the War of the World's broadcast was when I

324
00:19:11.039 --> 00:19:14.920
first got my driver's license. So the week this is

325
00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:18.440
so me the week I got my driver's license two days.

326
00:19:18.440 --> 00:19:22.440
Three days later, I drove to Rochester, New York, which

327
00:19:22.480 --> 00:19:27.160
is about eleven hours ten hours from US. I got

328
00:19:27.240 --> 00:19:29.799
in the car and did that with like zero driving experience.

329
00:19:29.799 --> 00:19:32.240
And I needed stuff to listen to, and this was

330
00:19:32.279 --> 00:19:36.400
before iPods were affordable for me, So I went to

331
00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:39.160
a used CD store and just bought a bunch of stuff.

332
00:19:39.200 --> 00:19:41.160
And one of the things I found in the little

333
00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:45.160
discount bin was a CD of War of the World's

334
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:47.720
the broadcast. So that's the first time I listened to it,

335
00:19:48.240 --> 00:19:50.240
and I really enjoyed it, although I have to say

336
00:19:50.960 --> 00:19:54.160
they do constantly say that it's not real.

337
00:19:54.359 --> 00:19:55.640
They do, like.

338
00:19:55.599 --> 00:19:59.720
They're constantly reminding you that you're listening to a theatrical

339
00:19:59.720 --> 00:20:00.519
perf for months.

340
00:20:01.960 --> 00:20:05.319
Yeah, So how anyone could get that mixed up? I'm

341
00:20:05.359 --> 00:20:09.640
not entirely certain, but I do. I do also understand,

342
00:20:09.680 --> 00:20:13.880
like you know, you've back back then, like radio was

343
00:20:13.920 --> 00:20:18.240
still relatively a new entertainment form.

344
00:20:18.240 --> 00:20:19.359
Definitely, so.

345
00:20:20.880 --> 00:20:23.799
Hearing something like that, if you were caught off guard,

346
00:20:23.880 --> 00:20:26.440
I could imagine until you got to the next commercial

347
00:20:26.440 --> 00:20:30.359
break that you would be a little bit freaked out.

348
00:20:30.519 --> 00:20:32.920
So it was that was like my first introduction of

349
00:20:32.960 --> 00:20:36.400
like you suspend your disbelief to get into the world

350
00:20:36.480 --> 00:20:40.519
of the entertainment, but then you suspend your disbelief even

351
00:20:40.680 --> 00:20:44.519
further and accept it as that is the world that

352
00:20:44.559 --> 00:20:47.440
you're in. You're not just observing the story, you're actually

353
00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:51.119
a part of it. And so when Cloverfield came out,

354
00:20:52.880 --> 00:20:56.720
I was so into it, like I was. I was

355
00:20:56.759 --> 00:20:59.200
like visiting the website every single day to see if

356
00:20:59.200 --> 00:21:02.559
I could find clues lose like I was ate up.

357
00:21:03.240 --> 00:21:06.400
So that was the first found footage movie that I saw,

358
00:21:06.839 --> 00:21:08.799
and I did go to see it in the theater

359
00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:14.759
and I was absolutely hooked because again, you you feel

360
00:21:14.799 --> 00:21:19.759
so much more intimately about what you're viewing because it is,

361
00:21:20.519 --> 00:21:24.880
you know, treated as you are the character, right, you know,

362
00:21:25.079 --> 00:21:29.599
whoever's holding the camera, you're that person. So yeah, and

363
00:21:29.640 --> 00:21:33.039
ever since then, I've kind of had a soft spot

364
00:21:33.279 --> 00:21:34.759
for found footage.

365
00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:40.799
I completely didn't think about Cloverfield, but Cloverfield's a really

366
00:21:40.799 --> 00:21:43.559
good example. And Blair Witch Project, I mean, they had

367
00:21:43.599 --> 00:21:47.240
a website, they had all kinds of crazy stuff. The

368
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:52.519
marketing was intense and it worked because I had to

369
00:21:52.559 --> 00:21:56.960
see it. I would I begged to see it when

370
00:21:57.000 --> 00:22:00.079
it came out, So for those who don't know the

371
00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:02.240
blair Witch Project from nineteen ninety nine, it's a found

372
00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:05.160
footage movie about a group of filmmakers who head into

373
00:22:05.200 --> 00:22:09.119
the Burkettsville Woods in Maryland to shoot a documentary about

374
00:22:09.119 --> 00:22:13.880
a local myth known as the Blair Witch. And while

375
00:22:14.599 --> 00:22:18.200
attempting to film this documentary, they get lost in the

376
00:22:18.240 --> 00:22:27.480
woods and start being stalked and terrorized by unseen forces.

377
00:22:27.559 --> 00:22:30.839
And that's really I mean, that's the bulk of what

378
00:22:30.920 --> 00:22:33.880
blair Witch Project is. But they had went to such

379
00:22:34.039 --> 00:22:38.799
lengths to make it seem legitimate in every way, including

380
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:41.400
at like Sundance Film Festival when they premiered it there,

381
00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:45.359
putting up missing posters for the three actors and doing

382
00:22:45.400 --> 00:22:48.519
the opposite of what basically every Sundance premiere does, which

383
00:22:48.559 --> 00:22:55.480
is not having the actors there. Yeah, it was. It

384
00:22:55.559 --> 00:22:59.599
was crazy. So in fact, this little it was a

385
00:22:59.640 --> 00:23:04.880
little heiny, low budget movie that initially cost around thirty

386
00:23:04.880 --> 00:23:08.680
five thousand dollars to make, but then ballooned up to

387
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:11.119
anywhere from estimates of two hundred thousand to seven hundred

388
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:13.880
and fifty thousand dollars after post production costs and things

389
00:23:13.880 --> 00:23:17.559
from artisan Films who bought it. They bought the film

390
00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:21.759
from at Sun Dance for one point one million dollars,

391
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:26.079
and then it had a limited release in July of

392
00:23:26.200 --> 00:23:28.480
ninety nine, and by the end of July it was

393
00:23:28.559 --> 00:23:32.240
everywhere in America. I don't know why this listing says

394
00:23:32.240 --> 00:23:34.400
it was a sleeper hit that grows nearly two hundred

395
00:23:34.400 --> 00:23:36.680
and fifty million dollars, because sleeper hit means that it

396
00:23:36.759 --> 00:23:40.559
starts unsuccessful. Everybody wanted to go see the blurb project.

397
00:23:40.759 --> 00:23:43.720
We were all primed. That is not the right word.

398
00:23:45.079 --> 00:23:47.079
So it made about two hundred and fifty million dollars

399
00:23:47.119 --> 00:23:51.039
at the box office on at worst about a million

400
00:23:51.160 --> 00:23:54.079
dollars all in on the movie, and most of that

401
00:23:54.160 --> 00:23:55.799
was spent by the production company.

402
00:23:55.920 --> 00:23:57.799
I'd call that a good ROI it's a.

403
00:23:57.799 --> 00:24:01.519
Huge success, although the filmmakers will tell you that they

404
00:24:01.559 --> 00:24:03.839
did not get a share, a very big share of it.

405
00:24:03.880 --> 00:24:08.119
The actors in particular have filed lawsuits about their compensation,

406
00:24:08.240 --> 00:24:11.400
and I'd have to look into it to really have

407
00:24:11.440 --> 00:24:15.000
an opinion there. To me, it's like, whatever you signed,

408
00:24:15.279 --> 00:24:17.519
whatever you were paid, whatever you agreed to, is what

409
00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:20.720
you're supposed to get. But it is trickier though, with

410
00:24:20.759 --> 00:24:23.000
the blair Witch Project, because those actors were in many

411
00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:26.359
ways authors of the film as well. Although they did

412
00:24:26.359 --> 00:24:29.720
not finance it, they did not launch it. They were

413
00:24:29.720 --> 00:24:33.839
participants later. But there's a good debate either direction on that.

414
00:24:34.440 --> 00:24:40.079
So that's yeah, that's the blair Witch Project. And I'll

415
00:24:40.119 --> 00:24:43.039
tell you all about my first viewing of it, and

416
00:24:43.079 --> 00:25:00.039
then we'll learn about yours, Rachel, right after this. So,

417
00:25:00.200 --> 00:25:02.920
as I had alluded to earlier, my first viewing of

418
00:25:02.960 --> 00:25:06.680
the blair Witch Project was in its initial theatrical run.

419
00:25:07.480 --> 00:25:11.880
I saw that Curse of the blair Witch mockumentary on

420
00:25:12.079 --> 00:25:15.400
sci fi channels so many times, and I at first

421
00:25:15.400 --> 00:25:18.839
thought it was real. I was gosh, in ninety nine,

422
00:25:18.880 --> 00:25:22.839
I would have been twelve or thirteen. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

423
00:25:23.640 --> 00:25:26.359
so yeah, at first I thought maybe it was real,

424
00:25:26.880 --> 00:25:28.799
and then, you know, as time went on, it was like, no,

425
00:25:28.839 --> 00:25:32.480
it's it's clearly not real, but like it's really fun

426
00:25:33.039 --> 00:25:37.640
and creepy and spoopy, which are all things I still

427
00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:42.599
enjoy to this very day. And I got my mother

428
00:25:42.680 --> 00:25:46.000
to take me. My mom thought it was fine, she

429
00:25:46.119 --> 00:25:52.119
was like, ah's interesting, But I was engrossed the whole

430
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:54.319
time I saw in the theater. I was just like wow,

431
00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:57.000
and I lucked out and didn't get motion sick that.

432
00:25:57.039 --> 00:25:59.960
I don't know if you remember people talking people crazy

433
00:26:00.240 --> 00:26:02.079
saying they got motion sick, because it is a lot

434
00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:05.160
of the camera shaking around and stuff like that. The

435
00:26:05.240 --> 00:26:09.920
film was was partially shot on sixteen millimeter black and

436
00:26:09.960 --> 00:26:14.400
white film using a CP sixteen camera, which nobody cares,

437
00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:19.519
but I do kind of you do care a little bit,

438
00:26:19.799 --> 00:26:23.920
and then the other portion, the majority of the movie

439
00:26:24.079 --> 00:26:28.160
is shot on a high eight cam quarter, which was

440
00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:32.319
at the time this was supposed to take place. I

441
00:26:32.319 --> 00:26:34.960
don't know exactly when they filmed, but it was supposed

442
00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:38.960
to take place in nineteen ninety four. Okay, so the

443
00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:40.519
idea being that it was. The footage was found a

444
00:26:40.559 --> 00:26:42.200
couple years later, and then a few years after that

445
00:26:42.559 --> 00:26:48.279
the Blair Witch Project movie comes together and I, yeah,

446
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:51.160
I really enjoyed it. Oh and it was so shot

447
00:26:51.160 --> 00:26:53.759
a heyt video, which at the time in nineteen ninety

448
00:26:53.799 --> 00:26:58.160
four was the new hotness of home video cameras because

449
00:26:58.160 --> 00:27:02.079
it had a lot of visual clarity on a little

450
00:27:02.079 --> 00:27:06.319
eight millimeter tape. So this is the kind of boring

451
00:27:06.640 --> 00:27:10.400
tech stuff I live off of. So and then I

452
00:27:10.519 --> 00:27:15.359
remember when the movie came out on home video, I

453
00:27:15.400 --> 00:27:19.960
begged and pleaded to get the double VHS release that

454
00:27:20.039 --> 00:27:22.839
had the Blair Witch Project, and then it had Curse

455
00:27:22.880 --> 00:27:25.480
of the Blair Witch and it had all these other

456
00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:28.359
like deleted scenes and little bits and bobs on the

457
00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:31.920
other tape. Ooh, and I ate it up. I watched

458
00:27:31.960 --> 00:27:34.799
it over and over again, and since then, I think

459
00:27:34.799 --> 00:27:37.839
I've owned Blair Witch Project on every format that has

460
00:27:37.839 --> 00:27:39.880
been available. I'm pretty sure I had a DVD of it.

461
00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.880
I know I had the original Blu ray, and now

462
00:27:42.920 --> 00:27:47.279
I have this brand new British import second Sight Blu ray,

463
00:27:47.319 --> 00:27:51.039
which is fully remastered from the ground up and looks great.

464
00:27:51.079 --> 00:27:53.680
And we actually watched for the first time ever for

465
00:27:53.759 --> 00:27:57.359
either of us, the festival cut. Yeah, the version that

466
00:27:57.400 --> 00:27:59.519
was shown at Sundance, which is a bit longer and

467
00:27:59.559 --> 00:28:02.200
has a little bit more to it. I will say

468
00:28:02.240 --> 00:28:04.480
that in many ways, the theatrical is the better movie,

469
00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:06.799
but it was cool to get more of the movie

470
00:28:07.039 --> 00:28:09.480
having been such a big fan. So what about you,

471
00:28:09.480 --> 00:28:12.079
what was your first Blair Witch Project viewing.

472
00:28:13.359 --> 00:28:21.200
With you? Once again, once again, I don't think it

473
00:28:21.240 --> 00:28:25.200
was on one of our camping trips, but I think

474
00:28:25.359 --> 00:28:29.839
it was maybe after we got back from whatever our

475
00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:35.599
camping trips. I can't remember. Yeah, I can't exactly remember

476
00:28:35.640 --> 00:28:38.400
the exact timeframe, but you know it was, you know,

477
00:28:38.759 --> 00:28:41.160
late summer, early fall, in the sort of we want

478
00:28:41.160 --> 00:28:44.039
to get in the spooky season spirit, but not actually

479
00:28:44.079 --> 00:28:48.440
watch a Halloween movie because it's not Halloween yet. And

480
00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:52.480
I had mentioned how much I enjoy found footage, and

481
00:28:52.559 --> 00:28:54.599
so you were like, well, have you have you seen this?

482
00:28:54.720 --> 00:28:57.680
And I was like, well, no, but I'm curious. So

483
00:28:57.759 --> 00:29:00.839
we watched it, and I was engrossed the entire higher time,

484
00:29:02.480 --> 00:29:07.960
because it really does a great job, especially with the

485
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:15.960
theatrical version, of finding its pace very quickly and keeping

486
00:29:16.799 --> 00:29:20.680
the pace going without feeling like it's going to run

487
00:29:20.720 --> 00:29:24.960
off the rails at any moment. Like the tension builds perfectly,

488
00:29:25.680 --> 00:29:30.839
and on the second watch through, especially with the festival cut,

489
00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:34.079
I realize how much of the tension is just everything

490
00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:38.759
that's going on between the characters. Sure, that's obviously more

491
00:29:38.839 --> 00:29:42.200
drawn out in the longer version, but even in you know,

492
00:29:42.240 --> 00:29:45.839
the theatrical version, when I watch it with you, that's

493
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:48.720
really where a lot of the conflict and a lot

494
00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:51.400
of the scary elements comes down to what's going on

495
00:29:51.480 --> 00:29:55.200
between the characters during the day and all the scary

496
00:29:55.200 --> 00:29:58.119
stuff at night is just like there to remind you,

497
00:29:58.279 --> 00:30:01.400
like what the stakes? What know what stakes there are?

498
00:30:02.240 --> 00:30:05.960
Yeah, no, I would have to agree, So I take

499
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.759
it you you did enjoy it quite a bit.

500
00:30:07.960 --> 00:30:11.720
Oh yeah, yeah, because after we watched it, you and

501
00:30:11.759 --> 00:30:14.599
I were at second time around and I saw it

502
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:16.960
for real cheap on DVD and I was like, well,

503
00:30:16.960 --> 00:30:18.799
I've got it. I've got to just own it now,

504
00:30:18.920 --> 00:30:22.559
like there's no and I still have it in my collection. Yeah.

505
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:25.720
Yeah, No, it's it's a it's a solid movie and

506
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:28.759
there's there's a lot to love about it. So we'll

507
00:30:28.880 --> 00:30:32.079
we'll dive into it, dig a little deeper into it.

508
00:30:32.519 --> 00:30:36.839
So gosh, where to start because there is a lot

509
00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:42.079
of Blair Witch stuff. So first of all, we have

510
00:30:42.119 --> 00:30:46.759
our three characters, which are Heather, Michael, and josh Yeah,

511
00:30:46.839 --> 00:30:51.759
Heather is the director of the project and Michael is

512
00:30:51.880 --> 00:30:56.119
the sound guy who is new to Heather and Joshua,

513
00:30:56.240 --> 00:31:02.000
and Joshua is the camera operator and cinematographer. So of

514
00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:05.200
the two, Heather and josh have quite a camaraderie that

515
00:31:05.240 --> 00:31:07.440
makes it clear that they've probably known each other for

516
00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:11.920
quite a while, and they constantly reference that Michael is

517
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:15.160
younger than them. He's probably like a sophomore in college,

518
00:31:15.200 --> 00:31:17.920
I think, is what they they suggest, And I think

519
00:31:17.920 --> 00:31:20.680
they're both juniors or seniors. Actually know they're seniors because

520
00:31:20.680 --> 00:31:23.599
they're making a senior thesis. Yeah, so at least Heather

521
00:31:23.720 --> 00:31:25.960
is a senior. I did not go to film school,

522
00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:29.799
so I have to guess. But so they head out

523
00:31:29.839 --> 00:31:32.759
to Burkettsville, Maryland. It's never I don't remember if it's

524
00:31:32.799 --> 00:31:35.759
fully stated what college they were coming from.

525
00:31:36.160 --> 00:31:38.400
I think it was supposed to be the University of Maryland.

526
00:31:38.480 --> 00:31:41.319
I think you're right. So they drive out to this

527
00:31:41.480 --> 00:31:46.519
place called Burkettsville, Maryland, a real place and the fictitional

528
00:31:47.039 --> 00:31:53.079
Blair was the town there before Burkettsville, which when you

529
00:31:53.079 --> 00:31:56.799
look at especially American history, there's a lot of that. Yeah,

530
00:31:56.880 --> 00:32:00.400
there's a lot of towns that get dissolved, but maybe

531
00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:03.880
the name just never quite goes away. One of my

532
00:32:03.960 --> 00:32:07.759
favorite examples in my own life is the Mahoning Drive In,

533
00:32:08.519 --> 00:32:11.920
which is not in Mahoning, Pennsylvania because there is no Mahoning,

534
00:32:11.960 --> 00:32:16.839
Pennsylvania anymore, but it's le Heighten, Pennsylvania. But yeah, there

535
00:32:16.920 --> 00:32:19.359
was a Mahoning Pennsylvania. So there's a Mahoning drive in

536
00:32:20.240 --> 00:32:23.519
right there, not really in Mahoning Pennsylvania. Now, if you

537
00:32:23.559 --> 00:32:26.759
say Mahoning Pennsylvania in that part of PA, most people

538
00:32:26.759 --> 00:32:29.000
will know where you're talking about, because they at least

539
00:32:29.000 --> 00:32:32.720
somewhat remember it. But yeah, it's no longer a town.

540
00:32:33.640 --> 00:32:36.599
And much like that, Blair was a town founded a

541
00:32:36.720 --> 00:32:39.920
very long time ago that has since been dissolved and

542
00:32:40.359 --> 00:32:44.240
turned into Burkettsville. And we'll find out more about what

543
00:32:44.319 --> 00:32:48.440
the townsfolk think of their little documentary right after this.

544
00:33:01.640 --> 00:33:06.160
So the three young filmmakers get to Burkettsville and they

545
00:33:06.319 --> 00:33:11.039
start interviewing all of the locals. And this is, to

546
00:33:11.200 --> 00:33:14.559
me such a great introduction to the film, because not

547
00:33:14.680 --> 00:33:18.519
only do you start learning about the lore of the

548
00:33:18.559 --> 00:33:23.319
Blair Witch and Burkettsville and Blair itself, you also start

549
00:33:23.359 --> 00:33:27.920
to learn a bit about our three main characters because

550
00:33:28.039 --> 00:33:33.319
in between the interviews they kind of talk back and

551
00:33:33.359 --> 00:33:36.720
forth about the project. They talk back and forth about

552
00:33:36.880 --> 00:33:39.599
who they just interviewed or what they just heard, so

553
00:33:39.640 --> 00:33:43.400
we kind of get a little bit of Josh's easygoing

554
00:33:43.480 --> 00:33:46.799
nature and Mike being a little more uptight and a

555
00:33:46.799 --> 00:33:50.599
little more sarcastic. Yeah, and how they're like really being

556
00:33:50.759 --> 00:33:51.880
all in on this.

557
00:33:52.160 --> 00:33:57.599
Oh yeah, she's very like natural leader mentality. One thing

558
00:33:57.839 --> 00:33:59.960
I always enjoyed about the movie was they have that

559
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:03.599
adorable glow of like where like we're making our first movie.

560
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:07.720
Yeah when even when the movie is this little kind

561
00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:12.960
of pretentious college thesis film, and it is kind of pretentious.

562
00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:15.239
There are a few a few times in the film

563
00:34:15.239 --> 00:34:20.159
where Sarah or a Heather sorry Heather does stand ups,

564
00:34:20.320 --> 00:34:22.440
which are where you're standing in front of a camera

565
00:34:22.559 --> 00:34:26.960
with a background that's prudent, and she gives like a

566
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:32.360
little speech about the area, about formerly Blair and you

567
00:34:32.400 --> 00:34:35.239
know what coffin rock is and all this stuff. And

568
00:34:35.320 --> 00:34:40.800
it's very film school. It's very low fig you know,

569
00:34:41.280 --> 00:34:44.440
wanna be national geographic. But that's what you would that's

570
00:34:44.440 --> 00:34:46.440
what you would make, especially if you're a film student.

571
00:34:46.519 --> 00:34:49.800
Nineteen ninety four, nineteen ninety five. I mean it was

572
00:34:49.880 --> 00:34:54.480
literally made by these two filmmakers named Eduardo Sanchez and

573
00:34:54.559 --> 00:34:59.039
Daniel Myrick, and they were film students at one time,

574
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:02.159
and they put this, they pulled this together. They were

575
00:35:02.199 --> 00:35:06.400
the writers and directors of the film, and yeah, they

576
00:35:06.559 --> 00:35:09.320
they you know, I think they were pulling from experience

577
00:35:09.360 --> 00:35:12.239
a bit. Oh, absolutely that way. They also, I think

578
00:35:12.280 --> 00:35:16.599
it's worth mentioning too, that when they were hiring actors,

579
00:35:17.000 --> 00:35:22.639
So the legend is that they saw two thousand actors.

580
00:35:22.400 --> 00:35:27.679
That's the legend, is that they interviewed two thousand actors

581
00:35:27.719 --> 00:35:30.679
and they settled on these three. And one of the

582
00:35:30.679 --> 00:35:35.400
big requirements was you had to have massive improv experience,

583
00:35:35.440 --> 00:35:39.119
and you had to have experience shooting film and video.

584
00:35:39.639 --> 00:35:42.199
Right because you're gonna be the one holding the camera.

585
00:35:42.679 --> 00:35:46.039
Yeah, almost everything in the film is shot by the actors,

586
00:35:46.119 --> 00:35:50.440
with almost no I don't think they're I think other

587
00:35:50.519 --> 00:35:54.199
than the little brief little shots at the beginning, it's

588
00:35:54.239 --> 00:35:57.559
all shot by the actors. So yeah, that was a

589
00:35:57.599 --> 00:36:00.840
big A big element was being able to come up

590
00:36:00.880 --> 00:36:05.280
with actors who could film the whole thing and acted

591
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:09.559
out so well, which they really did. They really lucked

592
00:36:09.559 --> 00:36:14.679
out with these actors. Yeah. So now they're talking about

593
00:36:15.079 --> 00:36:19.119
the area of Burkettsville, the strange occurrences in the woods

594
00:36:19.440 --> 00:36:25.239
related to a certain witch that is of legend, and

595
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:28.719
as they're asking people around town, one thing I found

596
00:36:28.719 --> 00:36:31.400
really interesting is most people don't really have anything to

597
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:34.239
say about the Blair Witch. Only a few people do.

598
00:36:35.039 --> 00:36:37.440
Mostly what they have to talk about is a guy

599
00:36:37.599 --> 00:36:41.360
by the name of Rustin Parr who lived in the

600
00:36:41.400 --> 00:36:46.880
forest and abducted seven children in nineteen forty one and

601
00:36:46.960 --> 00:36:52.000
murdered them all in his basement. So this town already

602
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:57.320
has like a you know, in this century, horrific thing

603
00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:02.320
that happened that people are still reeling from. To some extent,

604
00:37:02.440 --> 00:37:05.039
most of the people they are interviewing were likely children

605
00:37:05.800 --> 00:37:11.639
when that happened may or maybe even not even born,

606
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.880
So that gives it a whole other element because there's

607
00:37:15.920 --> 00:37:18.239
a lot of lore building, and that's the one thing

608
00:37:18.280 --> 00:37:20.400
I love. But also, you know what, no I love

609
00:37:20.440 --> 00:37:21.920
about the blur which right I'm gonna say I also

610
00:37:21.960 --> 00:37:24.880
hate about it. You can go in blind and have

611
00:37:24.920 --> 00:37:26.880
a pretty good time, or you can watch Curse of

612
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:29.320
the Blair Witch and read all the stuff from the

613
00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:35.119
old website and really be pulled in. Oh yeah, because

614
00:37:35.159 --> 00:37:37.639
there is so much lore that they go over again

615
00:37:37.679 --> 00:37:42.320
and again, deeper and deeper. And it also should be

616
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:46.119
mentioned the backstory of how the footage was found. I mean,

617
00:37:46.119 --> 00:37:48.000
these kids go into the woods they never come back.

618
00:37:48.039 --> 00:37:51.400
They they search and search and search for them, they

619
00:37:51.440 --> 00:37:54.800
never find them ever. And this is the thing I

620
00:37:54.880 --> 00:37:56.400
mentioned the other night to you that I had to

621
00:37:56.400 --> 00:37:58.920
double check, Like where they claimed the footage was found

622
00:37:59.760 --> 00:38:03.480
through through sheer luck. They found the film cans and

623
00:38:03.639 --> 00:38:09.440
audio and video cassette tapes underneath a stone foundation of

624
00:38:09.480 --> 00:38:15.480
a house that burned down. And according to the archaeology

625
00:38:15.840 --> 00:38:20.719
expert at the local at the local school, there's no

626
00:38:21.000 --> 00:38:23.679
real way he could think of that you could put

627
00:38:24.079 --> 00:38:28.280
that stuff underneath the foundation of a house. Yeah, without

628
00:38:28.280 --> 00:38:30.559
doing it before the house was put there. But the

629
00:38:30.599 --> 00:38:33.400
house has been was there for a very long time

630
00:38:33.440 --> 00:38:37.480
and had burned down a very long time ago. So

631
00:38:37.639 --> 00:38:39.960
that's that's another added suit. I mean though, Like so

632
00:38:40.280 --> 00:38:43.280
knowing that lore which is not in the movie, Yeah,

633
00:38:43.320 --> 00:38:45.239
you only know that if you watched Curse of the

634
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:47.440
blair Witch or went to the old blair Witch website.

635
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:52.679
That brings so much more creepy spooky fun to the film.

636
00:38:52.840 --> 00:38:58.760
Yeah. Well that's that's the movies. Like, uh, it's like

637
00:38:58.800 --> 00:39:03.400
an onion. It has so many layers and it's enjoyable

638
00:39:03.599 --> 00:39:08.559
at every single layer because you've got the initial layer

639
00:39:08.679 --> 00:39:11.320
of just like Oh, this is a spooky found footage

640
00:39:11.360 --> 00:39:15.199
movie that's got scary stuff that happens in it, so

641
00:39:15.280 --> 00:39:18.320
you should be scared. And then this is also a

642
00:39:18.360 --> 00:39:22.960
movie about how being in the wilderness and trying to survive,

643
00:39:23.400 --> 00:39:27.360
praise on your emotions and praise on your psyche. There's,

644
00:39:27.599 --> 00:39:31.639
you know, the layers of story behind it about the

645
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:36.000
Blair Witch and then about Rust and Parr, and you

646
00:39:36.039 --> 00:39:39.159
know it just it keeps going and going. It's a

647
00:39:39.239 --> 00:39:42.320
rabbit hole that you can go down. And that's why

648
00:39:42.400 --> 00:39:49.519
I like this movie so much. So as they're interviewing

649
00:39:49.559 --> 00:39:55.000
the townsfolk, the big, the big thing that we realize

650
00:39:55.159 --> 00:39:59.719
is people really aren't all that scared with the Blair

651
00:39:59.760 --> 00:40:03.280
Witch anymore. It really is the trauma of Rust and Parr.

652
00:40:03.679 --> 00:40:07.480
And I loved the interview with the two guys like

653
00:40:07.599 --> 00:40:08.800
fishing in the river.

654
00:40:08.960 --> 00:40:11.280
Oh, that's one of my favorite scenes in the first

655
00:40:11.320 --> 00:40:14.079
act because they're like annoying each other and stuff, because

656
00:40:14.079 --> 00:40:17.880
one guy's probably thirty five and the other guy is

657
00:40:17.920 --> 00:40:21.199
probably about twenty five years or twenty years older than him. Yeah,

658
00:40:21.239 --> 00:40:23.119
and the older guy is a lot more like kind

659
00:40:23.119 --> 00:40:25.559
of playful and annoying him.

660
00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:30.000
So they're they're constantly like teasing each other and talking

661
00:40:30.079 --> 00:40:34.679
over each other, and the younger guy will like be

662
00:40:34.800 --> 00:40:38.320
all serious talking about Rust and Parr and how horrible

663
00:40:38.360 --> 00:40:41.559
it was what he did to those kids, And you know,

664
00:40:41.599 --> 00:40:43.519
the older guy will just be like, Rust and par

665
00:40:43.639 --> 00:40:45.760
you don't even remember Rust and Parr. You weren't even

666
00:40:45.800 --> 00:40:46.360
born yet.

667
00:40:46.440 --> 00:40:49.800
Well, and he and we forgot to mention some of

668
00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:53.960
the more grisly details of rustin Parr's crime, and we'll

669
00:40:53.960 --> 00:41:08.039
get to those right after this. So Rust and Parr

670
00:41:09.079 --> 00:41:12.239
had murdered those seven children I mentioned in nineteen forty one,

671
00:41:13.000 --> 00:41:15.880
killing them in pairs while having one stand in the

672
00:41:15.920 --> 00:41:22.280
corner facing the wall. Horrific. Absolutely, So when they talk

673
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:24.480
to those two fishermen, it's important to mention they don't

674
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:27.639
talk about Rust and Parr that much because Rust and

675
00:41:27.760 --> 00:41:32.119
Parr to some of the people who are more invested

676
00:41:32.360 --> 00:41:36.199
in myths, you know, local legends, whatever. Whether it's out

677
00:41:36.239 --> 00:41:40.800
of sheer, morbid curiosity or something more grandiose, who knows.

678
00:41:42.119 --> 00:41:46.400
They're talking about how the woods are cursed because Rust

679
00:41:46.400 --> 00:41:50.239
and Parr lived deep in the woods, and those woods

680
00:41:50.280 --> 00:41:52.480
are known to be where a lot of weird things

681
00:41:52.519 --> 00:41:56.199
have happened over the course of Blair and later Burkettsville.

682
00:41:56.960 --> 00:41:59.960
So one thing they mention is that a young boy

683
00:42:00.280 --> 00:42:06.599
named Robin Weaver went missing in eighteen eighty eight, but

684
00:42:06.679 --> 00:42:12.280
he was returned three days later, and or she was returned. Uh,

685
00:42:12.320 --> 00:42:15.320
and she talked about how there was an old woman

686
00:42:15.360 --> 00:42:19.239
whose feet never touched the ground and that's who who

687
00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:24.719
saved her. Yeah, so that's pretty freaky. And they go

688
00:42:24.840 --> 00:42:27.159
into some other crazy things. They go to a place

689
00:42:27.199 --> 00:42:32.920
called Coffin Rock where supposedly five men were found ritualistically

690
00:42:32.960 --> 00:42:36.800
slaughtered in the nineteenth century, tied hands to feet at

691
00:42:36.840 --> 00:42:40.079
Coffin Rock. But one thing I really love about that

692
00:42:40.239 --> 00:42:42.440
is when they're showing like the build up to going

693
00:42:42.480 --> 00:42:45.159
to Coffin Rock and how they're having to hike into

694
00:42:45.199 --> 00:42:47.559
the woods to find these locations that are a bit

695
00:42:47.960 --> 00:42:52.239
you know, they're a bit less you know, commonplace, like yeah,

696
00:42:52.239 --> 00:42:55.000
you don't just know where Coffin Rock is or whatever,

697
00:42:55.079 --> 00:42:59.239
you know, Like yeah, So they mentioned that there's only

698
00:42:59.320 --> 00:43:02.960
like one book book that Heather could find in any

699
00:43:03.000 --> 00:43:07.519
library that says anything about Coffin Rock, which I love

700
00:43:07.559 --> 00:43:09.280
that too because that makes me wonder like did it

701
00:43:09.320 --> 00:43:12.800
even happen? I mean, like it's in one book, but

702
00:43:14.000 --> 00:43:17.119
with after they talk about coffin Rock. Oh, the big

703
00:43:17.119 --> 00:43:19.639
one is that then somebody discovered it, ran away, came

704
00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:20.760
back and the bodies were gone.

705
00:43:20.960 --> 00:43:23.440
Yeah, all matter if no hours?

706
00:43:23.480 --> 00:43:26.199
Maybe no, it was two days. Yeah, because we're talking

707
00:43:26.199 --> 00:43:30.840
deep in the woods in the eighteen hundreds. But as

708
00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:33.679
we dig a little bit deeper, we find out they

709
00:43:33.679 --> 00:43:35.840
find out a little bit about the Blair Witch and

710
00:43:35.920 --> 00:43:37.840
a lot more about the Blair Witch. As I said,

711
00:43:37.880 --> 00:43:40.039
is in Curse of the Blair Witch. But the Blair

712
00:43:40.039 --> 00:43:43.280
Witch was named Ellie Keedward, and she was said to

713
00:43:43.320 --> 00:43:48.440
have practiced witchcraft, and she was banished from the town

714
00:43:48.480 --> 00:43:53.199
in seventeen eighty five after several local children accused her

715
00:43:53.239 --> 00:43:57.400
of performing magic. So she was presumed dead from exposure,

716
00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:01.280
so she was sent off to freeze to death. Oh

717
00:44:01.320 --> 00:44:03.280
she was hung. Sorry, she was hung on a tree

718
00:44:03.360 --> 00:44:05.960
with stones tied to each of her limbs, stretching her

719
00:44:06.000 --> 00:44:10.000
body down with gravity. I forgot that part. Oh, But

720
00:44:10.159 --> 00:44:14.239
then the next year, all of her accusers and half

721
00:44:14.360 --> 00:44:20.840
of the town's children vanished without a trace. Fearing a curse,

722
00:44:20.920 --> 00:44:24.400
the townspeople immediately fled Blair, vowing never to utter the

723
00:44:24.480 --> 00:44:30.960
name Ellie Edward again. So yeah, that's the that's the

724
00:44:31.000 --> 00:44:36.760
big you know, blair Witch concept. But then if you

725
00:44:36.840 --> 00:44:42.559
want to get even deeper and I can into these concepts.

726
00:44:42.559 --> 00:44:45.440
In eighteen twenty five, a year after the town was

727
00:44:45.480 --> 00:44:49.440
rediscovered and founded as Burkettsville, the villagers held the first

728
00:44:49.480 --> 00:44:53.119
annual wheat harvest picnic. During the event, ten year old

729
00:44:53.119 --> 00:44:57.599
alien Treacle wandered off towards Tappy East Creek and drowned

730
00:44:57.599 --> 00:45:01.440
in the shallow water. Witnesses claim to have seen a

731
00:45:01.440 --> 00:45:05.119
ghostly white hand reach out from the water and pull

732
00:45:05.159 --> 00:45:08.440
her in. The creek was searched, but Aileen's body was

733
00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:13.119
never recovered. Afterwards, the creek mysteriously became clogged with oily

734
00:45:13.239 --> 00:45:17.440
bundles of sticks, rendering the water useless for thirteen days.

735
00:45:18.199 --> 00:45:20.880
A man drank the water within that time, resulting in

736
00:45:20.920 --> 00:45:24.719
his death, while several animals also got sick and died.

737
00:45:25.599 --> 00:45:29.000
The incident was the first of several to be blamed

738
00:45:29.320 --> 00:45:32.000
on the blair Witch, and then, of course eighteen eighty

739
00:45:32.039 --> 00:45:34.599
six Robin Weaver, which was blamed on the blair Witch.

740
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:40.280
See oh and then oh yeah, and then there was

741
00:45:40.320 --> 00:45:42.920
the massacre of the Birkins Hill seven rust In par So,

742
00:45:43.000 --> 00:45:46.599
those are the echoes of the Blair Witch. You have

743
00:45:46.679 --> 00:45:49.239
this one thing happening in eighteen seventy or eighteen or

744
00:45:49.280 --> 00:45:53.079
seventeen eighty five, and then eighteen twenty five something awful happens,

745
00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:56.559
and then eighteen eighty six Robin Weaver leads directly into

746
00:45:56.599 --> 00:46:00.920
finding the dead men at Coffin Rock. They were I apologize,

747
00:46:00.960 --> 00:46:04.880
I got mixed up. They were the they were like

748
00:46:04.920 --> 00:46:09.239
a search party for looking for Robin Weaver. Okay, they

749
00:46:09.239 --> 00:46:12.960
were the ones who were slaughtered. So it says they

750
00:46:13.000 --> 00:46:15.679
were slaughtered by Ellie Keedward, who disemboweled them and left

751
00:46:15.679 --> 00:46:18.559
their corpses on Coffin Rock, then returned to the house

752
00:46:18.559 --> 00:46:21.679
supposedly to kill Robin. However, she discovered the house empty

753
00:46:21.679 --> 00:46:25.079
and realized that Robin had fled. That's like the deeper version,

754
00:46:25.159 --> 00:46:29.760
see what I mean. They're so much waw and I

755
00:46:29.800 --> 00:46:32.280
love it. It's so thick.

756
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:33.840
Yeah.

757
00:46:33.920 --> 00:46:36.000
So to get back to the movie. But like, if

758
00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:38.039
you didn't know this lore, it really does make the

759
00:46:38.079 --> 00:46:43.159
movie way more fun. But the film is mostly the

760
00:46:43.199 --> 00:46:46.559
first twenty minutes are ghost stories of this little town

761
00:46:46.639 --> 00:46:51.079
in Maryland, and then it's them in the woods. And

762
00:46:51.320 --> 00:46:56.559
this is something that always got to me pretty intensely.

763
00:46:56.760 --> 00:47:02.000
Because i've I'm better about it now obviously, But when

764
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:05.280
I was young, I had a very strong fear of

765
00:47:05.320 --> 00:47:07.039
getting lost in the woods.

766
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:09.800
Oh really, mm hmm, I didn't know that.

767
00:47:10.360 --> 00:47:12.599
Yeah. Well, I mean it's the woods, you know, Like,

768
00:47:12.719 --> 00:47:14.719
you don't want to get lost in It's bad and

769
00:47:14.760 --> 00:47:18.639
there's no there's no map, there's no you know, roads.

770
00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:21.239
How do you not get lost in the woods?

771
00:47:21.559 --> 00:47:23.480
Oh, I see, I'm a farm kid, so I'm just

772
00:47:23.519 --> 00:47:26.199
like going to see. Yeah, but those woods weren't thick, no,

773
00:47:26.280 --> 00:47:27.360
I mean there is a difference.

774
00:47:27.440 --> 00:47:29.639
Yes, yeah, yeah, I'm talking about woods that I thought

775
00:47:29.679 --> 00:47:31.679
were really big when I'm sure they weren't actually because

776
00:47:31.679 --> 00:47:33.800
the river. I'm a child when I'm saying this, but

777
00:47:34.320 --> 00:47:35.760
it made me think a lot because there were a

778
00:47:35.800 --> 00:47:37.559
lot of things that would help make you afraid of

779
00:47:37.599 --> 00:47:39.960
getting lost in the woods. Like have I ever shown

780
00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:42.119
you the Haunted Cab episode of Are You Afraid of

781
00:47:42.159 --> 00:47:42.480
the Dark?

782
00:47:42.719 --> 00:47:43.559
I think so, Yeah, the.

783
00:47:43.559 --> 00:47:46.159
One with the Haunted Cabby driving through the woods. Yeah,

784
00:47:46.199 --> 00:47:47.960
that one. I thought about it all the time when

785
00:47:47.960 --> 00:47:49.519
I was a kid. How these two brothers get lost

786
00:47:49.519 --> 00:47:52.119
in the woods. It was very scary to me, the

787
00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:54.920
idea of getting lost in the woods and nightfall and

788
00:47:54.920 --> 00:47:56.599
it gets really cold, and you don't have any food

789
00:47:56.760 --> 00:47:58.079
on any water, you don't know how to get out.

790
00:47:58.599 --> 00:48:00.599
Of course, then there's the old say, you know, how

791
00:48:00.599 --> 00:48:02.280
far do you walk? How far can you walk through

792
00:48:02.280 --> 00:48:04.000
the woods? Halfway? Because if you walk any further than that,

793
00:48:04.039 --> 00:48:06.639
you're walking out. You know, you could just keep going

794
00:48:06.679 --> 00:48:10.119
straight and you'll leave the woods eventually. Of course that

795
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:15.639
doesn't quite ring so true for our intrepid filmmakers. But

796
00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:20.000
the good news, I guess is they don't even really

797
00:48:20.159 --> 00:48:26.320
know that they're lost yet because they camp for the

798
00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:31.679
night uneventful. Yeah, and the next day we find out

799
00:48:31.679 --> 00:48:36.000
that they're going so far into the woods because she

800
00:48:36.199 --> 00:48:38.320
read in one of these books that there's an old

801
00:48:38.440 --> 00:48:43.079
graveyard deep in the woods, away from everything. And when

802
00:48:43.119 --> 00:48:46.159
you go out, if you spend enough time in New England,

803
00:48:46.360 --> 00:48:48.880
like I did, or enough time in some of the

804
00:48:48.960 --> 00:48:51.920
really old sections of the East Coast, which I did

805
00:48:51.960 --> 00:48:54.519
a little bit of, that there's stuff just in the

806
00:48:54.519 --> 00:48:56.880
middle of the woods that makes no sense. There'll be

807
00:48:56.960 --> 00:48:59.639
churches where it's like, how did anybody come here to worship?

808
00:49:00.639 --> 00:49:03.840
It's in the middle. It's in the middle of the woods.

809
00:49:04.639 --> 00:49:08.320
I guess you just hiked to it. Weird people used

810
00:49:08.360 --> 00:49:11.400
to live places, but I mean you'd think there'd be

811
00:49:11.480 --> 00:49:14.800
trails or a road, like a very rough road or something. No,

812
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.480
just in the woods. That's where it is. Feels weird.

813
00:49:19.480 --> 00:49:24.519
But they do find the old graveyard, but they might

814
00:49:24.599 --> 00:49:29.480
find more than just funeral grave markers. Funeral markers. It's

815
00:49:29.480 --> 00:49:32.639
been a long week, but we'll explain more after this.

816
00:49:45.000 --> 00:49:48.760
So they find this graveyard deep in the woods, but

817
00:49:48.840 --> 00:49:53.800
it's not a traditional graveyard. It has these little rock

818
00:49:53.880 --> 00:49:59.400
piles or cairns, the term cairns, and there are seven

819
00:49:59.440 --> 00:50:04.599
of them, which is an interesting thing considering that's how

820
00:50:04.639 --> 00:50:10.880
many kids that rust and Parr killed. Yeah, and one

821
00:50:10.920 --> 00:50:13.800
of the things excuse me. One of the things that

822
00:50:13.840 --> 00:50:16.719
they mention is that the way Rustin Parr was caught.

823
00:50:17.000 --> 00:50:19.519
I can't believe I left this part out was that

824
00:50:19.639 --> 00:50:24.000
he walked down into town and let me find it.

825
00:50:25.360 --> 00:50:27.679
I want to find the exact term. I'm looking at

826
00:50:27.679 --> 00:50:31.679
the Blair Witch Project fandom wiki, which has all of

827
00:50:31.719 --> 00:50:37.719
this info. So Rustin, after he killed the seven kids,

828
00:50:37.800 --> 00:50:41.400
Rustin hid the secret for two days and then uh.

829
00:50:42.119 --> 00:50:46.199
And then Kelly Ellie Keedwards supposedly said reappeared to him

830
00:50:46.639 --> 00:50:51.840
after telling him to kill those children and said peace

831
00:50:51.880 --> 00:50:55.360
shall come to the if the revealed by actions. So

832
00:50:55.760 --> 00:50:58.679
and that's you. It's hard to find like this is

833
00:50:58.719 --> 00:51:00.960
in all of the lore bundled up. But the way

834
00:51:01.000 --> 00:51:04.840
that I originally heard it was just that he walked

835
00:51:04.960 --> 00:51:09.360
into town, sat down at a diner and said I'm

836
00:51:09.440 --> 00:51:13.079
finally finished, and nobody knew what he was talking about.

837
00:51:13.679 --> 00:51:16.000
And eventually people went to his house and they found

838
00:51:16.000 --> 00:51:20.360
the seven kids, and it shocked the community. He was

839
00:51:20.360 --> 00:51:26.320
proclaimed guilty and he was executed. He never denied any

840
00:51:26.440 --> 00:51:30.119
of it, of the killings, and confessed in forming authorities

841
00:51:30.199 --> 00:51:32.679
of Birkertsville that he was merely doing what an old

842
00:51:32.719 --> 00:51:36.480
woman dressed in black had told him to do. Parr

843
00:51:36.519 --> 00:51:39.360
was convicted and authorities executed him by hanging in nineteen

844
00:51:39.400 --> 00:51:42.960
forty one. And yes, there were still hangings in nineteen

845
00:51:43.039 --> 00:51:47.840
forty one. Yeah. Yeah, some people get surprised by that

846
00:51:47.840 --> 00:51:51.800
that firing squad and hangings are not very old or

847
00:51:52.119 --> 00:51:53.000
not very or not.

848
00:51:53.519 --> 00:51:55.800
They're not far removed than history.

849
00:51:55.880 --> 00:51:58.679
That's work. That's a good way to put it. So anyway,

850
00:51:58.679 --> 00:52:00.480
But I just want to mention, for got to mention

851
00:52:00.519 --> 00:52:01.960
the part about how he comes into town and says,

852
00:52:01.960 --> 00:52:03.000
I'm finally finished.

853
00:52:03.760 --> 00:52:06.440
So it's creepy. Yeah, that's super creepy.

854
00:52:06.559 --> 00:52:10.079
And remember he lived deep in the woods of former Blair,

855
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:15.679
which is supposedly where Ellie Edward lives and rains Supreme

856
00:52:15.719 --> 00:52:19.760
and wreaks havoc and all this stuff. So at one

857
00:52:19.800 --> 00:52:22.440
point while they're going through trying to look at these

858
00:52:22.519 --> 00:52:25.320
and it's the middle of the day and they're filming

859
00:52:25.360 --> 00:52:30.000
all these little cairns and Josh while operating camera, and

860
00:52:30.079 --> 00:52:33.119
it's important to keep in mind that, especially in nineteen

861
00:52:33.159 --> 00:52:36.320
eighty four, when you're making a student thesis film, it

862
00:52:36.400 --> 00:52:40.199
has to be on film. So the video camera that

863
00:52:41.119 --> 00:52:44.199
Heather is running around with all the time that was supplemental.

864
00:52:44.880 --> 00:52:47.239
The thought thinking being I guess that if she got

865
00:52:47.239 --> 00:52:49.679
something really good on it that she couldn't get on film,

866
00:52:50.079 --> 00:52:53.000
she might be able to use it because documentaries are

867
00:52:53.000 --> 00:52:56.960
more forgiving of format changing, yeah, and of lower quality format.

868
00:52:57.719 --> 00:53:03.079
Because before video, making a documentary was very, very hard

869
00:53:03.599 --> 00:53:06.480
and very challenging because you had to have all of

870
00:53:06.519 --> 00:53:09.920
these roles of film and you didn't always know what

871
00:53:10.079 --> 00:53:12.239
circumstance you were going to be in because your film,

872
00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:16.559
you don't have your ISO and gain is set on

873
00:53:16.639 --> 00:53:17.400
the film stock.

874
00:53:18.199 --> 00:53:21.639
Oh just like just like photography film.

875
00:53:21.800 --> 00:53:24.920
Yeah, yeah, it's exactly the same. So and the film

876
00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:27.280
is color balance too, so you have tungsten balanced film

877
00:53:27.280 --> 00:53:30.599
and daylight balance film, so you can't just run and gun.

878
00:53:30.679 --> 00:53:34.599
But also on sixteen millimeter you might get seven minutes

879
00:53:35.440 --> 00:53:40.239
maybe nine minutes of film rolling and it's expensive, which

880
00:53:40.280 --> 00:53:41.800
is one of my favorite things. When he tests the

881
00:53:41.840 --> 00:53:44.920
camera's like that's enough, that's enough. Yeah, And now as

882
00:53:44.920 --> 00:53:46.760
I'm older, I'm like that that's because that's one hundred

883
00:53:46.760 --> 00:53:48.719
and twenty dollars worth of film rolling through the camera

884
00:53:48.719 --> 00:53:51.519
in nineteen ninety four. That's why she's getting upset.

885
00:53:51.960 --> 00:53:53.719
So yeah, you're burning money, man, I.

886
00:53:53.679 --> 00:53:56.079
Mean literally, that's the saying that a lot of the

887
00:53:56.119 --> 00:53:58.840
old timers in my business, they say a lot is

888
00:53:58.840 --> 00:54:01.400
they say that like in the olden days, one of

889
00:54:01.400 --> 00:54:03.760
the nice things about shooting on film was that everybody

890
00:54:03.840 --> 00:54:07.320
knew when they heard the drum buzzing of the film

891
00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:09.719
camera that it was money running through the machine. So

892
00:54:09.760 --> 00:54:12.679
they took it very seriously. They would shut the hell

893
00:54:12.800 --> 00:54:14.639
up they would stop what they were doing and they

894
00:54:14.639 --> 00:54:18.599
would do their job. So but with documentaries, I mean

895
00:54:18.639 --> 00:54:21.719
that's yeah, the interviewing part would be would not be

896
00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:24.840
that hard, although you would have those moments where you'd

897
00:54:24.840 --> 00:54:26.280
be like, I'm sorry, you were in the middle of

898
00:54:26.320 --> 00:54:29.000
a thought, but we ran out of film. Yeah, can

899
00:54:29.039 --> 00:54:31.480
you let us take fifteen minutes to reload it and

900
00:54:31.519 --> 00:54:34.360
then do it again. That's it's a really I don't

901
00:54:34.400 --> 00:54:37.119
know how they did it, to be honest, because documentary

902
00:54:37.159 --> 00:54:39.719
making now is get a bunch of video cameras, you know,

903
00:54:39.960 --> 00:54:42.159
try to have some that are high quality. But whatever works.

904
00:54:42.320 --> 00:54:43.639
You know, whatever you have works as long as the

905
00:54:43.679 --> 00:54:46.039
sounds decent, and just film and film and film and

906
00:54:46.039 --> 00:54:48.039
film and film and then cut it all together. Yeah,

907
00:54:48.079 --> 00:54:49.559
but when it was shot on film, it was a

908
00:54:49.599 --> 00:54:52.519
lot harder. So that being said, I think that's one

909
00:54:52.519 --> 00:54:54.079
of the reasons she brought the extra camera. That and

910
00:54:54.119 --> 00:54:57.760
just being a film student means that she obviously loves cameras.

911
00:54:57.400 --> 00:54:59.199
And filming anyway.

912
00:54:59.320 --> 00:55:02.679
Yeah, So but that being said, whenever they find anything

913
00:55:02.719 --> 00:55:05.119
of note, she's going to want to take a second

914
00:55:05.159 --> 00:55:08.039
and get it on sixteen millimeters black and white, which,

915
00:55:08.199 --> 00:55:10.679
by the way, it's in black and white because that's cheaper,

916
00:55:10.960 --> 00:55:15.239
like three times cheaper than color film. So that's that's

917
00:55:15.280 --> 00:55:17.880
why film student films are almost always in black and white.

918
00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:20.880
It's not an artistic choice. It's it's a money choice,

919
00:55:20.960 --> 00:55:23.679
much cheaper, okay, And that's good to know. And a

920
00:55:23.679 --> 00:55:25.320
lot of times film schools, well this is back then.

921
00:55:25.400 --> 00:55:27.639
See when I was when I was supposed to go

922
00:55:27.679 --> 00:55:29.280
to film school, and it would have been my time

923
00:55:29.320 --> 00:55:31.960
to go to film school, there was no video program

924
00:55:32.039 --> 00:55:34.639
at all. That was broadcasting. You could go into broadcasting,

925
00:55:34.679 --> 00:55:37.559
but you couldn't go into film. You couldn't be making

926
00:55:38.239 --> 00:55:42.199
movies on videotape. So that's one of the things that

927
00:55:42.239 --> 00:55:45.079
kept me out. Because my mother was really like all

928
00:55:45.119 --> 00:55:46.960
about me going to film school, and she was willing

929
00:55:47.000 --> 00:55:48.480
to send me to any film school I wanted to

930
00:55:48.519 --> 00:55:52.119
go to. She was going to mortgage our house to

931
00:55:52.159 --> 00:55:56.280
send me to college because I didn't have well, I mean, well,

932
00:55:56.320 --> 00:55:58.920
this conversation was before I could have turned my grades

933
00:55:58.960 --> 00:56:02.840
around to get into a better college. These conversations were early.

934
00:56:04.159 --> 00:56:06.360
But she wanted me to go to film school and

935
00:56:06.400 --> 00:56:08.280
she was willing to send me. She wanted to send

936
00:56:08.280 --> 00:56:10.119
me to this new England Film School. I can't remember

937
00:56:10.119 --> 00:56:11.239
the name of it now. She was like, I'd be

938
00:56:11.239 --> 00:56:12.880
good for you. You know, you'd be you know, somewhat near

939
00:56:12.920 --> 00:56:15.719
your dad, and you know you already know New England

940
00:56:15.760 --> 00:56:18.239
pretty well. And it's a really good film school without

941
00:56:18.239 --> 00:56:23.360
being like UCLA or USC or NYU, which would be

942
00:56:23.639 --> 00:56:26.360
I mean we yeah, even mortgaging the house would be

943
00:56:26.400 --> 00:56:28.239
a bit of a stretch to go to those places

944
00:56:28.239 --> 00:56:31.280
for me. But you know, but I looked into it

945
00:56:31.320 --> 00:56:33.039
and it was like crazy because yeah, it's like ten

946
00:56:33.079 --> 00:56:35.559
thousand dollars a semester or eight thousand dollars a semester,

947
00:56:35.599 --> 00:56:38.360
but then your film costs are like another ten grand

948
00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:43.280
a year. Whoof yeah it could be more sometimes. So

949
00:56:43.880 --> 00:56:47.360
film's expensive is the long and the short of all

950
00:56:47.440 --> 00:56:47.840
of that.

951
00:56:49.039 --> 00:56:51.960
But my only experience with film was I had to

952
00:56:51.960 --> 00:56:57.599
take one film photography class at Sinclair and I paid

953
00:56:57.639 --> 00:57:00.280
a lot of attention to the price of silver for

954
00:57:00.920 --> 00:57:05.400
that what four month five month period because I had

955
00:57:05.440 --> 00:57:07.760
to buy all the film and it was silver based photography.

956
00:57:07.840 --> 00:57:10.400
So as the price of silver went up and down,

957
00:57:10.440 --> 00:57:12.119
I was like, well, this is when I'm not buying

958
00:57:12.119 --> 00:57:14.960
film or oh, if the price has gone down this week.

959
00:57:15.320 --> 00:57:16.000
I'm gonna buy it.

960
00:57:16.000 --> 00:57:18.920
They still use silver nitrate in photography film because they

961
00:57:18.920 --> 00:57:21.360
don't in motion picture film because it's two damn flamble.

962
00:57:22.000 --> 00:57:24.360
Oh yeah, well, we gotta remember they're piling giant stacks

963
00:57:24.400 --> 00:57:28.760
of film for movies. But that was a very long

964
00:57:28.800 --> 00:57:32.480
digression to say that. As Josh is trying to get

965
00:57:32.519 --> 00:57:36.760
a good sixteen millimeters shot of this pile of stones,

966
00:57:37.800 --> 00:57:42.119
something that may have triggered all of the horrors we're

967
00:57:42.159 --> 00:57:46.719
about to talk about happens. We'll talk about that right

968
00:57:46.760 --> 00:58:00.960
after this. Okay, So Josh over one of the piles

969
00:58:00.960 --> 00:58:04.000
of rocks. I'm so sorry that I made it take

970
00:58:04.079 --> 00:58:07.239
so long for us to get there. I feel like,

971
00:58:07.400 --> 00:58:10.800
if you're just tuning into cutting deep into horror, I

972
00:58:10.840 --> 00:58:13.880
hope you really like movie talk and film talk because

973
00:58:14.400 --> 00:58:19.000
I can't help myself. I have been in the film

974
00:58:19.039 --> 00:58:24.639
business actively since I was fifteen years old, you know

975
00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:28.639
or two, well more, so I can't help but know

976
00:58:28.760 --> 00:58:31.480
a thing or two, and it's obviously what I'm interested

977
00:58:31.519 --> 00:58:33.760
in because it ain't a way to make lots of

978
00:58:33.760 --> 00:58:37.599
money fast, I'll tell you that much. So I remember

979
00:58:38.760 --> 00:58:41.559
I gave a talk at Film Dayton I've given two.

980
00:58:41.599 --> 00:58:43.320
I give one about distribution. Oh no, they were both

981
00:58:43.360 --> 00:58:46.159
about distribution, but they were like three or four years apart.

982
00:58:46.880 --> 00:58:50.480
And when I gave the first talk about it, I

983
00:58:50.519 --> 00:58:54.199
had just had like three massive wins in film distribution

984
00:58:55.079 --> 00:58:58.079
because I made money. Not a lot of money, but

985
00:58:58.079 --> 00:59:00.960
I made money and I kept getting movies released, which

986
00:59:01.000 --> 00:59:02.119
people were just like, how do you do it? How

987
00:59:02.119 --> 00:59:03.400
do you get your movies released? And I was like,

988
00:59:03.639 --> 00:59:06.480
I don't know. You make them and then you ask

989
00:59:06.559 --> 00:59:09.280
people to release them. What if they say no, then

990
00:59:09.320 --> 00:59:12.599
you ask more people. That was like the Q and

991
00:59:12.639 --> 00:59:16.119
A basically, but but it was funny because I was

992
00:59:16.199 --> 00:59:19.400
very aggressive about like do your research, you know, make

993
00:59:19.440 --> 00:59:22.039
the right movie for the right price. You know, that's

994
00:59:22.360 --> 00:59:24.320
that kind of thing. And toward the end of it,

995
00:59:24.360 --> 00:59:26.440
somebody had said like it said, like this should be

996
00:59:26.480 --> 00:59:29.440
like a seminar, like I made movies and I made

997
00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:32.440
money in movies and you can too. And I was like, sir, sir, sir, sir, sir,

998
00:59:33.119 --> 00:59:35.960
go into real estate for the love of God that

999
00:59:36.119 --> 00:59:40.000
if you want to make money, like go into something else. Yeah,

1000
00:59:40.119 --> 00:59:42.719
this is in my blood. I can't help it. Like

1001
00:59:42.840 --> 00:59:45.920
I just happened to be the functional drunk, you know,

1002
00:59:46.079 --> 00:59:50.320
of this whole thing, like I'm the functional speedball user

1003
00:59:50.719 --> 00:59:54.239
of the of the filmatics. You know, I'm the one

1004
00:59:54.280 --> 00:59:56.239
who still shows up to work on time every day.

1005
00:59:57.840 --> 01:00:01.119
So anyway, he knocks over the pile of of stones,

1006
01:00:01.920 --> 01:00:04.719
and now the tone does shift. And I have to

1007
01:00:04.760 --> 01:00:09.079
admit that, in all the years of watching Blair Witch Project,

1008
01:00:09.239 --> 01:00:13.719
I there's something about watching movies you've seen dozens and

1009
01:00:13.760 --> 01:00:17.719
dozens of times, how you'll just miss little things. And

1010
01:00:17.960 --> 01:00:20.840
I remember him knocking over the stones, but I also

1011
01:00:20.840 --> 01:00:25.559
remember kind of going like, peh, whatever, and it I

1012
01:00:25.599 --> 01:00:27.119
think it's a massive element.

1013
01:00:27.280 --> 01:00:29.480
I do believe. So, yeah, do you remember when.

1014
01:00:29.360 --> 01:00:31.360
She puts the stone back on there, she kisses, she

1015
01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:33.440
kisses her hand and ketches it and then looks it

1016
01:00:33.519 --> 01:00:37.559
just can't be too careful. It's a really awesome moment. So,

1017
01:00:38.119 --> 01:00:42.280
and it should be mentioned that the way the movie

1018
01:00:42.400 --> 01:00:44.239
was made. Have you ever looked into the way the

1019
01:00:44.239 --> 01:00:47.480
movie was actually made? No, it's weirder than you think.

1020
01:00:49.719 --> 01:00:54.840
So the actors were given let's see, uh, let's see okay,

1021
01:00:54.880 --> 01:00:57.360
So the actors were given clues as to their next

1022
01:00:57.400 --> 01:01:02.239
location through messages hidden Inde thirty five millimeter film cans

1023
01:01:02.320 --> 01:01:07.400
left in milk crates they found using satellite and navigation units.

1024
01:01:07.840 --> 01:01:13.039
They did not directly speak to the directors very often

1025
01:01:13.079 --> 01:01:17.719
at all. That is insane, and they get this though.

1026
01:01:17.920 --> 01:01:21.320
This is part I love. They were given individual instructions

1027
01:01:21.360 --> 01:01:24.199
to use to use in order to help improvise the

1028
01:01:24.239 --> 01:01:26.440
action of the day, So each of them got their

1029
01:01:26.480 --> 01:01:29.760
own script so that the others didn't know things that

1030
01:01:29.800 --> 01:01:34.239
they knew. I love that, and that's something that I

1031
01:01:35.119 --> 01:01:41.880
found really fascinating because like when I've made found footage

1032
01:01:41.920 --> 01:01:43.760
movies in the past, and I've never made me of

1033
01:01:43.840 --> 01:01:45.440
to the caliber of Blair Witch or whatever, but I've

1034
01:01:45.440 --> 01:01:48.079
made ones that I thought were pretty fun. I'm pretty scary.

1035
01:01:48.199 --> 01:01:51.320
The biggest tool I always had was was misleading and

1036
01:01:51.360 --> 01:01:54.440
confusing the actors. That was like the best way to

1037
01:01:54.440 --> 01:01:58.559
get great stuff, Like having them break character and not

1038
01:01:58.639 --> 01:02:01.440
realize I'm using the footage. Yeah, that was one of

1039
01:02:01.440 --> 01:02:05.159
my favorites. Or misleading them or saying things that they

1040
01:02:05.199 --> 01:02:07.519
didn't know I was going to say if I was

1041
01:02:07.519 --> 01:02:10.559
a character in the scene, sneaking up on them when

1042
01:02:10.519 --> 01:02:14.840
they weren't expecting. It's it's really good fun. So they

1043
01:02:14.840 --> 01:02:18.440
were given instructions and also from what I understand, also

1044
01:02:18.559 --> 01:02:21.239
like food and water in these little drops.

1045
01:02:21.559 --> 01:02:23.920
Yeah, and you mentioned that they were given less and

1046
01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:25.679
less food as the shooting.

1047
01:02:25.880 --> 01:02:29.000
Yeah, they could. They from what I understand, they consented

1048
01:02:29.039 --> 01:02:31.960
to that. They consented to having their food get rationed

1049
01:02:32.039 --> 01:02:34.880
less and less to help them build up the reality

1050
01:02:35.440 --> 01:02:37.159
of being lost in the woods and having no food

1051
01:02:37.199 --> 01:02:46.199
at all. So, yeah, it's it's really really wild. And

1052
01:02:46.280 --> 01:02:49.920
according to the commentary, the filmmakers did the figure that

1053
01:02:49.960 --> 01:02:52.159
donnae Whu was shouting about when she's running away from

1054
01:02:52.159 --> 01:02:53.519
the tent later on, which we'll get to that in

1055
01:02:53.559 --> 01:02:57.760
a minute, was the art director Ricardo Moreno, who was

1056
01:02:57.760 --> 01:03:00.800
wearing white long John's, white stockings and white pantyhose pulled

1057
01:03:00.800 --> 01:03:03.719
over his head, and which is extra funny because you

1058
01:03:03.719 --> 01:03:07.119
never even get a peek. You never even get a

1059
01:03:07.119 --> 01:03:11.880
peek at him. So so and obviously I would have

1060
01:03:11.920 --> 01:03:15.960
to guarantee that, you know, without digging super deep, that

1061
01:03:15.960 --> 01:03:18.320
that there was a little more direction given here and

1062
01:03:18.320 --> 01:03:22.639
there for more poignant and pivotal moments, but overall the

1063
01:03:22.719 --> 01:03:26.119
actors were really just kind of running and gunning, you know,

1064
01:03:26.239 --> 01:03:29.079
just kind of going for it. So they've knocked over

1065
01:03:29.119 --> 01:03:35.199
the Karens and now night is falling, and as they're

1066
01:03:35.199 --> 01:03:37.960
trying to go to sleep, they're turning on the cameras

1067
01:03:38.000 --> 01:03:42.320
because they're talking to each other about hearing sticks snapping

1068
01:03:42.960 --> 01:03:45.519
and things like that. And I think that's the one

1069
01:03:45.559 --> 01:03:48.320
where in the morning they're talking to Josh and he's like,

1070
01:03:48.360 --> 01:03:51.599
I heard sounds over here and over here. You know,

1071
01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:54.519
there were this and there was a two layers of

1072
01:03:54.559 --> 01:03:57.000
sound over here, one layer of sound over here. And

1073
01:03:57.079 --> 01:03:58.719
I love it because Mike and Heather are just like,

1074
01:03:58.760 --> 01:04:01.320
I didn't hear anything like sleep really heavy, and Mike's like,

1075
01:04:01.679 --> 01:04:04.440
or Josh is like, I don't sleep heavy. Yeah, so

1076
01:04:04.760 --> 01:04:06.960
I heard all this stuff. But they're kind of like, well,

1077
01:04:07.679 --> 01:04:09.840
it could be a raccoon. But then he says something

1078
01:04:09.960 --> 01:04:12.039
that really creeps me out every time, which he says,

1079
01:04:12.320 --> 01:04:15.920
I swear it kind of sounded like a cackling, And

1080
01:04:15.960 --> 01:04:19.960
that's when you start to realize that you are indeed

1081
01:04:20.079 --> 01:04:27.280
watching the Blair Witch Project and a yea. The following day, though,

1082
01:04:27.679 --> 01:04:31.440
they decide, welp, we've got our footage. It's time to

1083
01:04:31.480 --> 01:04:34.920
head back to the car and skid out or is

1084
01:04:34.960 --> 01:04:37.800
it We'll find out after that.

1085
01:04:50.960 --> 01:04:55.800
So they wake up that next morning after a after

1086
01:04:55.840 --> 01:05:00.719
talking about what all Josh had heard through the night,

1087
01:05:01.440 --> 01:05:07.599
and they realized that there are three cairns around their tent.

1088
01:05:07.800 --> 01:05:09.639
So, and this is after they tried to find the

1089
01:05:09.679 --> 01:05:10.360
car and failed.

1090
01:05:10.880 --> 01:05:15.159
They absolutely could not find and they were hiking like

1091
01:05:15.199 --> 01:05:18.320
most of the day. So Heather's explanation, it's just like

1092
01:05:18.360 --> 01:05:21.639
they had heart hiked farther than they thought, so they

1093
01:05:21.679 --> 01:05:24.519
can't make it to the car before nightfall. They've got

1094
01:05:24.519 --> 01:05:28.039
a camp. So when they wake up that next morning,

1095
01:05:29.199 --> 01:05:35.599
there's three cairns around their tent, and the two guys

1096
01:05:36.039 --> 01:05:39.800
don't think much of it, but Heather insists that those

1097
01:05:39.880 --> 01:05:45.239
cairns were not there when they made camp last night,

1098
01:05:45.760 --> 01:05:49.000
and so she's kind of on edge. But what the

1099
01:05:49.039 --> 01:05:52.159
guys are more worried about is getting back to the

1100
01:05:52.199 --> 01:05:56.000
car because they've rented all their equipment. They've got to

1101
01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:56.880
get it back in time.

1102
01:05:57.360 --> 01:06:00.920
Back then, this stuff was very very It still is somewhat,

1103
01:06:00.920 --> 01:06:04.039
but it's very expensive to rent. You couldn't just own

1104
01:06:04.079 --> 01:06:07.079
a digital tape recorder. You couldn't just own a sixteen

1105
01:06:07.079 --> 01:06:10.840
millimeter camera. Yeah, you were renting it and you get

1106
01:06:10.880 --> 01:06:12.920
a deal on the weekend because they're not open on Sunday,

1107
01:06:12.960 --> 01:06:14.639
so you get Sunday for free if you return it

1108
01:06:14.679 --> 01:06:15.639
first thing Monday morning.

1109
01:06:15.920 --> 01:06:18.679
And you got to give back there on Monday, Yes

1110
01:06:18.760 --> 01:06:21.639
you do. And not to mention, they've got deadlines looming

1111
01:06:21.639 --> 01:06:25.519
with apparently like finals coming up. So the guys really

1112
01:06:25.679 --> 01:06:29.000
want to get back to the car, and Heather starts,

1113
01:06:29.159 --> 01:06:32.199
you know, after kind of being freaked out about the Cairns,

1114
01:06:33.280 --> 01:06:38.199
Heather starts leading them, and this is where the tension,

1115
01:06:38.719 --> 01:06:41.920
Like I was talking about, the tension isn't just rust

1116
01:06:41.960 --> 01:06:44.840
and Parr. It's not just the Woods, it's not just

1117
01:06:45.800 --> 01:06:49.360
the Witch. It's also what's going on with them because

1118
01:06:49.400 --> 01:06:53.440
they've been out there, you know, all all yesterday. It's

1119
01:06:54.039 --> 01:06:56.559
getting later and later in the day, and they're all

1120
01:06:56.639 --> 01:06:59.440
snapping at each other. Josh is trying to be like

1121
01:06:59.480 --> 01:07:04.400
the media between Mike and Heather, and we really see that,

1122
01:07:04.559 --> 01:07:09.760
like he doesn't want to take Heather's side necessarily because

1123
01:07:09.800 --> 01:07:12.639
he's also annoyed that they've been out there so long.

1124
01:07:12.880 --> 01:07:15.440
But Heather is the one who has the map, has

1125
01:07:15.480 --> 01:07:19.000
the compass and says she knows and she knows where

1126
01:07:19.039 --> 01:07:21.639
everything is. She knew where Coffin Rock was, she knew

1127
01:07:21.639 --> 01:07:23.800
where the cemetery was, so she knows where the car is,

1128
01:07:24.280 --> 01:07:26.440
and of course Mike is gonna get upset because Mike

1129
01:07:26.519 --> 01:07:29.480
knows her the least. Yeah, So from his perspective, he's like,

1130
01:07:29.480 --> 01:07:31.079
it's starting to look like you just don't know what

1131
01:07:31.119 --> 01:07:33.559
you're talking about. There are a few parts where there's

1132
01:07:33.559 --> 01:07:36.199
one part where he like tells her straight up like, Okay,

1133
01:07:36.199 --> 01:07:37.519
but I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't know

1134
01:07:37.519 --> 01:07:40.039
if I trust you right now because you're not you know,

1135
01:07:40.079 --> 01:07:41.920
you're telling me stuff. And then it's not really happened

1136
01:07:41.960 --> 01:07:44.559
in that way, mm hmm, which I love those little

1137
01:07:44.559 --> 01:07:47.320
exchanges where he just looks at her very matter of fact.

1138
01:07:47.320 --> 01:07:50.239
He says like, I don't know if I trust you. Yeah,

1139
01:07:50.360 --> 01:07:52.519
because she keeps saying the cars were almost there, the

1140
01:07:52.559 --> 01:07:54.920
car's almost there. The night that they camp, she just

1141
01:07:54.920 --> 01:07:56.480
says like, we must have been deeper in the ones,

1142
01:07:56.480 --> 01:07:58.920
and I thought, we're probably less than an hour's hike

1143
01:07:58.960 --> 01:08:00.599
from the car, but we can't make it at night.

1144
01:08:00.639 --> 01:08:04.039
There's no chance, too dark, so we'll do it in

1145
01:08:04.079 --> 01:08:04.519
the morning.

1146
01:08:04.679 --> 01:08:07.480
Yeah, And so they're hiking for an hour and he's like, well,

1147
01:08:07.519 --> 01:08:10.480
where's the car, and she keeps insisting like she knows

1148
01:08:10.480 --> 01:08:15.159
where it is, she knows where they are. And as

1149
01:08:15.800 --> 01:08:19.359
things get more and more tense, like Mike is really

1150
01:08:19.399 --> 01:08:23.640
the one who's like lashing out, yes, And as it

1151
01:08:23.680 --> 01:08:26.359
gets later in the day, she starts talking about like, well,

1152
01:08:26.359 --> 01:08:29.239
we're gonna have to make camp again because it's gonna

1153
01:08:29.279 --> 01:08:32.520
get dark very quickly in these woods and we cannot

1154
01:08:33.039 --> 01:08:35.039
make it back to the car. And he gets really

1155
01:08:35.159 --> 01:08:38.159
upset because they were supposed to be back at the

1156
01:08:38.199 --> 01:08:42.319
car like first thing this morning. Yeah, And now Josh

1157
01:08:42.399 --> 01:08:45.880
is really getting upset too, and he's asking, Josh is asking,

1158
01:08:45.960 --> 01:08:48.600
I want to see the map, like at least let

1159
01:08:48.680 --> 01:08:49.600
me look at it.

1160
01:08:49.920 --> 01:08:51.800
Josh is extra mad because he's supposed to be at

1161
01:08:51.840 --> 01:08:55.880
work on Monday morning. They're supposed to be home Sunday night, yeah,

1162
01:08:55.920 --> 01:09:00.319
returning the gear and going back to their lives Monday morning. Yeah.

1163
01:09:00.359 --> 01:09:02.960
So he demands the map because he's like, I'm tired

1164
01:09:03.000 --> 01:09:05.199
of you doing this. I want to see the map.

1165
01:09:05.880 --> 01:09:10.199
And that's when Heather reveals she can't find the map,

1166
01:09:11.479 --> 01:09:16.439
and that's she starts accusing Josh, like why why were

1167
01:09:16.479 --> 01:09:18.399
you asking for the map? Did you take the map

1168
01:09:18.479 --> 01:09:18.840
from me?

1169
01:09:20.000 --> 01:09:23.880
And then well, she suggests that maybe off camera he

1170
01:09:23.920 --> 01:09:26.399
had asked to look at it before and that he

1171
01:09:26.560 --> 01:09:28.239
and she's like, I don't think you gave it back

1172
01:09:28.279 --> 01:09:31.159
to me because I don't have it. And I love

1173
01:09:31.239 --> 01:09:34.760
Josh's response because he's like, it's not you're fucking with

1174
01:09:34.840 --> 01:09:38.920
me right like that is not cool. Do not act

1175
01:09:39.039 --> 01:09:43.119
like you don't have it, Like, if you're messing with me,

1176
01:09:43.199 --> 01:09:46.279
stop right now, because I'm pretty pissed off. And your

1177
01:09:46.319 --> 01:09:49.279
point about him being kind of the mediator really is fair,

1178
01:09:50.039 --> 01:09:53.079
because this is where he finally starts to go like,

1179
01:09:54.199 --> 01:09:58.159
fuck you and fuck your movie. I want to go home.

1180
01:09:59.279 --> 01:10:03.520
I'm tired this shit. So if you didn't lose the

1181
01:10:03.560 --> 01:10:06.199
map and you're saying it because you're an asshole, I

1182
01:10:06.279 --> 01:10:09.239
hate you. And if you lost the map, I hate you.

1183
01:10:10.880 --> 01:10:14.760
I hate you for all of this. And who hasn't

1184
01:10:14.800 --> 01:10:19.680
been there on a film set most people? Fair?

1185
01:10:20.520 --> 01:10:24.760
Fair, I'm just being straight up with you. But no,

1186
01:10:24.840 --> 01:10:29.800
I mean I would be livid. I mean as a filmmaker,

1187
01:10:29.920 --> 01:10:33.079
as a film worker, which is not something I don't

1188
01:10:33.119 --> 01:10:36.479
usually film work very much. I filmmake, and there's the

1189
01:10:36.560 --> 01:10:39.680
delineation as film workers are hired on movies. Filmmakers are

1190
01:10:39.680 --> 01:10:44.000
like are are generating the movies. Yeah, And it's really

1191
01:10:44.079 --> 01:10:47.640
just a semantic way to understand a specific point. I've

1192
01:10:47.640 --> 01:10:50.279
been hired on movies where I've become positive the leadership

1193
01:10:50.319 --> 01:10:54.119
does not know what they're doing and it is very frustrating.

1194
01:10:54.159 --> 01:10:56.880
But it was never once. It was always like, great,

1195
01:10:56.960 --> 01:10:58.840
so I'm not gonna have fucking dinner. I'm gonna be

1196
01:10:58.880 --> 01:11:02.279
really grouchy. It was never like, great, so we're lost

1197
01:11:02.319 --> 01:11:09.039
in the woods for days. Slight difference, Yeah.

1198
01:11:07.840 --> 01:11:13.800
Yeah, so yeah, not a great position to be in

1199
01:11:14.079 --> 01:11:20.840
for anyone, especially like Heather's trying. But it's also very

1200
01:11:20.880 --> 01:11:25.119
clear that she's While she is a natural born leader,

1201
01:11:25.159 --> 01:11:27.840
she's never been a position where she has to like

1202
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:29.279
rally the troops.

1203
01:11:29.920 --> 01:11:33.600
Yeah, or where she's just been wrong and can't byes

1204
01:11:33.720 --> 01:11:37.039
her way out of being wrong. Because before the map

1205
01:11:37.079 --> 01:11:42.319
even disappears, she's constantly being told by Mike and eventually

1206
01:11:42.359 --> 01:11:47.199
by Josh as well, like just if we're lost, just

1207
01:11:47.479 --> 01:11:51.359
say we're lost. Yeah, like almost like that would make

1208
01:11:51.399 --> 01:11:52.279
them feel better.

1209
01:11:52.560 --> 01:11:55.720
Yeah, the admission would be like, Okay, now we are

1210
01:11:55.760 --> 01:11:58.199
working with all the information.

1211
01:11:57.840 --> 01:12:00.279
Yeah, we're working together, instead of just like and I

1212
01:12:00.359 --> 01:12:03.279
get that too, because if you put your trust into

1213
01:12:03.319 --> 01:12:06.760
somebody to get you out of a situation, and they're

1214
01:12:06.800 --> 01:12:09.560
feeding you the wrong information, or they're misleading you or whatever.

1215
01:12:09.600 --> 01:12:13.199
It's like you're not using your own problem solving skills

1216
01:12:13.680 --> 01:12:15.840
to help or to try and get yourself out of

1217
01:12:15.840 --> 01:12:19.199
the situation. If she just said we're lost, they could

1218
01:12:19.279 --> 01:12:21.840
all start concentrating on figuring out how the hell to

1219
01:12:21.880 --> 01:12:24.520
get out. But instead they're being told no, I know

1220
01:12:24.560 --> 01:12:26.880
exactly whe're going. So they're like, okay, so just going

1221
01:12:26.920 --> 01:12:32.439
along with it and getting more lost. So I get

1222
01:12:32.840 --> 01:12:37.960
why the frustration is building so intensely. And Heather is

1223
01:12:38.039 --> 01:12:43.760
she's very bullheaded, she's very intense. And as you said,

1224
01:12:43.800 --> 01:12:47.279
Mikey Is he's a bit more serious. But again I

1225
01:12:47.359 --> 01:12:49.319
think that really comes down to the fact that he's

1226
01:12:49.399 --> 01:12:53.000
younger and he doesn't know these guys. Yeah, so he's trying.

1227
01:12:53.000 --> 01:12:55.880
Because that's another thing I should mention. In film school,

1228
01:12:56.720 --> 01:13:01.680
usually you crewe your films from the class, right, So

1229
01:13:02.560 --> 01:13:07.840
Mikey is running DAT, which is digital tape. It's he's

1230
01:13:07.840 --> 01:13:10.479
a sound person. That's where you would get you. You

1231
01:13:10.640 --> 01:13:12.640
try to find somebody who's studying sound or at least

1232
01:13:12.640 --> 01:13:14.800
knows enough about it, and they would do it, and

1233
01:13:14.840 --> 01:13:17.039
they usually get like credit hours or some kind of

1234
01:13:17.159 --> 01:13:19.760
bonus for it. Same thing with dps. You'd find somebody

1235
01:13:19.800 --> 01:13:22.399
who is studying to be a DP and you'd get

1236
01:13:22.399 --> 01:13:24.319
them to come on your project. So it's so that's

1237
01:13:24.359 --> 01:13:26.399
why he's doing this and for him, you know, he

1238
01:13:26.520 --> 01:13:28.439
keeps early on, he keeps saying and thank you for

1239
01:13:28.479 --> 01:13:31.039
the opportunity, thank you for the opportunity. He's being very

1240
01:13:31.079 --> 01:13:33.640
like exactly the way you should be when you're young

1241
01:13:33.680 --> 01:13:36.520
and you're just getting your first opportunity to do something.

1242
01:13:36.920 --> 01:13:41.319
You're just gracious and friendly. Yes, sir, No, sir, sounds good.

1243
01:13:41.600 --> 01:13:44.159
It takes him two days, like two days of hanging

1244
01:13:44.159 --> 01:13:45.560
out with them to even kind of let loose a

1245
01:13:45.600 --> 01:13:47.239
little bit and laugh about the fact that they are

1246
01:13:47.319 --> 01:13:50.960
drinking beer and Scotch and stuff in between you know, working,

1247
01:13:51.039 --> 01:13:55.119
because they got to unwind a little bit. But Mike

1248
01:13:55.239 --> 01:14:00.439
is about to reveal something that is not easy going

1249
01:14:00.640 --> 01:14:04.359
or lighthearted, and we'll talk about that right after this.

1250
01:14:16.920 --> 01:14:22.359
As Josh and Heather are arguing about crossing the water,

1251
01:14:24.199 --> 01:14:27.079
I think this is around the time that she gets

1252
01:14:28.079 --> 01:14:31.800
soaked crossing this creek, which by the way, is one

1253
01:14:31.840 --> 01:14:35.000
of the moments that really pushes the movie's authenticity because

1254
01:14:35.000 --> 01:14:37.920
the camera comes on like moments after it's happened. You

1255
01:14:37.920 --> 01:14:40.520
don't actually get to see all of it, which is reality.

1256
01:14:40.560 --> 01:14:44.640
That's the way it actually goes. And she soaked her

1257
01:14:44.680 --> 01:14:48.840
stuff and Josh is laughing at her, Mike is laughing

1258
01:14:48.880 --> 01:14:51.439
at her. It's kind of a little cathartic for them

1259
01:14:51.439 --> 01:14:54.000
because they feel like, well, they know that she's gotten

1260
01:14:54.039 --> 01:14:57.000
them into all this trouble, so they're enjoying herself.

1261
01:14:58.119 --> 01:14:59.760
Well, you've got your comeuppance.

1262
01:15:00.560 --> 01:15:03.199
But she's not. She's like, do you really think it's

1263
01:15:03.199 --> 01:15:04.960
funny that my shit has to be wet all day?

1264
01:15:05.000 --> 01:15:07.760
And literally, as she says that, Josh goes back to

1265
01:15:07.840 --> 01:15:10.199
laughing because she says that, Like, he goes back to

1266
01:15:10.239 --> 01:15:12.439
being seriously like, but you're okay, and she's like, yeah,

1267
01:15:12.439 --> 01:15:14.680
but I don't think it's funny that my shit is

1268
01:15:14.720 --> 01:15:16.359
going to be wet all toda, and he starts laughing.

1269
01:15:16.520 --> 01:15:19.479
I love that that that her saying how awful it

1270
01:15:19.560 --> 01:15:23.479
is brings the humor path like, because you know, the

1271
01:15:23.520 --> 01:15:25.720
only thing worse than a the only thing harder to

1272
01:15:25.760 --> 01:15:29.640
hold back than a laugh, is a forbidden laugh. Oh yeah, yeah,

1273
01:15:29.680 --> 01:15:32.680
that's how many times in church where you just try

1274
01:15:32.720 --> 01:15:33.479
and not to laugh.

1275
01:15:34.079 --> 01:15:36.319
Oh do you think I saw it on the back?

1276
01:15:37.079 --> 01:15:40.079
No, yeah, it wasn't so you could see because you're short.

1277
01:15:40.800 --> 01:15:41.439
Well that too.

1278
01:15:42.039 --> 01:15:46.119
But but so as they're kind of fighting again, her

1279
01:15:46.159 --> 01:15:50.920
and Josh about you know, the map and being lost

1280
01:15:51.199 --> 01:15:54.359
and her not admitting it and him and also we

1281
01:15:54.439 --> 01:15:57.239
forgot the elephant in the in the forest, which is

1282
01:15:57.680 --> 01:16:01.279
they're tired of her filming them. Yeah, they're like, it's

1283
01:16:01.319 --> 01:16:03.399
not your fucking documentary anymore.

1284
01:16:04.039 --> 01:16:06.680
Yeah, we got we you literally said we got everything.

1285
01:16:06.880 --> 01:16:09.359
Where are you stuffin the woods? And at first her

1286
01:16:09.359 --> 01:16:11.359
excuse is like, because we're gonna look back at this

1287
01:16:11.399 --> 01:16:14.239
and it's gonna be really funny, you know how mad

1288
01:16:14.319 --> 01:16:16.439
we were, how stressed we were, when in reality, like

1289
01:16:16.479 --> 01:16:20.680
we were just about out. Yeah, that's the initial you know,

1290
01:16:20.880 --> 01:16:22.640
argument for it, and I could see that a little bit.

1291
01:16:22.920 --> 01:16:24.600
But then you want to take you want to do

1292
01:16:24.680 --> 01:16:27.199
the honors of Mike's big reveal.

1293
01:16:29.279 --> 01:16:32.439
Mike's listening to them argue and he's kind of like

1294
01:16:32.840 --> 01:16:39.279
stewing by himself, and then he finally just explodes and

1295
01:16:39.319 --> 01:16:42.920
he says he starts laughing, Yeah, just laughing, and he says,

1296
01:16:42.960 --> 01:16:45.880
of course you can't find the map. I kicked the map.

1297
01:16:46.279 --> 01:16:49.000
I kicked that ship in the river. It was useless,

1298
01:16:49.119 --> 01:16:52.680
it wasn't doing it any good. Yeah, so I kicked

1299
01:16:52.680 --> 01:16:55.039
that ship in the river and the creek.

1300
01:16:56.800 --> 01:16:59.720
And she asks, like, when did you do this? He's like,

1301
01:16:59.760 --> 01:17:01.399
earl today, when we.

1302
01:17:01.239 --> 01:17:02.800
Were yesterday something.

1303
01:17:02.880 --> 01:17:08.279
Yeah, like it was doing us no good. And obviously

1304
01:17:08.439 --> 01:17:13.039
now both she and to an extent Josh is upset,

1305
01:17:13.399 --> 01:17:16.960
but she's way more upset at Mike because that is

1306
01:17:17.520 --> 01:17:21.119
not only in subordination, but a complete betrayal of her trust,

1307
01:17:21.199 --> 01:17:23.760
because she is convinced that she could have gotten them

1308
01:17:23.840 --> 01:17:25.720
out of well the forest.

1309
01:17:25.880 --> 01:17:30.840
This is a big moment because as Josh is trying

1310
01:17:30.880 --> 01:17:34.840
to simultaneously keep them from physically fighting, but also he

1311
01:17:34.960 --> 01:17:40.760
wants to throttle Mike too. After he pulls Heather away

1312
01:17:40.800 --> 01:17:43.359
and kind of gets them to have their space. This

1313
01:17:43.439 --> 01:17:46.560
is the first time she says if we if we

1314
01:17:46.800 --> 01:17:49.920
get hurt or we die out here, it'll be your

1315
01:17:50.319 --> 01:17:57.840
fucking fault. She's like screaming at him, and I mean,

1316
01:17:58.039 --> 01:17:59.960
that's but that's like kind of the moment when you

1317
01:18:00.119 --> 01:18:04.640
hear her confidence falter, because she really does hold that

1318
01:18:04.720 --> 01:18:07.119
second where she said we get hurt or if we

1319
01:18:07.239 --> 01:18:11.479
die out here, because you're stuck in the woods.

1320
01:18:11.079 --> 01:18:14.039
Man, and people die in the woods. I know it happens.

1321
01:18:14.199 --> 01:18:17.880
I don't want to be one of them. So but

1322
01:18:17.920 --> 01:18:19.720
what what I thought was really interesting is a lot

1323
01:18:19.720 --> 01:18:21.720
of the times when they fight, they do they do

1324
01:18:21.800 --> 01:18:24.640
make up, you know, like I think very like a

1325
01:18:24.720 --> 01:18:27.199
humans do, where like, you know, we don't know how

1326
01:18:27.239 --> 01:18:29.840
much time passes when the camera cuts, so then you

1327
01:18:29.840 --> 01:18:32.640
know they're all yelling at each other, all in each

1328
01:18:32.640 --> 01:18:34.199
other's faces. And at one point, I don't know if

1329
01:18:34.239 --> 01:18:35.800
it was right after this fighter, later on, there's a

1330
01:18:35.800 --> 01:18:39.720
part where like they're kind of breathing and Mike like

1331
01:18:39.800 --> 01:18:42.920
literally just looks at her very sincerely and just says,

1332
01:18:42.920 --> 01:18:45.479
are you okay? Like I didn't hurt you or anything.

1333
01:18:46.279 --> 01:18:49.640
And I felt that in my soul that that moment

1334
01:18:49.680 --> 01:18:53.640
when you're like, I don't know who that was, I'm sorry,

1335
01:18:53.720 --> 01:18:56.039
Like are you okay? Because that's what matters now. It's

1336
01:18:56.159 --> 01:18:57.600
very like, it's very heart wrenching.

1337
01:18:58.039 --> 01:18:58.399
It is.

1338
01:18:58.640 --> 01:19:02.760
It is so now that they have no map, Heather's like, well,

1339
01:19:02.800 --> 01:19:06.560
will head south because she's got a compass? Yeah, because

1340
01:19:06.600 --> 01:19:11.960
eventually we'll hit something, and that's when they discover one

1341
01:19:12.000 --> 01:19:15.119
of the most if no the most iconic other than

1342
01:19:15.159 --> 01:19:18.239
the shot of her filming herself while she's crying in

1343
01:19:18.239 --> 01:19:21.520
the woods at night, Yeah, the most iconic thing in

1344
01:19:21.560 --> 01:19:25.520
the whole film, which is the stick figures hanging from

1345
01:19:25.600 --> 01:19:31.720
the trees. And this is one of my favorite moments.

1346
01:19:31.720 --> 01:19:34.159
I mean, they're just finding all these stick figures. And

1347
01:19:34.199 --> 01:19:35.960
it should be mentioned. I don't know if we mentioned it.

1348
01:19:36.039 --> 01:19:38.600
My brain's a little out of it, but when they

1349
01:19:38.640 --> 01:19:41.640
found the Karen's outside their campsite, there were three of them, right,

1350
01:19:41.640 --> 01:19:43.079
we mentioned I just want to mention that because they're

1351
01:19:43.079 --> 01:19:45.720
three of these guys, I'm pretty sure there were seven

1352
01:19:45.760 --> 01:19:52.079
stick figures. Yet again another seven reference. So yeah, it's

1353
01:19:52.279 --> 01:19:56.119
just they find the stick figures, and of course, because

1354
01:19:56.159 --> 01:19:58.920
they're so weird, and at this point, they're trying to

1355
01:19:58.960 --> 01:20:02.199
figure out like what is even happening, Like what is

1356
01:20:02.239 --> 01:20:05.319
even after us? What is even going on? I mean,

1357
01:20:05.359 --> 01:20:08.239
we're lost, but like somebody's what tracking us at night?

1358
01:20:08.640 --> 01:20:10.159
So they're saying stuff like we're not gonna have a

1359
01:20:10.199 --> 01:20:12.279
fire tonight, because like the first night we camped, we

1360
01:20:12.279 --> 01:20:13.000
didn't have a fire.

1361
01:20:13.039 --> 01:20:15.199
There were no problems and then the next night we

1362
01:20:15.239 --> 01:20:17.000
had a fire and then we heard a whole bunch

1363
01:20:17.039 --> 01:20:17.399
of stuff.

1364
01:20:17.479 --> 01:20:20.720
Yeah, but they also pull out the sixteen millimeters camera

1365
01:20:20.760 --> 01:20:24.000
and film these stick figures because it is really strange.

1366
01:20:24.720 --> 01:20:30.079
And regardless of no fire, when they go to sleep

1367
01:20:30.119 --> 01:20:37.039
that night, things they don't calm down, not at all.

1368
01:20:37.800 --> 01:20:43.079
And we'll discuss it in detail right after this. I

1369
01:20:43.079 --> 01:20:56.840
don't know what's with me. I'm weird. So not only

1370
01:20:56.920 --> 01:20:59.439
the night they don't have a campfire, does weird stuff

1371
01:20:59.479 --> 01:21:04.000
still happen. But this is one of the biggest moments

1372
01:21:04.079 --> 01:21:08.159
of scare because as they're sitting in their tent and

1373
01:21:08.199 --> 01:21:13.119
they're talking, they hear sounds, weird sounds, and I think

1374
01:21:13.159 --> 01:21:16.000
the sounds are really up to interpretation. Some people have

1375
01:21:16.119 --> 01:21:19.279
said have told me they've heard like groans or screams.

1376
01:21:19.439 --> 01:21:22.840
I've heard people say they heard like children laughing. I

1377
01:21:22.880 --> 01:21:26.439
always just heard sounds. I could never really place them personally.

1378
01:21:26.920 --> 01:21:29.399
They do sound like they're coming from like a person

1379
01:21:29.520 --> 01:21:34.119
or a creature, yes, But aside from that, yeah, the

1380
01:21:34.199 --> 01:21:39.279
sounds and with your sound system, it was kind of

1381
01:21:39.279 --> 01:21:42.600
cool hearing like, yeah, you can hear different sounds in

1382
01:21:42.680 --> 01:21:45.079
different parts of the forest, and some of them like

1383
01:21:45.239 --> 01:21:49.439
move around the screen, so like whatever's out there, there's

1384
01:21:49.479 --> 01:21:53.319
a lot of it, Yeah, and it's circling them to

1385
01:21:53.359 --> 01:21:56.000
some extent I would I would have to a thousand

1386
01:21:56.039 --> 01:21:56.720
percent degree.

1387
01:21:57.359 --> 01:22:01.520
So they all the sudden, the tent starts getting like

1388
01:22:01.920 --> 01:22:03.479
shaken on every side.

1389
01:22:03.840 --> 01:22:06.279
Yeah, like something's pressing in on it and shaking it,

1390
01:22:06.520 --> 01:22:07.439
and they all.

1391
01:22:07.640 --> 01:22:13.600
Just run for it, screaming, camera shaking, and one element

1392
01:22:13.760 --> 01:22:15.640
of the camera is also there's a light on it,

1393
01:22:15.720 --> 01:22:19.439
so it encourages you to use it. And they end

1394
01:22:19.520 --> 01:22:22.159
up just running outside and just hiding in the forest

1395
01:22:22.239 --> 01:22:26.279
until the sun comes up. No tent, no sleep, no nothing.

1396
01:22:26.960 --> 01:22:30.159
And when they return to their tent, their stuff is

1397
01:22:30.239 --> 01:22:36.880
just strewn about everywhere, and in particular, Josh's stuff has

1398
01:22:36.960 --> 01:22:41.479
been dug through the most. Yeah, it's been tossed everywhere.

1399
01:22:42.159 --> 01:22:46.399
And one of my favorite moments is Heather looks at

1400
01:22:46.399 --> 01:22:49.399
some of the stuff and says, it looks like slime

1401
01:22:50.239 --> 01:22:52.840
some on your stuff, and he goes, no, it's just water,

1402
01:22:52.880 --> 01:22:55.680
and he touches it and goes, it is fucking slime.

1403
01:22:55.760 --> 01:22:58.760
What the fuck is that? And that moment is so

1404
01:22:59.119 --> 01:23:03.279
creepy and and makes me so uneasy because that's such

1405
01:23:03.279 --> 01:23:05.159
a like, I feel like that would happen to me

1406
01:23:05.960 --> 01:23:08.319
if I was in an unreasonable situation, Like, no, it's

1407
01:23:08.359 --> 01:23:11.680
just what the hell that is? What that is? What

1408
01:23:11.880 --> 01:23:15.920
is happening? I was going with the easy explanation, and

1409
01:23:16.760 --> 01:23:19.159
at this point Josh's extra Matt, He's like, why are

1410
01:23:19.199 --> 01:23:22.039
they fucking with my stuff? More than everybody else's why

1411
01:23:22.239 --> 01:23:25.800
why is this happening at all? So you know all

1412
01:23:25.800 --> 01:23:29.039
of this and early on ways back one of my

1413
01:23:29.039 --> 01:23:31.840
favorite exchanges, and there are a lot of really great moments,

1414
01:23:32.239 --> 01:23:33.800
and I think some of that comes down to the

1415
01:23:33.800 --> 01:23:36.039
actors being really good, but it also comes down to

1416
01:23:36.079 --> 01:23:39.560
the filmmakers taking twenty hours of footage and making eighty

1417
01:23:39.600 --> 01:23:43.760
one minutes of movie, being able to really pare down

1418
01:23:44.640 --> 01:23:47.439
the best of the best. When I made Alone in

1419
01:23:47.479 --> 01:23:51.079
the Ghost House, my first found footage movie, the first

1420
01:23:51.079 --> 01:23:54.760
cut was almost two hours, the first cut of just

1421
01:23:54.840 --> 01:23:59.600
everything that seemed poignant, and my editor Eric Whiting, when

1422
01:23:59.640 --> 01:24:02.399
we were talking about it, I told him like, all right,

1423
01:24:02.479 --> 01:24:04.800
we need this to be way shorter, no more than

1424
01:24:04.840 --> 01:24:08.359
eighty five minutes. And I told him flat out like

1425
01:24:09.479 --> 01:24:14.119
my character in it was always making jokes constantly because

1426
01:24:14.640 --> 01:24:17.039
I knew like try to keep the story going, try

1427
01:24:17.039 --> 01:24:18.560
to keep it moving. And I told him, I was like,

1428
01:24:18.840 --> 01:24:21.239
cut out any of my jokes. You don't think land like,

1429
01:24:21.319 --> 01:24:24.840
please just cut out any jokes because if he's constantly

1430
01:24:24.880 --> 01:24:26.840
doing jokes like this, he's gonna be so obnoxious. And

1431
01:24:26.840 --> 01:24:30.039
I want him to be funny, but not like Actually,

1432
01:24:31.239 --> 01:24:33.439
in wrestling, we have a thing called go home heat.

1433
01:24:33.960 --> 01:24:36.439
Heat is when the audience doesn't like you, but they're like,

1434
01:24:36.600 --> 01:24:38.520
they want to see you get your ass whooped. Go

1435
01:24:38.600 --> 01:24:41.760
home heat is when they just sincerely don't want you around,

1436
01:24:41.760 --> 01:24:43.760
like they don't even want to watch you wrestle. Yeah

1437
01:24:43.800 --> 01:24:45.439
and yeah. So I was like, I don't want go

1438
01:24:45.479 --> 01:24:47.439
home heat. I want I want people to be like

1439
01:24:47.800 --> 01:24:50.840
cringing because I'm always making jokes, but not like literally

1440
01:24:50.840 --> 01:24:52.920
going God, but this guy ever shut up, Like I

1441
01:24:52.920 --> 01:24:54.399
want to shut off the movie. I'm just gonna turn

1442
01:24:54.439 --> 01:24:56.560
it off. So and I think that helped the movie

1443
01:24:56.560 --> 01:24:58.840
a ton, because he had so much raw material to

1444
01:24:58.880 --> 01:25:00.399
work with, And I think that's why we have a

1445
01:25:00.439 --> 01:25:02.560
lot of these great moments. In the moment I'm referring

1446
01:25:02.600 --> 01:25:05.960
to is when Josh and Heather are first kind of

1447
01:25:05.960 --> 01:25:09.359
postulating what is going on here? Like, and she's he says, like,

1448
01:25:09.399 --> 01:25:11.399
if it's an animal, that's like whatever. You know, we're

1449
01:25:11.439 --> 01:25:13.239
in it their woods and we're bugging it and dah

1450
01:25:13.279 --> 01:25:14.800
dah dah da dah, and I don't want to mess

1451
01:25:14.840 --> 01:25:16.880
with that. And then she says, what if it's not

1452
01:25:17.000 --> 01:25:19.000
an animal? He goes, he looks right, ever, I don't

1453
01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:22.199
want to mess with that either, And it's so funny

1454
01:25:22.239 --> 01:25:24.159
the way he says it, because he means it, you know,

1455
01:25:24.800 --> 01:25:26.960
and I don't want to mess with that either, and

1456
01:25:26.960 --> 01:25:29.680
his eyes get just a little wider. It's this movie.

1457
01:25:29.880 --> 01:25:34.199
The characters really work. They do They really really work.

1458
01:25:35.239 --> 01:25:41.600
So now, uh, yeah, the slime has all happened. They

1459
01:25:41.920 --> 01:25:45.079
get back on their hiking. They're heading south. They cross

1460
01:25:45.199 --> 01:25:49.000
this very trepidacious fallen tree to get across the creek.

1461
01:25:49.439 --> 01:25:51.720
They hike all day and just as the sun is

1462
01:25:51.760 --> 01:25:57.359
starting to wane, they arrive at a really trepidacious fallen

1463
01:25:57.399 --> 01:26:02.079
tree on the creek and they realize they've been walking

1464
01:26:02.239 --> 01:26:11.600
in circles for like eleven hours. Yeah, and this breaks them.

1465
01:26:11.800 --> 01:26:14.119
And one of the moments, I don't know, did it

1466
01:26:14.560 --> 01:26:17.239
did it? How? What effects? Sorry? I just got excited?

1467
01:26:17.439 --> 01:26:19.439
What effect? Did it? Have on you that moment when

1468
01:26:19.479 --> 01:26:21.399
they're all saying She's like, no, it's not they just

1469
01:26:21.439 --> 01:26:23.359
look a lot alike. And then she goes up by

1470
01:26:23.359 --> 01:26:26.239
herself and she starts literally going like the same goddamn

1471
01:26:26.279 --> 01:26:29.199
tree and she starts like freaking out by herself.

1472
01:26:29.239 --> 01:26:38.159
It gives me chills, it really does, because the uh,

1473
01:26:38.199 --> 01:26:46.199
the contrast between Mike's very very outward, external explosive freak out,

1474
01:26:46.760 --> 01:26:50.359
Josh is also freaking out, but he's having more of

1475
01:26:50.439 --> 01:26:55.039
like just a meltdown, and Heather almost holding it together,

1476
01:26:55.239 --> 01:26:59.800
and then slowly that slow burn of a meltdown is

1477
01:26:59.880 --> 01:27:06.199
just all of the all of the emotional range. It's

1478
01:27:06.520 --> 01:27:10.000
very great and very effective and makes you feel so

1479
01:27:10.399 --> 01:27:13.359
bad for these characters because even if there wasn't the

1480
01:27:13.439 --> 01:27:17.720
supernatural element of what's going on at night, there is

1481
01:27:17.800 --> 01:27:22.880
also this element of survival of them realizing like how

1482
01:27:22.920 --> 01:27:27.439
truly screwed they are because they are before they were lost,

1483
01:27:27.640 --> 01:27:30.520
now they're so lost that they are walking in circles,

1484
01:27:30.600 --> 01:27:34.960
which is in survival situations in the wild, the absolute.

1485
01:27:34.359 --> 01:27:36.960
Worst, not good at hell.

1486
01:27:37.640 --> 01:27:40.279
And one scene I wanted to talk about that's in

1487
01:27:41.199 --> 01:27:44.600
It's in the festival cut that we watched it's not

1488
01:27:44.800 --> 01:27:48.359
in the theatrical cut, but I really wanted to highlight it.

1489
01:27:48.439 --> 01:27:54.399
Is that brief exchange that night or that evening after

1490
01:27:54.479 --> 01:27:58.640
discovering that they've walked in circles. That brief exchange between

1491
01:27:58.760 --> 01:28:03.840
Josh and Heather where she's filming something and he's, you know,

1492
01:28:03.960 --> 01:28:06.680
kind of standing behind her, and he says, I think

1493
01:28:06.720 --> 01:28:07.560
I figured it out.

1494
01:28:07.800 --> 01:28:09.640
Well, that's in the theatrical Li is that in the

1495
01:28:09.640 --> 01:28:11.439
theat That's one of my favorite scenes whole movie.

1496
01:28:11.520 --> 01:28:13.680
Yeah, because he says I think I figured it out,

1497
01:28:13.720 --> 01:28:16.880
And at first she's just kind of confused, and then

1498
01:28:16.880 --> 01:28:19.880
he says, I figured out why you're always filming and everything.

1499
01:28:20.199 --> 01:28:23.680
It's because it gives you control. You can control that,

1500
01:28:23.840 --> 01:28:27.479
you can control what's on screen, and that's what you

1501
01:28:27.640 --> 01:28:32.520
truly want. And she's she doesn't outright reject it, but

1502
01:28:33.399 --> 01:28:37.000
I don't think that she understands, like, that's not it

1503
01:28:37.079 --> 01:28:41.000
wasn't a dig, it was a good lifelong friend of hers.

1504
01:28:41.039 --> 01:28:45.079
Like having a realization about her based on the experience

1505
01:28:45.119 --> 01:28:47.840
that they've gone through over the past like forty eight

1506
01:28:47.880 --> 01:28:51.520
to thirty six hours together, is that she wants to

1507
01:28:51.600 --> 01:28:53.560
remain in control at all costs.

1508
01:28:53.680 --> 01:28:56.359
Well, and I think it's worth mentioning. And I apologize

1509
01:28:56.359 --> 01:28:59.079
for being this way, but I do have that bizarre

1510
01:28:59.159 --> 01:29:05.039
auditory recall. He more so says that it's the separation. Yes,

1511
01:29:05.520 --> 01:29:08.239
that's what he finds comforting, That it's like you're watching

1512
01:29:08.279 --> 01:29:11.760
it happen, it's not actually happening. And I think that

1513
01:29:11.760 --> 01:29:14.960
that is a major element that I've always said is

1514
01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:18.560
a key crucial component of a found footage movie. How

1515
01:29:18.600 --> 01:29:21.159
it ends, which tells you why the footage was found

1516
01:29:21.600 --> 01:29:25.600
super important, but why everything's being filmed and how to

1517
01:29:25.800 --> 01:29:28.720
justify it is extremely important. One of the best found

1518
01:29:28.720 --> 01:29:30.600
footage movies I've ever seen in my life is Look,

1519
01:29:31.359 --> 01:29:32.920
and I wish it was easier to tell people to

1520
01:29:32.920 --> 01:29:34.840
watch it, but you have to. You can't find a

1521
01:29:34.880 --> 01:29:37.319
movie named Look. I've shown you Look, right.

1522
01:29:37.239 --> 01:29:37.560
Did we?

1523
01:29:37.800 --> 01:29:39.399
And I don't know, oh, you'd remember it now that

1524
01:29:39.439 --> 01:29:41.279
I haven't. Look is one of the best found footage

1525
01:29:41.279 --> 01:29:44.000
movies ever. It's all stories told from security cameras and

1526
01:29:44.000 --> 01:29:47.800
cameras that are normally in a place like security cameras,

1527
01:29:47.880 --> 01:29:50.880
phone cameras, all this stuff. I'll show it to you sometimes,

1528
01:29:50.960 --> 01:29:52.119
but it's a really good movie.

1529
01:29:52.720 --> 01:29:55.600
I know, I know That's one critique that detractors of

1530
01:29:55.680 --> 01:29:58.319
found footage have is like, why would you keep filming?

1531
01:29:58.359 --> 01:30:01.520
And it's like I think, but especially now that we

1532
01:30:01.600 --> 01:30:05.920
have smartphones, that's probably part of why audiences now are

1533
01:30:06.000 --> 01:30:09.039
more receptive to found footage is we are much more

1534
01:30:09.079 --> 01:30:12.079
acquainted with the idea of I want to be filming

1535
01:30:12.239 --> 01:30:13.920
or taking pictures twenty four to seven.

1536
01:30:14.159 --> 01:30:15.720
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

1537
01:30:15.920 --> 01:30:18.840
And whereas before it really was like why would you

1538
01:30:18.920 --> 01:30:21.920
carry around a handycam or a cam corder all the time,

1539
01:30:21.960 --> 01:30:26.159
And now it is we've literally got one in our pockets. Yeah,

1540
01:30:27.319 --> 01:30:31.640
but that is part of what makes a good found

1541
01:30:31.640 --> 01:30:34.920
footage film good is why are they filming?

1542
01:30:35.119 --> 01:30:39.920
Yes, And with all that being said, they're about to

1543
01:30:40.079 --> 01:30:43.119
go to sleep and have another interesting night. But things

1544
01:30:43.159 --> 01:30:46.880
get even more interesting in the morning when one of

1545
01:30:46.920 --> 01:30:50.880
them is missing. And we'll talk about that right after this.

1546
01:31:03.039 --> 01:31:08.000
So they wake up in the morning and Josh is gone,

1547
01:31:08.159 --> 01:31:12.560
and this is really where everything paces way up and

1548
01:31:12.600 --> 01:31:18.600
things start just happening, I mean really really happening. They

1549
01:31:18.640 --> 01:31:21.640
try to find him. Obviously, they can't find him anywhere.

1550
01:31:22.039 --> 01:31:26.399
They're they're literally walking away from camp yelling Josh, Josh,

1551
01:31:26.479 --> 01:31:31.359
hearing nothing back Mike is at first like Josh isn't gone,

1552
01:31:31.399 --> 01:31:32.840
He's probably just at the creek, and she's like, well,

1553
01:31:32.840 --> 01:31:34.560
why isn't he answering me? Then he should be able

1554
01:31:34.600 --> 01:31:38.399
to answer me. He'd be with an earshot. So they're

1555
01:31:38.399 --> 01:31:41.840
both really un I mean, like the fact that one

1556
01:31:41.880 --> 01:31:44.479
of them is gone suggests that you know, whatever is

1557
01:31:44.479 --> 01:31:47.920
going on is escalating, yes, and that it's dividing and

1558
01:31:47.960 --> 01:31:53.680
conquering or something along those lines. So then night falls again,

1559
01:31:54.720 --> 01:31:56.479
and I think I read it was eight it's eight

1560
01:31:56.600 --> 01:31:59.319
nights that they're in that the whole thing takes place.

1561
01:31:59.359 --> 01:32:08.000
Over they hear Josh's voice screaming and crying from very

1562
01:32:08.039 --> 01:32:14.399
far away, echoing through the woods, and it I don't know.

1563
01:32:14.439 --> 01:32:16.800
I mean, what did you think when you first saw

1564
01:32:16.840 --> 01:32:19.079
that scene or when you rewatched it the other night?

1565
01:32:19.119 --> 01:32:21.239
With me, it.

1566
01:32:21.399 --> 01:32:28.119
Always scares me. It's like a primal fear because there's

1567
01:32:28.239 --> 01:32:34.319
two There's two options. One, Josh is out there somewhere

1568
01:32:34.560 --> 01:32:38.560
hurt and in danger, which is scary and perilous in

1569
01:32:38.600 --> 01:32:43.479
and of itself. The other option is that's not Josh.

1570
01:32:44.560 --> 01:32:51.640
It's something trying to sound like Josh and in like folklore,

1571
01:32:51.680 --> 01:32:54.560
like if you hear a voice calling to you in

1572
01:32:54.600 --> 01:32:58.520
the woods at night. You do not go investigate because

1573
01:32:58.560 --> 01:33:03.399
it's not gonna be good for you. Yeah, and they're

1574
01:33:03.399 --> 01:33:08.079
both very, very shaken, and they're like yelling out trying

1575
01:33:08.119 --> 01:33:13.720
to find him, and they can't find him anywhere despite

1576
01:33:13.760 --> 01:33:15.800
looking for him that night, so they kind of have

1577
01:33:15.920 --> 01:33:17.439
to just like wait it out.

1578
01:33:18.119 --> 01:33:24.239
Yeah, and they even have a thought that maybe whatever's

1579
01:33:24.279 --> 01:33:28.520
out there is trying to draw them out by Josh's screaming.

1580
01:33:29.439 --> 01:33:36.039
So in the morning, another beautiful morning, Heather discovers a

1581
01:33:36.079 --> 01:33:40.159
bundle of twigs tied together with fabric from Josh's shirt.

1582
01:33:41.319 --> 01:33:44.000
And this is the part when I first saw it

1583
01:33:44.039 --> 01:33:46.399
as a kid in the theater that legitimately scared me.

1584
01:33:47.159 --> 01:33:49.680
And I love the way they play this because in

1585
01:33:49.720 --> 01:33:53.840
found footage, you know, anything really horrific, you probably aren't

1586
01:33:53.840 --> 01:33:56.359
going to look at head on, and you get a

1587
01:33:56.399 --> 01:33:57.800
peek at it, you get a little view of it,

1588
01:33:57.840 --> 01:33:59.800
but you don't get a ton of it. But as

1589
01:33:59.840 --> 01:34:04.119
she opens the bundle, she finds blood on it. And

1590
01:34:05.439 --> 01:34:08.159
it's up to debate what's in the bundle entirely, but

1591
01:34:08.199 --> 01:34:10.239
there's definitely teeth and hair.

1592
01:34:11.039 --> 01:34:11.560
Definitely.

1593
01:34:11.840 --> 01:34:14.520
When I looked at it again, preparing for the show.

1594
01:34:15.159 --> 01:34:18.520
I almost think I saw a finger, yeah, some some

1595
01:34:18.760 --> 01:34:21.600
part of his body. Well, and I swear there's a

1596
01:34:21.600 --> 01:34:22.479
piece of tongue in there.

1597
01:34:22.560 --> 01:34:23.520
It looks like it it.

1598
01:34:23.479 --> 01:34:26.960
Looks like teeth and maybe a finger. I really did see,

1599
01:34:27.000 --> 01:34:28.760
Like I thought it looked like a finger.

1600
01:34:28.800 --> 01:34:30.560
Yeah, like the second joint or something.

1601
01:34:30.800 --> 01:34:35.399
Yeah. And and she she freaks out, doesn't tell Mike

1602
01:34:35.520 --> 01:34:37.079
what it is inside of it.

1603
01:34:37.399 --> 01:34:37.680
Yeah.

1604
01:34:37.800 --> 01:34:41.079
Yeah, she keeps it to herself. And it's a really

1605
01:34:41.439 --> 01:34:47.279
like heart breaking, like like it's it's a really like, uh,

1606
01:34:47.319 --> 01:34:49.439
fear rendering moment because she like goes over to the

1607
01:34:49.479 --> 01:34:51.000
creaky and says, I'm just gonna wash my hands, and

1608
01:34:51.000 --> 01:34:52.960
she's just like is washing her hands and trying to

1609
01:34:53.000 --> 01:34:56.119
like not think about the fact that their friend disappeared.

1610
01:34:56.119 --> 01:34:57.960
They heard him screaming last night and now she's found

1611
01:34:58.239 --> 01:35:02.560
parts of him left in front of them. And it's

1612
01:35:02.600 --> 01:35:08.159
a very not popular theory, but there are theories that

1613
01:35:08.159 --> 01:35:11.319
that was basically based on the idea of a mojo

1614
01:35:11.560 --> 01:35:16.600
bundle and that our mojo bag, and that stealing someone's

1615
01:35:16.640 --> 01:35:18.560
teeth and tongue is a way to steal their voice.

1616
01:35:19.039 --> 01:35:22.079
So some people have postulated that I never heard Josh

1617
01:35:22.159 --> 01:35:25.399
at all that was the Blair Witch mimicking him because

1618
01:35:25.439 --> 01:35:28.680
she took his teeth and tongue to do that. I

1619
01:35:28.720 --> 01:35:31.039
don't know. It just that's just some creepy cool stuff

1620
01:35:31.039 --> 01:35:33.640
to lean into making me want to watch the movie again.

1621
01:35:33.680 --> 01:35:36.319
Actually, I know I want to catch more.

1622
01:35:36.479 --> 01:35:38.680
Usually I don't really want to watch the movie again

1623
01:35:38.720 --> 01:35:40.640
after we've picked it apart for two hours, but I

1624
01:35:40.680 --> 01:35:42.239
actually kind of want to just put it back on

1625
01:35:42.800 --> 01:35:46.079
and promise me we will find time to watch Curse

1626
01:35:46.079 --> 01:35:48.439
of the Blair Witch and The Birketsville Seven. I've never

1627
01:35:48.479 --> 01:35:52.520
seen The Birketsville Seven, the Showtime documentary. I've never seen it,

1628
01:35:52.600 --> 01:35:55.319
and apparently a lot of people think there's another theory

1629
01:35:55.359 --> 01:35:57.880
as to what happened to them in The Birketsville Seven.

1630
01:35:58.119 --> 01:35:59.800
Ooh, I'm down.

1631
01:35:59.720 --> 01:36:05.600
So okay, So she doesn't tell Mike. That night is

1632
01:36:05.640 --> 01:36:08.800
when we get the big famous moment of the movie

1633
01:36:09.199 --> 01:36:13.439
where Heather's filming herself and she's crying, and some of

1634
01:36:13.479 --> 01:36:16.640
it is a very unfortunate angle up your nose. It

1635
01:36:16.840 --> 01:36:18.359
just is what it is. But I love it. That's

1636
01:36:18.399 --> 01:36:21.439
the rawness and the emotion Heather Donna hu Man.

1637
01:36:22.000 --> 01:36:24.560
She just knocks it out of the part.

1638
01:36:24.520 --> 01:36:29.159
Well and the amount of One of the reasons that

1639
01:36:29.560 --> 01:36:32.079
I think some people don't try to make legitimately scary

1640
01:36:32.119 --> 01:36:36.439
movies when they're indie is you have to let yourself

1641
01:36:36.479 --> 01:36:39.479
be vulnerable, you know, if you want to wink and

1642
01:36:39.600 --> 01:36:41.920
laugh and be like ha ha, look it's a horror movie.

1643
01:36:41.920 --> 01:36:44.479
Doo ba dooo la bla blah la lah, that's easy,

1644
01:36:45.079 --> 01:36:47.640
but like looking at it, going this is scary when

1645
01:36:47.640 --> 01:36:51.840
people go no, it's not. Oh, like that's hard, and

1646
01:36:51.920 --> 01:36:55.800
her just sobbing to the lens and admitting like, this

1647
01:36:55.880 --> 01:36:58.960
is my fault because it was my project. I'm sorry

1648
01:36:59.000 --> 01:37:02.880
to Mike's mom and Josh's mom and my mom. It's

1649
01:37:02.960 --> 01:37:08.479
like so heart, it's really rough, and her just completely

1650
01:37:08.600 --> 01:37:14.720
taking responsibility and saying that something evil is hunting them

1651
01:37:15.239 --> 01:37:17.920
and that they will not get out alive. She doesn't

1652
01:37:17.920 --> 01:37:19.279
see how they could get out alive.

1653
01:37:19.640 --> 01:37:20.359
Yeah.

1654
01:37:20.800 --> 01:37:24.119
Then in that same night, they hear Josh calling out

1655
01:37:24.159 --> 01:37:28.239
to them again and they decide to just take each

1656
01:37:28.920 --> 01:37:33.159
each take a camera and follow him, which I guess

1657
01:37:33.159 --> 01:37:34.640
benefit of the doubt. This is the only part IVE

1658
01:37:34.640 --> 01:37:36.319
always found a little hinky, is like why would they

1659
01:37:36.319 --> 01:37:39.319
both just take a camera but you know, the cameras

1660
01:37:39.319 --> 01:37:41.159
have lights on him. Maybe they want to at this point,

1661
01:37:41.239 --> 01:37:43.479
maybe because they think they're dead meat. They just want

1662
01:37:43.520 --> 01:37:46.319
to capture what happened to them. Because that's another good

1663
01:37:46.399 --> 01:37:48.680
point is that I've seen in found footage and stuff,

1664
01:37:48.760 --> 01:37:50.600
is like, I'm just going to record everything because I

1665
01:37:50.680 --> 01:37:54.279
just want somebody to know what the hell even happened

1666
01:37:54.439 --> 01:37:58.439
to me, or what happened to us, or whatever might

1667
01:37:58.479 --> 01:38:01.600
be out there. So they start jogging through the woods,

1668
01:38:01.600 --> 01:38:05.439
heading towards Josh's screaming voice way off in the distance.

1669
01:38:06.359 --> 01:38:09.479
And as they are going deeper and deeper into these

1670
01:38:09.560 --> 01:38:14.479
just jet black woods, screaming Josh's name, they find something

1671
01:38:14.520 --> 01:38:17.800
at the end of this long march into the brush

1672
01:38:18.640 --> 01:38:23.079
that no one would have expected, least of all them.

1673
01:38:23.640 --> 01:38:39.159
We'll get to that right after this. They find a

1674
01:38:39.359 --> 01:38:44.199
house in the woods. It's a very decrepit house, but

1675
01:38:44.279 --> 01:38:50.439
it is a worn down, beat up house, and it

1676
01:38:50.600 --> 01:38:57.119
looks like it's Rustin Parr's house. But Rustin Parr's House

1677
01:38:57.279 --> 01:39:02.279
would have been in disrepair since nineteen so there's no

1678
01:39:02.439 --> 01:39:06.000
way there'd be anything standing, especially not a two story house.

1679
01:39:06.760 --> 01:39:08.920
It would be nearly all fallen over by then. With

1680
01:39:09.000 --> 01:39:10.199
nobody taking care of it at all.

1681
01:39:10.479 --> 01:39:11.399
In the middle of the woods.

1682
01:39:11.479 --> 01:39:14.600
Yeah, and I think anywhere it would be yea, especially

1683
01:39:14.640 --> 01:39:17.640
in the woods because the nature wants to reclaim everything, always,

1684
01:39:18.439 --> 01:39:23.359
including you and me. So they enter the house, and

1685
01:39:23.439 --> 01:39:25.720
the first thing I noticed, No, I want I want

1686
01:39:25.720 --> 01:39:28.399
to hear from you because I know that I'm the blabermouth.

1687
01:39:28.399 --> 01:39:30.640
That's why I have podcasts, you know, and I had

1688
01:39:30.680 --> 01:39:33.159
all this. So what were your first impressions when they

1689
01:39:33.239 --> 01:39:36.119
go into this house? Now we're cutting between the color

1690
01:39:36.159 --> 01:39:38.920
footage of Heather's high eight camera and the black and white,

1691
01:39:38.960 --> 01:39:43.520
grainy footage of the sixteen millimeter camera. As they're yelling.

1692
01:39:43.239 --> 01:39:48.920
For Josh, first feeling is always complete and utter dread.

1693
01:39:50.600 --> 01:39:54.560
And then what I notice is as they're panning the

1694
01:39:54.600 --> 01:40:00.640
camera around, there's handprints on one of the balls. But

1695
01:40:00.720 --> 01:40:05.319
they're real small and they're down low. Yes, and it

1696
01:40:05.439 --> 01:40:09.600
is very easy to tell that it is bloody children's

1697
01:40:09.760 --> 01:40:10.840
hand prints.

1698
01:40:11.359 --> 01:40:13.760
I mean, they're probably bloody. It's in black and white.

1699
01:40:13.880 --> 01:40:15.159
It's in black and white. It's hard to tell.

1700
01:40:15.319 --> 01:40:16.840
It's hard to tell. I mean, even if it was

1701
01:40:17.000 --> 01:40:20.119
coal or like a charcoal dust or whatever, it doesn't

1702
01:40:20.119 --> 01:40:20.720
it's still.

1703
01:40:20.600 --> 01:40:22.680
It's not very good. It's not a good thing.

1704
01:40:22.960 --> 01:40:25.199
It's good, that's a great way to put it, though

1705
01:40:25.199 --> 01:40:26.279
it's not good.

1706
01:40:27.600 --> 01:40:34.720
So you see the handprints, and at first Josh runs

1707
01:40:34.800 --> 01:40:38.640
up to the attic and like or Mike runs up

1708
01:40:38.680 --> 01:40:41.239
to the attic because he thinks he hears Josh up there,

1709
01:40:41.720 --> 01:40:44.479
and how there's almost kind of like pleading with him

1710
01:40:45.239 --> 01:40:48.520
because she can't quite hear it, and she wants them

1711
01:40:48.560 --> 01:40:52.000
to kind of like remain calm and try to find

1712
01:40:52.119 --> 01:40:57.479
him in a calm manner, collected with a plan maybe,

1713
01:40:58.159 --> 01:41:00.880
but that's not what Mike.

1714
01:41:01.119 --> 01:41:01.239
Like.

1715
01:41:01.319 --> 01:41:04.079
Mike is a broken man psychologically.

1716
01:41:04.119 --> 01:41:05.920
Oh yeah, at this point, without a doubt. They both

1717
01:41:05.960 --> 01:41:08.359
are pretty much shattered at this point. And there are

1718
01:41:08.399 --> 01:41:10.560
a few like we obviously can't talk about every single

1719
01:41:10.560 --> 01:41:12.720
moment in the movie, but there's a really sweet moment

1720
01:41:12.760 --> 01:41:14.920
where they like where they hold each other after they

1721
01:41:14.960 --> 01:41:16.960
hated each other so much because they're all they have

1722
01:41:17.399 --> 01:41:18.920
in the world, And it's one of the only shots

1723
01:41:18.920 --> 01:41:21.119
in the whole movie that is not a literal point

1724
01:41:21.119 --> 01:41:24.199
of view of somebody. The cameras just sat down and

1725
01:41:24.319 --> 01:41:25.359
they're hugging each.

1726
01:41:25.199 --> 01:41:30.880
Other anyway, So Heather like follows him up to the attic,

1727
01:41:31.880 --> 01:41:36.600
and attics are creepy. It's it's very unsettling there. But

1728
01:41:36.760 --> 01:41:41.600
it gets worse when Mike claims that he can hear

1729
01:41:41.800 --> 01:41:46.560
Josh in the basement now, and so he runs downstairs

1730
01:41:46.640 --> 01:41:49.840
and Heather's left up in the attic for a few moments.

1731
01:41:49.880 --> 01:41:53.359
It's not very long, but she's left up there alone,

1732
01:41:53.439 --> 01:41:59.319
and when she finally gets so much worse because Mike

1733
01:42:00.199 --> 01:42:04.199
runs down to the basement and he's almost instantly once

1734
01:42:04.199 --> 01:42:05.920
he gets down in the basement, you know, he's like

1735
01:42:05.960 --> 01:42:11.920
looking around and it's fairly unimpressive. It's like a cellar basement,

1736
01:42:12.640 --> 01:42:16.439
but he's almost instantly accosted and his camera just falls

1737
01:42:16.520 --> 01:42:17.079
to the ground.

1738
01:42:17.399 --> 01:42:20.000
Yeah, and that's I believe the black and white No, no,

1739
01:42:20.119 --> 01:42:21.760
or was it the black and white? Yeah, yeah, I

1740
01:42:21.800 --> 01:42:23.680
think so. I think so it falls down and just

1741
01:42:23.760 --> 01:42:25.119
kind of shudders.

1742
01:42:25.239 --> 01:42:29.119
Yeah, because that's the one that actually has the microphone

1743
01:42:29.159 --> 01:42:33.439
on it, right, because that's why heather sound sounds so weird.

1744
01:42:34.039 --> 01:42:38.359
Yeah, yeah, so I'm sorry I have confused myself, but regardless, Yeah,

1745
01:42:38.439 --> 01:42:41.000
the reason that's the sound is very disembodied is that

1746
01:42:41.039 --> 01:42:44.000
the only the sound is coming from. Yeah, he's not

1747
01:42:44.119 --> 01:42:47.279
operating the film camera. You're right, he has the video camera. Yeah,

1748
01:42:47.359 --> 01:42:50.680
because we're hearing his perspective. So when we hear her

1749
01:42:50.760 --> 01:42:53.880
screaming Mike, Mike, she sounds really far away, even when

1750
01:42:53.920 --> 01:42:56.560
it's her own camera. Yeah, it's because film cameras don't

1751
01:42:56.560 --> 01:42:59.640
record sound, so the only sound being recorded was.

1752
01:43:00.159 --> 01:43:00.880
The video keyes.

1753
01:43:01.119 --> 01:43:02.159
Yes, correct, which I.

1754
01:43:04.039 --> 01:43:07.600
Don't the creative choice. I don't know if it was

1755
01:43:07.640 --> 01:43:09.840
strictly creative or if that was just the way they

1756
01:43:09.840 --> 01:43:12.359
did it, because that's the way you do it. But

1757
01:43:13.079 --> 01:43:20.520
it makes an already creepy and blood curdling scene even

1758
01:43:20.680 --> 01:43:26.119
scarier to have that disembodied sound because up until that point,

1759
01:43:26.479 --> 01:43:29.600
we've basically, like Heather has been our point of view,

1760
01:43:30.239 --> 01:43:33.520
so to hear her voice so far removed from our

1761
01:43:33.600 --> 01:43:36.199
point of view makes it feel almost like a out

1762
01:43:36.239 --> 01:43:37.439
of body experience.

1763
01:43:37.640 --> 01:43:41.760
Yeah, it's definitely confusing in an upsetting way.

1764
01:43:41.960 --> 01:43:46.600
Yeah. So she finally gets up the courage to run

1765
01:43:47.039 --> 01:43:50.880
downstairs and chase after Mike into the basement, and when

1766
01:43:50.880 --> 01:43:56.439
she gets down there, he's standing in a corner, motionless,

1767
01:43:56.920 --> 01:43:59.359
and she calls to him and he doesn't do anything.

1768
01:43:59.399 --> 01:44:07.000
He doesn't anything, and then she gets assaulted and her camera.

1769
01:44:07.399 --> 01:44:11.439
She screams, and she drops her camera and it records

1770
01:44:11.439 --> 01:44:13.800
for a few more seconds. We don't really see anything.

1771
01:44:13.840 --> 01:44:16.279
It's on the floor. We can kind of hear, like

1772
01:44:16.319 --> 01:44:18.159
her muffled screaming and stuff.

1773
01:44:17.880 --> 01:44:20.079
And the gait of the camera has been damaged, so

1774
01:44:20.359 --> 01:44:23.039
the image is distorted.

1775
01:44:23.359 --> 01:44:27.560
Yeah, and then the film just cuts to black and

1776
01:44:27.600 --> 01:44:28.039
that's it.

1777
01:44:28.840 --> 01:44:31.680
And that's the way found footage movies are supposed to be.

1778
01:44:31.840 --> 01:44:34.199
I mean, the only other thing you can really do

1779
01:44:34.319 --> 01:44:36.760
that I think works in found footage. It would be

1780
01:44:37.560 --> 01:44:41.479
a slate saying like where it was found or you

1781
01:44:41.520 --> 01:44:44.840
know nothing, well else was recovered or something. You could

1782
01:44:45.159 --> 01:44:48.279
do that. But I remember people being like, that's it

1783
01:44:48.960 --> 01:44:51.600
and being very frustrated by that ending. I thought it

1784
01:44:51.640 --> 01:44:55.000
was scary, it's perfect. Then I remember people saying like,

1785
01:44:55.039 --> 01:44:58.199
you never even see the blair Witch and I'm like, well, yes,

1786
01:44:58.359 --> 01:45:00.359
you don't. You don't get a lot of things you

1787
01:45:00.399 --> 01:45:04.560
want in this world, young man. But there are an

1788
01:45:04.600 --> 01:45:09.079
immense amount of theories about what exactly was going on

1789
01:45:09.199 --> 01:45:13.600
in the blair Witch project. The big one is the

1790
01:45:13.680 --> 01:45:18.000
idea of possession. There's a lot of possession theories that

1791
01:45:18.640 --> 01:45:21.520
if you look at the actors they're starting to act

1792
01:45:21.520 --> 01:45:24.279
a little differently than they had been before. All of

1793
01:45:24.319 --> 01:45:28.680
a sudden, they're being a little bit more argumentative or friendly.

1794
01:45:29.800 --> 01:45:33.359
That's a very popular theory. So I wanted to dig

1795
01:45:33.359 --> 01:45:35.640
into some of the theories because, I mean, my theories

1796
01:45:36.159 --> 01:45:38.279
aren't I don't have a lot of like It's not

1797
01:45:38.319 --> 01:45:40.119
like Candy Man. I don't have a lot of wildly

1798
01:45:40.159 --> 01:45:43.399
fresh takes on blair Witch because blair Witch is a

1799
01:45:43.439 --> 01:45:46.000
movie that is meant to be theorized about because it

1800
01:45:46.079 --> 01:45:49.960
is so ambiguous purposely. I mean, the filmmakers have said

1801
01:45:49.960 --> 01:45:57.399
it's very purposely ambiguous. So for me, what's going on? Definitely,

1802
01:45:57.399 --> 01:46:00.800
as they're being terrorized by something, could one of them

1803
01:46:00.880 --> 01:46:05.279
be in on it? That's a question. Some people have

1804
01:46:05.319 --> 01:46:09.159
suggested that Heather is possessed and that that's why she's

1805
01:46:09.239 --> 01:46:15.359
kind of orchestrating everything. But after this break, I want

1806
01:46:15.399 --> 01:46:17.319
you to tell me a little bit about your theory,

1807
01:46:17.399 --> 01:46:21.319
and then I'll share some theories I've researched before we

1808
01:46:21.960 --> 01:46:24.920
get the heck out of here and have some delicious

1809
01:46:25.039 --> 01:46:30.119
beef vegetable soup not in the woods right after this.

1810
01:46:41.239 --> 01:46:46.359
So what's your theory, Rach, My theory you don't have

1811
01:46:46.359 --> 01:46:48.239
to have a perfectly planned out when I just need like,

1812
01:46:48.239 --> 01:46:50.319
what are your thoughts? What what like? What are your

1813
01:46:50.319 --> 01:46:52.319
instincts saying? Do you think it's what you see is

1814
01:46:52.359 --> 01:46:54.079
what you get? Or do you think there's something more

1815
01:46:54.119 --> 01:46:56.800
going on? What's what's a what's dragging you around?

1816
01:46:57.800 --> 01:47:02.479
I the way that because I'm not taking any of

1817
01:47:02.520 --> 01:47:06.439
the blair Witch sequels into account, I'm only taking into

1818
01:47:06.479 --> 01:47:09.920
account this movie. Maybe a little bit of the Curse

1819
01:47:10.000 --> 01:47:12.159
of the blair Witch, but mostly I'm just going on

1820
01:47:13.039 --> 01:47:17.119
the movies what you get. And to me, what it

1821
01:47:17.279 --> 01:47:28.399
seems is that the ghost of Elliewards Hedwards. Yeah, the

1822
01:47:28.439 --> 01:47:32.239
ghost of Ellie Edwards, like after she had died, her

1823
01:47:32.399 --> 01:47:37.119
death was so horrific that she continued to haunt those woods.

1824
01:47:37.880 --> 01:47:42.560
And she's the one who her ghost like killed those

1825
01:47:42.640 --> 01:47:47.319
men in the search party. And as she gained power,

1826
01:47:47.840 --> 01:47:50.600
she was able to possess rust and Parr so that

1827
01:47:50.680 --> 01:47:55.279
he killed those kids. And after that all happened in

1828
01:47:55.319 --> 01:47:58.920
the forties, everyone pretty much just cleared out of the woods.

1829
01:47:59.399 --> 01:48:02.119
Like even the fisher guys they're like, yeah, we don't

1830
01:48:02.159 --> 01:48:03.079
even go hunting there.

1831
01:48:03.359 --> 01:48:05.600
Well, when they say you never go there at night.

1832
01:48:05.560 --> 01:48:09.239
You never go there at night. The one mom that

1833
01:48:09.279 --> 01:48:11.439
they asked, she's like, well, I know, we're going the woods.

1834
01:48:11.479 --> 01:48:14.439
And even the what was the crazy lady?

1835
01:48:15.119 --> 01:48:17.600
Yeah, her name is escaping me, but yeah, there was

1836
01:48:17.840 --> 01:48:19.760
a lady who claimed she saw her when she was

1837
01:48:19.800 --> 01:48:20.479
a little girl.

1838
01:48:21.079 --> 01:48:24.439
Yeah, and even she's like, very crazy, She's incredibly insane.

1839
01:48:25.119 --> 01:48:28.840
So to me, it feels like as long as you

1840
01:48:28.880 --> 01:48:31.600
stay out of the woods, you cannot come under the

1841
01:48:31.720 --> 01:48:36.680
power of the blair Witch. Once they get into the woods,

1842
01:48:37.039 --> 01:48:40.880
they could have possibly had some leniency if they would

1843
01:48:40.920 --> 01:48:45.279
have gotten right back out. But I think that Josh

1844
01:48:45.359 --> 01:48:51.520
disturbing the cairn is what made him the specific target,

1845
01:48:51.800 --> 01:48:56.039
and that's why the blair Witch eventually took him and

1846
01:48:56.159 --> 01:48:59.840
used him as bait to draw the other two into

1847
01:49:00.199 --> 01:49:05.359
their depths. Basically, pretty you're pretty standard fare when it

1848
01:49:05.399 --> 01:49:06.760
comes to Blair Witch theories.

1849
01:49:07.159 --> 01:49:09.720
No, but I mean that makes sense. So one of

1850
01:49:09.760 --> 01:49:14.000
the most popular theories is that there never was a witch,

1851
01:49:14.520 --> 01:49:19.920
that it was Mike and Josh murdering Heather ooh. The

1852
01:49:20.000 --> 01:49:23.760
concept is the guys staged the noises, the stick figures,

1853
01:49:23.800 --> 01:49:26.520
and the loss of the map, lured Heather to the

1854
01:49:26.560 --> 01:49:29.640
house and killed her with one standing in the corner

1855
01:49:29.880 --> 01:49:34.159
to echo rustin Parr's legend. It explains the human sounding

1856
01:49:34.239 --> 01:49:38.079
calls the teeth Bundle, and why we never see anything supernatural.

1857
01:49:39.079 --> 01:49:44.760
It's a very popularly discussed piece on like YouTube explainers

1858
01:49:44.840 --> 01:49:48.840
and stuff like that, but there are some big problems

1859
01:49:48.840 --> 01:49:51.680
with that. I will count Curse of the blair Witch

1860
01:49:51.760 --> 01:49:55.159
as cannon because it was created by the creators of

1861
01:49:55.199 --> 01:49:59.119
the movie before the movie was even out. There's also

1862
01:49:59.439 --> 01:50:04.560
their video that have massive explanit, like early two thousands

1863
01:50:04.680 --> 01:50:07.680
video games that have massive expansions on the lore, but

1864
01:50:07.720 --> 01:50:10.720
I'm not counting those. There's also Heather's Diary which came

1865
01:50:10.760 --> 01:50:14.079
in the special edition Blu ray that is supposed to

1866
01:50:14.119 --> 01:50:16.920
be cannon, but I'm not going to count that. I'm

1867
01:50:16.960 --> 01:50:18.359
just going to count curs with the blair Witch and

1868
01:50:18.439 --> 01:50:22.279
the Blare which product, But that wouldn't explain where the

1869
01:50:22.279 --> 01:50:23.840
hell did that house come from? How the hell did

1870
01:50:23.880 --> 01:50:27.439
the tapes get underneath the foundation of a house. Yeah,

1871
01:50:27.479 --> 01:50:31.039
and that leads into the second very popular theory and

1872
01:50:31.159 --> 01:50:35.520
one that is expanded upon heavily in the twenty sixteen

1873
01:50:35.560 --> 01:50:39.359
sequel blair Witch, which I actually really liked, which is

1874
01:50:39.399 --> 01:50:44.159
the time loop time dilation in the Black Hills, which

1875
01:50:44.199 --> 01:50:46.760
suggests the woods warped time and space, which is why

1876
01:50:46.800 --> 01:50:49.680
the trio walks in circles, can't find their car, and

1877
01:50:49.800 --> 01:50:54.520
ends up at a house that shouldn't exist. As I mentioned,

1878
01:50:54.520 --> 01:50:57.279
it was heavily referenced in the twenty sixteen sequel, which

1879
01:50:57.319 --> 01:51:01.239
I loved that I remember element Viewers also point out

1880
01:51:01.319 --> 01:51:04.279
that in this Sci Fi Channel mockumentary Chrystal Bar, which

1881
01:51:04.640 --> 01:51:08.640
the par house burned down in the nineteen forties. Yet

1882
01:51:08.880 --> 01:51:13.399
they arrive at the house and it's and in the

1883
01:51:13.439 --> 01:51:15.640
documentary they never say that it's rust in Pars. How

1884
01:51:15.680 --> 01:51:18.119
did you say it's a house in the wood? I

1885
01:51:18.119 --> 01:51:19.720
mean that doesn't mean they know that it isn't. It

1886
01:51:19.800 --> 01:51:22.800
just means that they are not aware that it was formerly.

1887
01:51:22.840 --> 01:51:28.279
It's now just a foundation. Another popular theory is the

1888
01:51:28.319 --> 01:51:33.000
proxy killer or possession concept, and this one I find

1889
01:51:33.119 --> 01:51:41.399
a bit plausible if I'm honest. It says a force

1890
01:51:41.520 --> 01:51:46.840
doesn't attack directly, it compels someone, so one person faces

1891
01:51:46.880 --> 01:51:51.560
the wall while another is killed, mirroring Par's method. This

1892
01:51:52.079 --> 01:51:56.199
frames the final finale as ritual reenactment rather than a

1893
01:51:56.199 --> 01:51:59.560
creature attack. There are tons of articles suggesting that it's

1894
01:51:59.600 --> 01:52:03.079
this it's the same force that got par to kill

1895
01:52:03.119 --> 01:52:07.600
the kids, which some people tie that into the idea

1896
01:52:07.680 --> 01:52:14.399
that Heather or Josh were being guided by the same

1897
01:52:14.479 --> 01:52:17.560
witch spirit as rust in par to lead them there

1898
01:52:17.600 --> 01:52:20.720
to kill them just like the kids. Yeah, so they

1899
01:52:20.720 --> 01:52:23.720
feed into each other. A bitch a bitch, a bit witch,

1900
01:52:23.760 --> 01:52:27.760
bitch bitch bit. So this is an interesting one. I

1901
01:52:27.800 --> 01:52:31.039
hadn't heard much about no witch at all, mass hysteria

1902
01:52:31.079 --> 01:52:36.319
and human interference. Everything frightening is manufactured by people, locals

1903
01:52:36.479 --> 01:52:39.960
or one of the trio amplified by fear, sleep deprivation

1904
01:52:40.079 --> 01:52:43.159
in the films. It could be real presentation behind the

1905
01:52:43.199 --> 01:52:47.199
scenes reporting about the productions, verite methods fuels this grounded

1906
01:52:47.279 --> 01:52:51.520
reed because they were being terrorized by people in Realityah,

1907
01:52:51.800 --> 01:52:55.039
but they were making a movie. So that one's interesting.

1908
01:52:55.159 --> 01:52:57.119
The idea that the locals don't like it because they

1909
01:52:57.159 --> 01:52:59.520
did walk around town annoying people for like a whole

1910
01:52:59.600 --> 01:53:01.640
day about stuff they don't generally want to.

1911
01:53:01.560 --> 01:53:04.840
Talk about, and they like they did kind of disclose

1912
01:53:04.880 --> 01:53:06.359
where they were going to be going and what all

1913
01:53:06.399 --> 01:53:08.600
they were going to be looking at, So true, the

1914
01:53:08.640 --> 01:53:11.239
locals would know how to track them and find them

1915
01:53:11.359 --> 01:53:12.000
very easily.

1916
01:53:12.920 --> 01:53:15.359
So this one I didn't know anything about because I

1917
01:53:15.399 --> 01:53:18.399
haven't watched The Massacre of the Birkettsville seven, the documentary

1918
01:53:18.399 --> 01:53:20.840
that was made for Showtime about the Blair Witch. But

1919
01:53:20.920 --> 01:53:23.680
it says in the Birketsville Seven some suggest a lone

1920
01:53:23.720 --> 01:53:26.399
survivor named Kyle Brody may have been involved in the

1921
01:53:26.479 --> 01:53:31.880
child murders attributed to Parr, implying the mythology often pins

1922
01:53:31.920 --> 01:53:35.760
crimes on a supernatural scapegoat, so fans have suggested that

1923
01:53:35.760 --> 01:53:40.119
that could fold into being who attacked them in the woods.

1924
01:53:40.600 --> 01:53:45.319
Is this Kyle Brody character that may have been involved

1925
01:53:45.319 --> 01:53:46.199
in the par killings?

1926
01:53:46.479 --> 01:53:46.960
Okay?

1927
01:53:47.640 --> 01:53:50.920
So, and we're going to hit a few more of

1928
01:53:50.960 --> 01:54:06.079
these as we wrap up our show right after this. Okay,

1929
01:54:06.159 --> 01:54:10.039
so just a few more theories. This one is the

1930
01:54:10.079 --> 01:54:13.800
house paradox, which is equal to a proof of a

1931
01:54:13.840 --> 01:54:17.680
temporal trap. A popular sub theory zooms in on the

1932
01:54:17.840 --> 01:54:21.880
ending location. If the parhouse was destroyed long before nineteen

1933
01:54:21.960 --> 01:54:25.159
ninety four, the students reaching it and the tapes being

1934
01:54:25.199 --> 01:54:28.279
found there only make sense if the woods loop them

1935
01:54:28.319 --> 01:54:29.119
back in time.

1936
01:54:29.800 --> 01:54:30.399
There we go.

1937
01:54:30.560 --> 01:54:33.279
So very similar to the other concept, But this is

1938
01:54:33.319 --> 01:54:38.520
one I'd never heard before. Heather's tape is the Witch's pov.

1939
01:54:39.640 --> 01:54:40.760
Ooh.

1940
01:54:40.840 --> 01:54:44.439
A more out there take suggests the last shots are

1941
01:54:44.479 --> 01:54:48.079
not Heather's perspective at all right at the end, but

1942
01:54:48.199 --> 01:54:53.680
the entities, hence the abrupt camera shift and disorienting final moments.

1943
01:54:54.319 --> 01:54:57.520
It's less common, but is cited by some fans of

1944
01:54:57.520 --> 01:55:00.319
the film. Okay, so the idea being that he was

1945
01:55:00.359 --> 01:55:03.119
taken by the witch, or if you wanted to blend theories,

1946
01:55:03.319 --> 01:55:08.760
or that Heather became the witch entirely, it could be

1947
01:55:09.840 --> 01:55:12.039
an interesting theory, the idea that the Witch has taken

1948
01:55:12.079 --> 01:55:13.039
over Yeah.

1949
01:55:13.319 --> 01:55:14.079
Yeah.

1950
01:55:14.119 --> 01:55:16.520
And then, of course the final theory and the one

1951
01:55:16.560 --> 01:55:20.319
that people I think like to pontificate on the most,

1952
01:55:20.359 --> 01:55:25.560
which is the rational theory. A minority argue the trio

1953
01:55:25.680 --> 01:55:29.640
simply gets lost and dies off screen. The Witch is

1954
01:55:29.680 --> 01:55:34.840
a layering of local folklore, thus escalating fear. This overlaps

1955
01:55:34.840 --> 01:55:38.000
with what we talked about before, the no witch at all, massyesteria,

1956
01:55:38.079 --> 01:55:42.159
human interference, but it strips away the human malice entirely,

1957
01:55:42.640 --> 01:55:48.239
suggesting that hypothermia, panic and getting lost just kills these

1958
01:55:48.319 --> 01:55:52.039
kids because they just don't know what they're doing. Yeah,

1959
01:55:52.079 --> 01:55:58.159
and that's that's why they're dead. So they're all interesting theories,

1960
01:55:58.399 --> 01:56:00.960
and rightfully so. I mean, like I said, the movie is,

1961
01:56:01.319 --> 01:56:05.760
by the filmmaker's ad mission, extremely open to interpretation and

1962
01:56:05.880 --> 01:56:13.760
extremely what's the word ambiguous? Ambiguous? Thank you? I work

1963
01:56:13.840 --> 01:56:18.439
too much? Uh, it's extremely ambiguous. So yeah, this has

1964
01:56:18.439 --> 01:56:21.680
been a really fun, yeah thing to dive into. And

1965
01:56:21.720 --> 01:56:24.439
there are tons more theories, I'm sure if I dug

1966
01:56:24.479 --> 01:56:27.399
even deeper, but those seem to be the most common ones,

1967
01:56:27.880 --> 01:56:29.520
and I definitely think there's a little something to it.

1968
01:56:29.560 --> 01:56:31.039
I do think maybe there's some kind of a little

1969
01:56:31.079 --> 01:56:34.359
bit of a possession thing the him standing in the

1970
01:56:34.399 --> 01:56:37.960
corner like Rustin Parr's kids. That's not a coincidence, no,

1971
01:56:38.000 --> 01:56:42.039
not at all. So that definitely signifies something. At the

1972
01:56:42.159 --> 01:56:45.640
very least, it signifies that if Heather is operating the camera,

1973
01:56:45.760 --> 01:56:48.319
she's about to die, because when one child is facing

1974
01:56:48.680 --> 01:56:51.479
the wall, the other one his eyes and then the

1975
01:56:51.520 --> 01:56:56.119
other one gets killed too. So so could could it

1976
01:56:56.199 --> 01:56:59.840
be that Josh was became the puppet? Could he have

1977
01:56:59.840 --> 01:57:02.800
been come rust and Parr? I mean Rustin Parr was

1978
01:57:02.840 --> 01:57:06.600
turned crazier than a loon by by the by the witch.

1979
01:57:06.720 --> 01:57:10.840
So what if Josh, just what if the screams they

1980
01:57:10.920 --> 01:57:13.239
heard the night that they were trying to find him,

1981
01:57:13.239 --> 01:57:15.119
What if that was him pulling his own teeth out,

1982
01:57:15.560 --> 01:57:18.319
cutting off his finger, cutting out a piece of his

1983
01:57:18.399 --> 01:57:23.560
own tongue to make the screams realistic. And when that

1984
01:57:23.640 --> 01:57:26.239
didn't work to draw them in, he made the little

1985
01:57:26.239 --> 01:57:31.319
bundle in order to really make them unable to have

1986
01:57:31.359 --> 01:57:33.520
any sense of security or calm at all.

1987
01:57:34.600 --> 01:57:37.640
Eh, that's spooky.

1988
01:57:37.279 --> 01:57:40.600
Because after all, rust and Parr took the kids in

1989
01:57:40.640 --> 01:57:43.800
two at a time, and he took them into Rustin's

1990
01:57:43.840 --> 01:57:47.319
house two at a time. I don't know, I'm just I'm.

1991
01:57:47.119 --> 01:57:49.039
Just you're's his way spookier than mine.

1992
01:57:49.119 --> 01:57:51.079
Well, yeah, that's I mean, I have a little bit

1993
01:57:51.079 --> 01:57:56.560
of experience spinning a scary story, I guess. So that's

1994
01:57:56.600 --> 01:57:59.520
that's pretty much my whole my whole thought process on

1995
01:57:59.520 --> 01:58:02.520
blair Witch Project. I love Blair Witch Project. I enjoy

1996
01:58:02.520 --> 01:58:04.600
a book of Shadows. The sequel. I think it's pretty fun,

1997
01:58:04.600 --> 01:58:07.359
and I like the blair Witch sequel from twenty sixteen

1998
01:58:07.439 --> 01:58:09.119
quite a bit. I do like how they played with

1999
01:58:09.159 --> 01:58:12.800
the time warping element a bunch. I thought it made

2000
01:58:12.840 --> 01:58:15.479
it pretty fun. But obviously just nothing can really touch

2001
01:58:15.520 --> 01:58:19.359
this original because the original is allowed to be less

2002
01:58:19.399 --> 01:58:23.159
as more as fuck. Yeah, it's allowed to be so

2003
01:58:23.600 --> 01:58:27.159
little and so much as to where the sequels can

2004
01:58:27.239 --> 01:58:30.399
never be as sparse as the original, because everybody wants more,

2005
01:58:30.479 --> 01:58:32.840
You want more and more more, you know. Nightmare and

2006
01:58:32.840 --> 01:58:35.199
Elm Street one, Freddy kills like four people and it

2007
01:58:35.239 --> 01:58:37.319
was all a dream. Nightmann Elm Street two, he kills

2008
01:58:37.359 --> 01:58:40.319
like fifteen people and somehow it's not a dream anymore.

2009
01:58:40.479 --> 01:58:44.720
And then Nightmare three, it's like it's a whole dream world,

2010
01:58:44.880 --> 01:58:49.119
freaking mc escher paintings and stuff. They always do that. Yeah, yeah,

2011
01:58:49.159 --> 01:58:51.039
and I get it. I get it because you already

2012
01:58:51.079 --> 01:58:53.600
have the one movie. Why make an exact same movie

2013
01:58:53.800 --> 01:58:56.960
out of your sequel? So but yeah, I just think

2014
01:58:57.000 --> 01:58:59.119
the Blair Witch Project, I mean, talk about a perfect

2015
01:58:59.399 --> 01:59:03.640
addition your spooky season lineup. I know Halloween is coming

2016
01:59:03.720 --> 01:59:05.800
right up. If you haven't watched Blair Witch Project in

2017
01:59:05.840 --> 01:59:08.960
a while, you should check it out. I didn't look

2018
01:59:09.039 --> 01:59:11.520
up where we can see it. I was just gonna

2019
01:59:11.600 --> 01:59:14.760
mention that, well, it's nowhere. It's all you can rent

2020
01:59:14.800 --> 01:59:17.359
it on like Amazon Prime or Fandango at home. But

2021
01:59:18.239 --> 01:59:21.640
unfortunately the original movie is not the easiest to come

2022
01:59:21.720 --> 01:59:26.439
up with. It always tends to be that way. So,

2023
01:59:26.680 --> 01:59:28.359
but anything else you want to say at all about

2024
01:59:28.359 --> 01:59:30.000
Blair Witch before we wrap things.

2025
01:59:29.920 --> 01:59:33.920
Up, I just think it's a beautiful archetype of the

2026
01:59:34.199 --> 01:59:39.239
found footage genre. That's that's my final thoughts on that.

2027
01:59:39.760 --> 01:59:41.920
I mean, I think that's pretty fair. I think that's

2028
01:59:42.000 --> 01:59:45.439
probably probably an okay thought. I guess I'll allow it.

2029
01:59:46.279 --> 01:59:48.680
So with that all being said, I hope everybody is

2030
01:59:48.720 --> 01:59:51.840
having a wonderful spooky season. We got to go to

2031
01:59:51.960 --> 01:59:55.720
Land of Illusions and enjoy some really spooky fun time. Fine,

2032
01:59:55.760 --> 01:59:58.439
we had a blast. I was drunk on spooky by

2033
01:59:58.479 --> 02:00:00.760
the end of the night. Man. It was really fun.

2034
02:00:00.760 --> 02:00:02.319
And we're probably I think we're going to try and

2035
02:00:02.319 --> 02:00:05.199
see Brimstone on this weekend. Brimstone Haunt, which is a

2036
02:00:05.239 --> 02:00:07.039
three haunt and one. We did a six haunt in

2037
02:00:07.079 --> 02:00:09.359
one before, so now we're easing up with a three

2038
02:00:09.399 --> 02:00:09.920
haunt in one.

2039
02:00:10.239 --> 02:00:11.279
Got to get the big one out.

2040
02:00:11.159 --> 02:00:12.560
Of the one, and we might sneak over to the

2041
02:00:12.600 --> 02:00:15.479
other haunt as well if we have time. We'll see,

2042
02:00:15.920 --> 02:00:19.640
we'll see, we'll see. But yeah, so I hope everybody's

2043
02:00:19.640 --> 02:00:21.600
had a good spooky season. I hope if you're, you know,

2044
02:00:21.640 --> 02:00:24.000
an avid listener of Weekly Spooky, you've been enjoying all

2045
02:00:24.039 --> 02:00:26.359
the content we've been pumping out. Myself and all the

2046
02:00:26.399 --> 02:00:29.319
authors and all my co hosts have been working our

2047
02:00:29.560 --> 02:00:33.800
butts off to make sure you have the most fun, creepy,

2048
02:00:33.880 --> 02:00:38.000
spooky Halloween you possibly can. So very proud of all

2049
02:00:38.000 --> 02:00:42.920
the work we've done. And uh yeah, yeah, So now I'm.

2050
02:00:43.119 --> 02:00:45.800
Tired, Let's go eat that soup.

2051
02:00:46.039 --> 02:00:50.000
Yeah, And if you're still listening somehow, tomorrow there is

2052
02:00:50.119 --> 02:00:55.279
the Ultimate Edgar Allan Poe compilation on Saturday, seven hours

2053
02:00:55.279 --> 02:00:57.920
of Poe readings that I'm very proud of and I

2054
02:00:57.920 --> 02:01:01.199
think you'll you'll enjoy because I love me some Poe.

2055
02:01:01.800 --> 02:01:03.880
So thank you guys so much for tuning into cutting

2056
02:01:03.920 --> 02:01:06.720
deep into horror. Next month in November, we'll be covering

2057
02:01:06.720 --> 02:01:09.319
two films, maybe more if we luck out, but probably

2058
02:01:09.359 --> 02:01:12.720
just the two. And the first one is Bitter Feast,

2059
02:01:12.760 --> 02:01:15.840
which you've probably never seen, so look it up. It

2060
02:01:15.960 --> 02:01:18.600
is worth your time and it has Josh Leonard from

2061
02:01:18.760 --> 02:01:21.880
Blair Witch Project coming. So with that all being said,

2062
02:01:21.880 --> 02:01:23.720
if you love what we're doing here at Weekly Spooky

2063
02:01:23.800 --> 02:01:26.840
make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcasting app. You

2064
02:01:26.840 --> 02:01:30.000
can send us an email at Weeklyspooky at gmail dot com.

2065
02:01:30.079 --> 02:01:31.600
We would love to hear from you. If you have

2066
02:01:31.640 --> 02:01:34.399
a thought opinion about the movie, or you have a

2067
02:01:34.399 --> 02:01:36.520
movie you want us to watch and talk about, we'd

2068
02:01:36.560 --> 02:01:37.960
love to hear about it. And if you want to

2069
02:01:38.000 --> 02:01:39.319
support us for as little a one dollar a month,

2070
02:01:39.359 --> 02:01:43.960
head to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join and the support

2071
02:01:44.000 --> 02:01:46.520
really means a lot. But now I'm going to rest

2072
02:01:46.560 --> 02:01:51.119
this poor voice of mine and until next time, go ahead,

2073
02:01:51.159 --> 02:01:53.079
go into the woods. You're an adult, do what you want.

2074
02:01:53.359 --> 02:01:59.319
Treat yourself.