What Tangled Web Sites ‘Blair’ Weaves

Yes, “The Blair Witch Project” is somewhat spooky. What’s even spookier is the frenzy that has erupted on the Internet about a shoestring-budgeted mock doc that has become a cult classic faster than you can say “boo.” Witches, pshaw. These kids are possessed!

A hit at Sundance’s midnight screening in January, the little scary movie that could was picked up by Artisan Entertainment, promoted on the Net and to date has taken in more than $120 million at the U.S. box office.

Much of this has been due to word-of-chat and the film’s innovative Web site, which upholds the mockumentary aspects of the picture. The site, at https://www.blairwitch.com, develops the back story of the Blair witch mythology as well as taking up where the film lets off to follow the investigation of the disappearance of the three college kids. The film’s promotion misleads us to believe that the three vanished in the woods while making a documentary about the lore of said witch. (Even the Internet Movie Database, https://www.imdb.com, the bible of movie minutiae on the Web, played along for a while, listing the three leads as missing and presumed dead.)

Now, not only are all corners of the Net crawling with fan sites like Stay Out of the Woods (at https://www.blairwoods.com/) and a zillion other Internet shrines, but a certain “Blair” backlash has swept the Web as well.

Salon magazine published an article

(https://www.salonmagazine.com/tech/feature/1999/07/16/blair_marketing

/index.html) suggesting that the Web-based “Blair” hype that has spread like wildfire is itself a hoax. The article quotes an insider as saying “the ‘Blair Witch Project’ filmmakers are using their friends to generate their fan sites. That was an organized effort. What happened is that they tricked the press.” Among other things, the article attests that the fans behind the BWP Fanatic’s Guide (at https://tbwp.freeservers.com/) are somewhat more complicit than your average fan.

A rash of anti-”Blair Witch” sites and “Blair” spoof sites have cropped up as well. Since the film was so raw and low of budget, it is an easy genre to imitate.

One of the most amusing spoofs is a Realvideo filmlet called “The Walt Witch Project” (at https://www.moviejuice.com/1999/waltwitchproject.htm). This homemade video reveals that “shockingly, a second set of film students mysteriously vanished in 1994. But this time, they’re not lost in the woods, they’re lost in the ‘Happiest Place on Earth’!” The movie, made in Blair’s signature Shaky-Cam, has the filmmaker shrieking at the likes of Goofy as he runs, cursing, through Disneyland.

At the Force.Net, artist Ed Bain has made some Blair mirth by combining the summer’s two hot flicks, “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace” and “The Blair Witch Project.” In his movie (https://download.theforce.net/video/edbain_Blairwitch.mov), droids whirl through the woods shining a flashlight and shrieking in droid-speak.

Another popular film is wed to “Blair” in “The Clerks Witch Project” (https://clerkswitch.freeservers.com/), in which “two convenience store workers disappear in the woods around New Jersey. A year later their footage is found.”

At https://www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Lounge/3027/Blair.html, you can see the Blair Warner Project, a site that records the horror involved when “The Facts of Life’s” Blair Warner subjects several Eastland students to home perms and make-overs. The events leading up to the grisly tragedy are recorded in Tootie’s journal.

At the Anti-Blair Witch Project page (https://creative-homeliving.com/blair/antiblair.htm), surfers arrive to the tune of the “Bewitched” theme song. The site lists the film’s scariest moments, including “Losing the map. (Does this mean the movie is going to last a lot longer?)”

The indie thriller has caused still more fallout, to the consternation of some Maryland officials. Law enforcement officers in Frederick Country, where Burkittsville is situated (the filmmakers sprang their fiction from a real town), have been inundated by calls from moviegoers wanting to learn more about the evil, child-stealing witch who inhabits the area. APB Online, the source for police and crime news, (https://www.apbonline.com/mediapatrol/1999/07/15/blair0715_01.html) reports that Mayor Joyce Brown was compelled to comment, “We’re a nice, quiet, Christian community. . . . We’ve never had any children missing or nothing of the sort that the movie speculates.”

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Erika Milvy writes about entertainment and popular culture from her home in San Francisco. She can be reached at erika@well.com.