Blair Witch Craft

The Blair Witch Project directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez

In October of 1997, three young actors went into the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, to play in a horror movie. Twenty-two months later, their film was a smash...and the talk not just of Hollywood but of America. You could hardly walk down a bustling street last week or log on to a website without tripping over that ominous incantation "Blair Witch." The impact, sudden and seismic, of The Blair Witch Project is utterly unprecedented. Never has a--let's be honest--weird movie budgeted at a ludicrously low $35,000 stormed both the box office and the national pop consciousness. In its first week of wide release, on 1,101 screens, it earned $50 million--more than the Julia Roberts comedy hit Runaway Bride, which played in nearly three times as many venues. It is likely to have the highest percentage of profit in film history. Its astounding success has made indie-film heroes of its directors, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. And the marketers at Artisan Entertainment, who built fervid want-see for the film through cunning use of the Internet, have been credited with revolutionizing the way films are sold.

Money and marketing are just part of the lure. This minimalist horror film, which appears to be a self-filmed documentary of three filmmakers who get lost in the Maryland woods while tracking down a local witch legend, has become the Elvis, the E.T., the Pet Rock of 1999--the hottest item in a hot summer. Shagadelic--what's that? Jar Jar Binks--remind me. Ricky Martin--isn't he Dino's kid? For this moment (and treasure it, because it may vanish as fast as it materialized), Blair Witch is the must-attend social event for plugged-in America.

Faced with this out-of-nowhere phenomenon, Hollywood cheers and shudders. Any movie that scares up business is considered good for the rest of the industry. But this one became a hit by breaking too many rules. No-star indie films usually make money with charm and sentiment; Blair Witch has neither. So the mass audience will accept something strident, elliptical, confrontational--what next? The movie was shot with its actors' being put through an eight-day survival game. They shot the film and made up the dialogue while the directors lurked out of sight and played sneaky tricks on them. Don't let James Cameron hear about this!

If the product was eccentric, so was the peddling, what Artisan co-president Amir Malin calls "guerrilla marketing tactics." Blair Witch's creative team, known as Haxan Films, hustled the movie's clips onto John Pierson's Split Screen cable show, premiered its trailer on the insider Ain't It Cool News website and launched its own site, , which, on an eventual investment of $15,000, had racked up 75 million hits by week's end. If Artisan can create an avid audience on cable and in cyberspace, why is Fox or Warner Bros. spending tens of millions advertising in the papers and on prime time? No wonder Hollywood, looking at Blair Witch, says both Wow! and Uh-oh!

The reaction of moviegoers is no less schizophrenic. Scan their faces as they enter the theaters playing Blair Witch. The anticipation is electric; this could be a fantasy reunion concert of all four Beatles. Many in the audience are escorted by hipper acquaintances who have seen the film and are back not to watch it again but to watch their friends watch it. And though those in the know will urge people to see Blair Witch, they won't spill its secrets. (Warning: we will.) The film is a rite of passage, fraternity hazing and haunted-house trip rolled into 81 agitated minutes.

Theater owners will endure a dip in popcorn sales. During this film, almost nobody leaves. Except to be sick. Some viewers have vomited during particularly tense scenes. Others get motion sickness from the jerky camera style. At the picture's climax, a Chicago woman let out a full-throttle scream. She was still shaking as the lights came up. "I'm too upset to talk," she said as a friend comforted her with a hug.

When the picture ends, reactions vary wildly. Some customers are plainly smitten. "It was every scary story you ever heard as a kid coming to life," says Matthew Smith, 24, in Chicago. Smith isn't bothered by the film's no-tech grittiness: "If you want special effects, rent Titanic."

Several patrons try to shrug off the icy fear the film's neural refrigerator has locked them into. A trio of teens emerging from a screening in Alexandria, Va., refuse to walk to their car, parked near a woodsy area, because "that movie scared me to death," says Shawna Daniels, 14, "and I'm not ever going near the woods again!" A ticket taker graciously walks them to the car. When asked if he has seen the film, he replies, "Not on your life. I don't want to be that scared." For others, the thaw will take longer. Kim Bingham, 33, of Santa Cruz, Calif., says that a week after seeing the movie, her 14-year-old daughter "still can't sleep at night. She doesn't want to talk about it. She won't go outside to feed the dog because she has to pass by some trees, and they remind her of the movie."