The movie was shot over eight days, in Germantown, Md., Seneca Creek State Park and the Griggs House, in Patapsco Valley State Park. Over the next several years, they came up with the Blair Witch lore, hired a few unknown actors who could do improv, scraped some money together and production got underway in October of 1997. In and around 1993, they were talking about horror movies-and the recent drought of truly great ones-when they thought about the potentially terrifying consequences of a group stumbling upon a house in the woods and not being able to resist going inside, despite knowing that something appalling was happening. Not to mention, no one was racing to Facebook or Twitter to spoil the fun.ĭirectors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez met as students at the University of Central Florida School of Film. Same with that shaky, hand-held camera technique. That took some getting used to as well, and there were reported occurrences of nausea and vomiting.)īoosted by a rather ingenious marketing campaign that teased the film entirely as the product of tapes discovered in the woods of Burkittsville, Md., after an unknown but presumably horrible fate had befallen three student filmmakers, The Blair Witch Project benefited from the kind of organically grown anticipation that's hard to duplicate these days. (The idea wasn't conjured out of thin air, but it certainly didn't become a full-fledged thing until 1999. Now it's been 22 years since The Blair Witch Project in all its haunting, low-budget glory landed in theaters and launched a new genre of horror movie: found footage. Two years later, their footage scared up almost $249 million. "The Order of Death" – Public Image Ltd.In 1997, two directors and three unknown actors disappeared into the woods, toting handheld cameras and a concept.
A search of the car turned up a mixed tape of mostly goth rock and industrial tracks to commemorate their journey into the Black Hills Forest. Josh's car was found four days after he disappeared, parked on Black Rock Road. Heather Donahue and Joshua Leonard Josh's "Blair Witch Mix" Mixed Tape Found Heather Donahue (Friend, film crew mate).According to her account, he was missing some teeth and was screaming in apparent pain. In December 23 of 1994, Mary Brown reportedly saw an apparition of Joshua Leonard appear outside of her trailer. The next morning Heather Donahue found Joshua's bloody teeth and gums wrapped in his shirt, but nothing more was said about it. It seems the Blair Witch had tortured and ultimately killed him. Heather Donahue and Michael Williams heard Joshua Leonard yelling for help at night.
He supposedly died while being a watcher outside the tent. After ten days and thousands of man-hours, the only piece of evidence found was Josh's car. Josh, Heather and Mike headed into the Black Hills Forest to visit some of the locations associated with the legend, but none of them ever returned. She'd only met Heather once, but had a bad feeling about her. The night before heading out on the project, Josh fought with his girlfriend Lisa Toller because she didn't want him to go. Discovered by police on Black Rock Road, October 25, 1994. They'd previously worked on several projects together and got along well, so he agreed to the assignment, recruiting Mike to do the sound. In April of 1994, Josh was approached by Heather Donahue to be the director of photography for a documentary she was doing on the legend of the Blair Witch. Josh was friends with Michael Williams and they often went out drinking together. Joshua was born the son of Jacob and Summer Leonard.