The Blair Witch Project Director Daniel Myrick Details the Film’s Difficult Decisions and Surreal Success

Most of the horror efforts of the ’90s either relied on delivering a repetitive sequel into a familiar franchise or blending horror with humor to create new experiences that lacked the intensity of defining entries into the genre. Filmmaking collaborators Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez decided to put their money where there mouths were in hopes of delivering audiences a truly terrifying experience, resulting in The Blair Witch Project captivating not only the world of horror, but all of pop culture. While the film itself proved immensely effective, its release was amplified by the burgeoning internet feeding into the marketing campaign that claimed the footage seen in the film was authentic, depicting the disappearance of actual people.

The Blair Witch Project focused on a group of documentary filmmakers who attempted to uncover the truth behind a local legend, only to get lost in the woods as they fell victim to torment from unseen forces. The film was one of the biggest horror events of the decade, with audiences unfamiliar with the genre checking it out if only to be part of the conversation and see what the buzz was about. Since the film’s release, countless films have attempted to recreate what made the movie a success, yet none have come close to accomplishing The Blair Witch Project‘s many achievements.

In honor of the film’s 20th anniversary, ComicBook.com caught up with Myrick to discuss the difficult decisions made throughout the film’s production, what draws horror fans to the unknown, and the franchise’s possible future.

Inspired By Mediocrity

Eduardo has mentioned that one of the motivating factors behind you two developing The Blair Witch Project was the frustrations of the genre in the ’90s and how few films were attempting to truly terrify audiences. Can you expand on what it was about the horror genre that felt so disappointing at that time?

It wasn’t that we were so upset or frustrated. It was just we just felt like people were phoning it in. It was part of all genres. We would see a movie come out, it’d be advertised, like Ghost Ship or something, and it was supposed to be the scariest thing since sliced bread, and we’d watch it and say, “Well, this is not scary.” It’s got jumps, and there are obvious beats where things are supposed to make you shout or whatever, or it’s self-referential, so it’s wink-wink, laugh here, laugh there. But it wasn’t like The Exorcist scary, or The Omen scary, or Jacob’s Ladder scary. I mean, the kind of scary that The Shining evokes when you watch it when we were growing up.

I want to feel really profoundly scared, and we just weren’t getting the sense that mainstream movies were doing that anymore. And whether it was just Hollywood wasn’t taking those risks, or they didn’t want to get into those touchy subjects, or whatever it was. It just felt like horror itself was becoming self-referential and not taking itself too seriously, and I guess we just felt that there was something missing. So our thought was, “Let’s do a movie that really does scare people.” It’s a good old fashioned campfire folktale that really gets under your skin, like it did back in the day when we were kids, and that’s one of the motivations definitely.

Bigger Than Ourselves

The film wasn’t originally intended to use the found footage perspective and the footage recorded by the actors was meant to craft a documentary more in line with a TV show like In Search of… or Unsolved Mysteries. What was it about those shows that you connected with so strongly to find them so inspirational?

I think we just felt that the documentary approach operated on a different part of the brain. I remember growing up, I had this goofy UFO club when I was 13, and I subscribed to UFO Magazine, and it was all in the zeitgeist then, UFOs and Bigfoot. I was very much into it, as were a lot of my friends in the neighborhood. And there was just something about flipping through those UFO pages in the magazine and seeing those blurry UFO photographs, those black and white archival photos that you couldn’t really tell if it was a hubcap or if it was legitimately a UFO.

And there was just something very unsettling about that, that it wasn’t clearly defined, that it was something ambiguous, and that documentary style, that Fact or Fiction format that shows like In Search of presented, just lent themselves to this unsettling anxiety of the unknown that we wanted to capture with Blair Witch, and tap into that documentary conceit that seems to be really effective in generating fear that way. And to be able to do it on a lower budget gives you a reason to have a low-tech approach to the narrative and to the horror that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get away with.

Whether it be ghosts or bigfoot, audiences can’t seem to get enough of paranormal investigation shows, even if, had they ever found anything, it would be huge, worldwide news.

Yeah, it would be in The New York Times.

And, even though horror fans might not fully believe these creatures or supernatural energies exist, we can’t stop watching them because we’re so desperate to hold onto the idea that there’s still mystery left in the world or an existence after death.

You tapped into it. We’re all looking for a reason to discover something bigger than ourselves. I think you find that theme underlying a lot of the films that I’ve done, this current movie I’m doing now called “Skyman” taps into that same kind of notion. I just find it fascinating how it motivates people. I find the whole subculture of that belief system really fascinating. I think Blair Witch taps into that. And it’s that ambiguity of really not knowing for sure. We purposefully formatted Blair Witch to walk that line between reality and fantasy. Is it supernatural or is it rednecks in the woods messing with these guys? There was nothing conclusive on one side or the other.

Certainly an argument could be made for both, and that’s the way it was back in the ’70s when I looked at those UFO photos. Someone could make an argument that it was all a hoax, and some guy threw a hubcap up in the air. And you know what, they’re probably right 95% of the time. But then again, there’s a handful of those photos that, to this day, are unexplained, and it leaves that door of possibility cracked open. That just fascinates me, why the human experience is so drawn to that, why those investigation shows that you just mentioned are so compelling. Because we all, I think in some level, share this hope or this desire or this need to seek something that’s bigger than ourselves. And Blair sort of tapped into that same thing.

Collaborative Process

You and Eduardo are both directors on the film, so what was the collaborative process like between the two of you and the rest of the production team? Did all of the decisions come effortlessly or were there a lot of debates about various elements of the film?

It was a lot of creative processes. It was an organic process. Originally, Ed and I, we were sitting around in either my apartment or his apartment during film school, and we were batting around ideas like we were back in those days, and it started off with just a scene. It was this house, “Imagine how creepy it would be to come across this run-down house deep in the woods, and you’re shooting a documentary, and you’re sort of forced to go into this house, and you can’t turn away as a viewer?” You’re forced to watch this camera go into this house, and see what happens. And that planted the seed in our heads that we were wanting to do this documentary approach to this woods movie.

As we continued to brainstorm, eventually the idea came up that the movie would be comprised, at least in part, of found footage that these people disappeared because of some cult, or what have you, that was rumored to be out there, and that would make it even more intriguing that the footage is post-mortem. So that was layered a little bit later on. Then when [producer] Gregg [Hale] got involved, he helped out a lot. And I give credit to Ben Rock and Christian Guevera, and those guys are friends of ours that helped flesh out some of the backstory and the Elly Kedward story, which all informs the narrative as well. So, it was a definite collaborative process over time.

And as Ed and I mapped out the basic storyline of the structure of the events that took place in the woods, a lot of the supporting material like the Eileen Treacle story,  was more collaborative where we fleshed it out together. And one built upon the other, more so than probably any other film I’ve been involved with, involved a lot of different insights from all the guys involved. Until eventually, we got into the edit suite, and very much like a normal documentary, was directed a lot in the edit process, with our original idea being more like an In Search of episode where the found footage constituted only 20 or 30 minutes of the whole movie, we ended up realizing that the found footage was the whole movie, and that the support material would be a standalone piece that supported the film, but it would be on its own. So that was a collaborative decision as well.

But we certainly didn’t agree all the time, every time. For example, we were out on set days before we were getting ready to shoot, and Ed wasn’t sure if he wanted to shoot video at all for the movie. And it was just going to be the 16-millimeter film portion of Heather [Donahue] shooting. Gregg and I sort of lobbied, “Well why don’t we just have a behind-the-scenes camera and let it roll, and we’ll get what we get.” And so, that took a little bit of convincing, and ironically that ended up being most of our film. Then in the edit process, I was more on the side of keeping it more like an In Search of episode, and Gregg and Ed were like, “Why don’t we steer more towards it just being found footage?”

So again, it was on some of these decisions, you’re more in favor of one way than the other. And together, you come up with the movie. And that’s part of the creative process, and without everyone’s involvement, I mean [producers] Mike Monello and Rob Cowie were also instrumental in helping us steer this thing. I don’t think it could have been made any other way. It was just one of those kinds of films that was as much of an experiment as it was an actual plan. And as a result, we were all leaning on each other to keep the movie steered in the right direction, or at least the direction we thought that was going to be ultimately scary. But you never really know until you string it up and watch the audience’s reaction.

Capturing Magic

Not only was the film effective on its own right, but to debut at a time when the internet was becoming prominent and video cameras were becoming more affordable, there was this perfect storm of events that helped make the movie so groundbreaking. Given that you helped create this franchise, is it frustrating when sequels like Book of Shadows or 2016’s Blair Witch can’t replicate the original film’s success?

It depends on how you want to define it. I think it’s very, very, very, very difficult to replicate the cultural phenomenon that Blair Witch was, because I think you nailed it on the head. It was as much timing as anything else. We were at this nexus of what we just discussed earlier about horror movies being over-bloated and self-referential and not ultimately paying off in the scare department. So there was that going on. The internet was just coming into its own, which was a new shiny thing for the press and the audiences out there. And then reality TV was just coming into its own as well.

So there’s a lot of factors that were aligning, that Blair Witch was able to capitalize on both consciously and unconsciously, that turned it into a cultural phenomenon that none of us could have predicted. But at the same time, in our own defense, we went through a hell of a lot of work over two years to make Blair Witch a film which really paid off for the audience in the scare department. So I always tell people, Blair Witch did become a cultural phenomenon, but I don’t think it would have been nearly as big had it not paid off. A lot of people went in to see this movie because they thought it was real. A lot of people heard about it on the internet. A lot of hype was surrounding the movie, but it would have had a 60 or 70% drop-off that first weekend had the movie not actually done its job.

And it was a polarizing film, certainly a lot of people didn’t like the movie. But overall, the critics and a lot of the fans that saw the film walked away scared to death, and that is something we did have some control over. And that was, at the time, in combination with the other things I described, made it bigger than it had every right to be. And nowadays, the sequels, the problem that I saw or have seen in the post-mortem analysis, is that they lost that intention, that honest intention that Ed and I and Gregg went at our movie with, and that was like, they’re trying to capitalize on the phenomenon, and weren’t really focused on the movie.

Book of Shadows was frustrating for us, because it broke the mythology. It was a movie that, by its own definition, didn’t understand its predecessor, that didn’t fundamentally understand why the first movie was what it was. And it was confusing to us that they took that approach. And the recent 2016 movie was, in many respects, a much better movie, in my opinion, and stuck to the mythology, which I appreciated, and I felt it was well-intentioned, but again, misunderstood why the first movie was what it was, and was trying to tap in and dip into the same well the first movie did, and fundamentally didn’t get why the Blair Witch thing was what it was. It wasn’t an honest approach to make in the movie.

And as a filmmaker and an artist who was, like you said, one of the guys that gave birth to this, both Ed and I are still baffled as to why it’s been so difficult for the studio to just continue down the mythological path that we’ve created. We’ve created this entire universe that could be exploited. It’s like, you’ve got the Rustin Parr story, or the Elly Kedward origin story, to Eileen Treacle. There’s so many different episodes in the mythology that could be made into a movie that there’s no reason to create something or redo in essence, or rework the original film. It just doesn’t make any sense to us creatively.

Go at it honestly, go at the Rustin Parr story, or the origin story with all honest intent, and it’ll work. It’ll work for the fans, if you do it with the same authenticity and respect for the fan base. That’s what we felt was missing in the last couple of attempts. And hopefully it can be resurrected. I still think it can be done, but it seems like it’s in the hands of people that don’t fundamentally understand what made Blair what it was as a film. Certainly as a phenomenon, you never really know what makes it 100% a phenomenon. But as a film, it just felt like it hasn’t been addressed, that’s in my humble opinion.

There’s so much about the original film that works, from the filmmaking to the acting to the narrative to the marketing, that it’s hard to boil it down to what the essence of the franchise is. With Blair Witch, the movie might have been an effective experience, but because of its name, it had these impossibly high standards it had to live up to.

I give [Blair Witch writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard] credit, because I think they were sincere about the movie. And what I like about those guys, I feel they were honest fans of the original film, but it does feel like it was a bit ruled by a committee. It’s a red flag to me when a studio asks the original guy to come in and read the script in a closed room, and then isn’t really interested in your commentary. They just want you to give them a thumbs up and walk away. That’s basically what they were asking me to do. What am I going to do? “You need to redo this whole friggin’ act.” They’re not going to do that. They’re a few weeks away from shooting. So, it was a courtesy, and I appreciate it and all, but they weren’t really interested in what Ed and I had to say about it.

And so, again, in typical Hollywood fashion, I’m sure their hands were tied to that process, and they did the very best they could with what they had to work with. But I think a film like The Witch, which I loved, to me is the closest example. Here’s a period piece movie with a lot of people we don’t know who they are that really resonated, that could have served a really great role as an origin story in the same kind of style and approach to support the Blair Witch mythology.

If they were taking that approach to the different episodes in the Blair Witch franchise, you would have this entire franchise that is complementary to itself. And every movie doesn’t have to be a tent-pole hit film. They just need to be respectable and play to the overall mythology with deference to the audience and to the mythology, and you’ll have a classic franchise, and you’re not going to hit it out of the park on every movie, but no one can accuse you of going at it in a half-assed way.

Difficult Decisions

It sounds as though the collaborative process on the whole experience was pretty organic, but can you think of a single decision you made that was the most difficult? Whether it be a decision with marketing or in the editing room or in the preparation for the project?

Wow. There were so many tough choices, and unknown choices. It depends on where you were in the process. When we got into Sundance, we also got accepted to the Los Angeles Film Festival as well, and we were debating for a little bit, “Should we be in competition at Los Angeles Film Festival or be at the midnight screening at Sundance?” And that was a big choice. And finally, we figured it was better to play at Sundance even if we weren’t in competition. And that was probably the best decision we made, because everything just blew up at Sundance. And certainly creatively, throughout the process was tough, and we didn’t come up with an ending for the movie until three days before we started shooting. Ed and I were wracking our brains of how to end the damned movie.

We had it all mapped out, and we knew we wanted to walk this line of ambiguity, and it’s like we led everybody to this house, and then we had no idea what to do once we were at the house. It was a really tough, tough thing, and it was easier to push it into the back of our minds for months and say, “We’ll figure it out when the time comes.” But then the time came, and Gregg was like, “You guys need to fucking go take a walk and figure this out.” And so, we wracked out brains, had all these different really bad ideas of Mike on a crucifix, and this and that. And then eventually just decided on him standing in the corner, and that was what we thought visually would be really creepy to see, and Heather getting hit at the end would suggest that there was some other presence in the room besides Michael, that you could argue was either supernatural or some physical being there that took her out.

So we needed a payoff, some big “What the fuck?” moment at the end, but nothing that was overtly revealing some guy in a witch costume, or an alien or something. So it was a tough line to walk, and it was one of the most difficult things to not only come up with to shoot, but also, as we were screening it, doing the test screenings, knowing whether or not it was actually working. And that was one of those artistic dilemmas, is knowing if what you’re doing is making any sense. So that was definitely one of the toughest things that we were having to deal with was figuring out that ending.

And what makes that ending so effective is how subtle it is. It’s not like in a slasher movie when a hero delivers a catchphrase before killing the villain and the whole audience cheers and applauds.

Yeah, and it’s one of those things that it’s more of a feeling rather than the big punchline at the end. When we did the test screening in New Jersey, it was a middle America audience, and they always come and call people at the end of the screening, and we have the hired professionals asking the questions and doing the whole post-screening Q&A. And then towards the end of all the questioning, the questioner asked the group there whether or not they understood what was going on in the end scene. All the hands rose up and people were like, “I didn’t get it. I don’t know why he was standing in the corner, blah blah blah.” They were all unsure about what was going on.

And then we asked the questioner to ask them one final question, and that was simply, “Were you scared? Did that final moment scare you?” And 19 of 20 hands went up. So, we knew they were scared, they just didn’t know why they were scared. And that’s an instinctual thing, and it’s much harder to measure. But based on that screening, we made a course correction a little bit when we went out and shot pickup shots later on, because that made us a little nervous about the ending, so we went and shot some alternate endings that ultimately didn’t make the grade.

But we did shoot one little extra clip at the beginning of the movie where they’re doing interviews of people in the town, and one townsperson says, “Rustin Parr made the kids stand in the corner.” So we added that little bit in there to help explain why Mike is in the corner. So it’s a little callback to that moment earlier in the film. But we kept that original Mike standing in the corner ending, because we just felt instinctively it was really unsettling. And it ended up being one of the most talked-about moments of the movie. So, who’s to say? Sometimes you just have to go on gut instinct and hope for the best.

What’s fascinating is how that one decision about the ending and its ambiguity ended up helping cement the film’s legacy and create such an iconic horror movie moment, yet it was just a last-minute decision.

Again, it’s all about the buildup, right? You’re laying the pipe way early on in the movie, and you keep building, and building, and building, and building, and one scare builds on the next, or the one previous. So by the time you get to that final scene, the audience is so ramped up, and everything has so much more meaning, every moment, every sound, every scream. Everything has so much more impact because you’ve done all that groundwork prior. And we just didn’t want to blow it. That was, for us, it was like, err on the side of caution and just not blow the ending.

Surreal Success

From the movie being a hit at Sundance to its box office numbers to huge talk show appearances, is there any specific anecdote you can think of when you realized what you had was so much more than just a successful film and was becoming a cultural phenomenon?

It’s hard to say if there was any one moment. You had to understand, we had no real reference point. This was our first feature film, and we were pretty fresh out of film school. We gave the movie our all, and, like any filmmaker, you’re swinging for the fences. And you manage to connect, and the ball goes over, and you’re like, “Oh that wasn’t so hard,” right? But you don’t realize at the time how rare that is. As we sold at Sundance, which we really felt fortunate to have done, it was still within the realm of a successful indie sale.

And then we get ushered into Cannes, and now we’re on the international stage, and Ed and I are doing a director’s panel with Ron Howard and Spike Lee at Cannes, and John Sayles, like, “What the hell are we doing here?” So, that was another level where we’re like, “Okay, this is sort of weird.” But then, I remember one of those moments, we were in the Artisan offices, and John Hegeman who was heading up the marketing once Artisan picked it up, who did a really great job with the marketing campaign on the trailer and the college screenings and all that, he was laughing because he came out of his office and told us that Warner Bros. just called and is asking us when our release date’s going to be, because they’re trying to coordinate their release schedule around Blair Witch. And we’re like, “What? A studio called you worried about when we were releasing this stupid movie?”

So it was just a combination of these little events, which ended up being big events, that, over time, just made it surreal. And then ultimately, a day I will never forget is going to the Angelika Film Center on its opening day and looking at the glass of the box office, and they had, I don’t know, 10 or 12 pieces of paper taped to the glass saying all these screenings were sold out. And I was like, “Okay, we’re not in Kansas anymore.”  I can reference several moments where it was just flippin’ surreal. And to this day it’s surreal.

Certainly when I was sitting in the office, and Gregg walks in, Gregg Hale walks into my office, in our little crappy offices, holding Newsweek and Time Magazine, and Ed and I are on the cover of Time, and the actors are on the cover of Newsweek, in the same week. And Gregg and I just looked at each other and we just broke out laughing, how fucking stupid that was, and how surreal that was. And I guess if there was any moment, that had to have been it, looking at our goofy mugs on the cover of Time Magazine. That it was just something so far beyond what we had envisioned, that that’s the beauty of the business. That’s part of why we are so inexorably attracted, like moths to a flame. That this kind of thing can happen, this weird, surreal dreamscape thing can happen to an artist, to a filmmaker. And we were just fortunate enough for it to happen to us.

Reinventing the Genre

In 1980, you had Cannibal Holocaust, featuring the “found footage” of a documentary crew who had been killed by natives. 20 years later, your film comes around with a similar narrative device but an entirely unique narrative and it becomes a huge cultural event. Now that it’s 20 years after your film, have you experienced anything that you feel is reinventing the horror genre?

I’m definitely intrigued by VR. It still has a ways to go on the technological front, for it to receive mass acceptance. It’s still on the bleeding edge of technology, and a high bar for entry. But having indulged in VR on several projects on several occasions, its immersive capabilities are really profound. And if someone that comes in from a storytelling filmmaking background, and also has sort of a gaming theory understanding, and can capitalize on that new medium in the horror genre, I think it could be really, really effective. So that’s one medium that I find exciting, and tracking to see where it goes in the future. But at the same time, good old fashioned straight-up filmmaking, whether it’s a well-executed story or not, always has potential to change things, and that will never go out of style.

I don’t know if someone’s going to come along and take what we did and put a new twist on it, because that’s all I felt we did. I don’t think we invented anything, we just put a slightly new twist on the horror three-act structure and did it from a slightly different way. But we were informed and influenced by those before us, and someone will no doubt do the same, hopefully influenced by what we did. It really just does come down to good storytelling, good execution, in whatever medium that comes in. If it’s a book, or movie, or VR, or what have you, if it’s done well, it’s going to be compelling, and it’s going to really shake things up. And that’s what’s exciting about the art form, is that just when you think you’ve got it all figured out or you think nothing can be done differently, someone comes along and does it.

My son, who’s 13 now, he’s going to be 14 in a month, he’s diving into realms of storytelling and narrative consumption on YouTube, and VR, areas that I didn’t have access to when I was his age. So, I think in terms of, how do you tell stories for these kids nowadays? He has the advantage of growing up in this medium. He has the advantage of learning the language, this interchange of ideas in real-time with his friends, and stuff like that that are informing his aesthetic that I never had the benefit of.

And it’ll be really interesting to see where this new crop of filmmakers, what they do with this new technology, and how someone with a real insight and real storytelling chops will turn that into some incredible experience. I know it’s bound to happen. It’s already starting to happen in the gaming industry. They’re becoming much more compelling from a narrative standpoint than they’ve ever been before. So, it’s really exciting to see that take shape. Someone’s going to do it, and it’s going to change the world.

Films like the Unfriended series and Searching come to mind, in terms of delivering a straightforward horror story in a new perspective and structure, but they haven’t quite become massively successful yet. But what’s also interesting is you mention films like The Omen and The Exorcist terrifying you, which are essentially compelling dramas with supernatural elements, and last year you have something like Hereditary, which is another captivating drama that just happens to feature supernatural elements.

Yeah, that’s a perfect description. I tell lots of people when they ask me what my favorite films were, and I’m like, “Yeah, it’s Exorcist, and The Shining, and Jacob’s Ladder,” and the list goes on. But we never thought of them as horror movies in those days. We just thought of them as great movies. When you see a film like Carrie, these are great characters, well written, well performed. These are done by accomplished filmmakers, like Jaws, that just happened to be horror films. They just happened to fall in that genre.

But their execution, and the writing, and the casting and all is top-notch, and that makes them timeless. That’s why they continue to endure, and serve as benchmarks for filmmakers over the years, because they’re consummate films that are hard to replicate, a kind of thing that’s hard to replicate. Certainly inspiring, but they’re first-class films, first and foremost.

Franchise Future

As far as what’s on the horizon for the franchise, whether you’re directly involved or not, is there a particular narrative realm you would like to see explored? Or a medium you’d like to see embraced for the Blair Witch lore?

That’s a tough question. I guess if I had my preference, if Blair Witch was going to continue its inexorable path forward, I guess I lean towards exploring some of the original mythos that we created, like an origin story of Elly Kedward would be cool, or a movie about Rustin Parr would be cool. These explorations into those storylines, I’ve always felt would be interesting. How that would be realized in a TV format, I’m not quite sure yet. I guess my fear is that it becomes commoditized and it loses its mystique.

Because that’s part of what I love about Blair is it has this element of mystique associated with it that, if it becomes too commonplace, it loses that special magic. I think that’s what Star Wars is suffering from for me now, is that it’s becoming just too much, and it’s too literal, and it’s become too much of a commodity, and it’s lost some of that mystique for me, and I hope that doesn’t happen with Blair. But it’s a fine line. It’s a fine balance of staying true to the original intent of the story, and the characters, and the mythology, and managing whatever success comes from that. Because if it starts to become really a moneymaker, then invariably, just like with the first movie, next thing you know you’ve got keychains, and action figures and what not, and it’s really hard to stop that momentum.

And what’s the next project that you’re working on?

It’s Skyman, I’m finishing that up now, I’m literally editing as we speak. You can go to skymanthemovie.com, and we’ve got a Facebook page and all that good stuff. So you can check out the latest updates there. It should be wrapping up here in early August, we’ll be done, so we’re going to start sending it out to festivals. We’re going to probably have a screening at the Idaho Horror Film Fest and a couple other places. So it should be a lot of fun. It’s more of a sci-fi character study, so it’s not a straight-up horror movie. But it certainly goes back to my UFO roots, so that should be a lot of fun.

*****

Stay tuned for details on the future of the Blair Witch franchise.

How would you like to see the series continue? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!