The Beyond: The Blair Witch Project

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One of the things about a film that can either make it or break it for me is the suspension of disbelief. Even in a stupid cartoon, if I can suspend my disbelief, I can get myself so wrapped up in it that it becomes real for the time being. If I can't suspend my disbelief, it becomes nothing more than a comedy, and if I'm not laughing, there's a problem.

This is possibly one of the coolest films ever made. The reason why is because The Blair Witch Project mastered the art of suspending disbelief. It was able to reproduce feelings of dread of the unknown, and a reckless obsession to find the truth behind the fear.

Curse Of The Blair Witch & The Project
Part of what made the movie so great was due to the promotion of the film. They saturated television with commercials and even seemed to 'take over' the Sci-Fi Channel for a little while to get the message out. They went so far that the suspension of disbelief for many people became ACTUAL BELIEF. No joke, I remember hearing people talk about it. Hell, even while filming, the people on film didn't know for certain what was real and what wasn't.

The Sci-Fi Channel had a documentary which played regularly at the time called 'Curse Of The Blair Witch'. It was approximately an hour long, and had interviews from residents of Burkittsville as well as friends and family of the missing film students. It also had interviews with historians about the Legend Of The Blair Witch, and other things that had happened in the area over the years.

All the stories and information that would later be a part of the this documentary was made known to the people in the actual film BEFORE they began filming it.

This thing was a pop culture phenomenon at the time. Everyone was talking about it. Many of us watched this 'documentary' and didn't know where the truth ended, and the fake stuff began. They had a LOT of people fooled.

It was ALL fake. There wasn't even a real place called Blair. The actors themselves were told about the town of Blair and all the stuff that had happened there, and it was all a lie. A wonderfully doctored lie.

The inspiration for the whole thing could have been The Bell Witch of Adams Station, Tennessee which supposedly terrorized a settler named John Bell's family between 1817 and 1821. Another possible inspiration may have been a film called Cannibal Holocaust. I've seen that one, and it DEFINITELY has it's similarities. Filmmakers go to the Amazon to investigate cannibalistic tribes native to the area. I'm sure you can imagine what happens to them.

So, the movie came out and it became a great success, and now it's barely even mentioned when you ask someone about great horror movies. That's a real shame.

Hometown Legends
There are millions of little towns all over the world, and like the Blair Witch, they ALL have their own little stories and legends. I touched on legends a little bit on our Bloody Mary page, but that's just one story. There were a ton of them where I came from, and I'd like to document them all for you on this site at some point.

One of them in particular is one similar to Blair Witch which probably made the film hit home for me more than other people.

There's a place where I came from that is affectionately referred to by the locals as 'Zombieland.' It had a similar story where and all sorts of bad things happened. Like the Blair Witch story, it also took place near a seldomly seen cemetery back in the woods. Friends and I actually planned to hike back there just like the doomed filmmakers years before the movie even came out. It never happened, but you can see why the film hit home. Anyway, I'll cover the 'Zombieland' situation on some other page, some other time.

The point I'm trying to make here is that every town has it's demons. More often than not, people accept them as nothing more than stories used to be told around a campfire, or to keep children from straying too far away from home.

They can't ALL be lies.

Maybe before It's all over and done with, I'll put up a page dedicated to hometown legends like these. Until then, I'd truly LOVE to hear about the ligands around your home. I'll put them on the site with the ones I write about where I came from. Possably make a legend database or something.

Anyway, you can send them to BeyonderBill@yahoo.com!
You can also find me on yahoo messenger under the name 'BeyonderBill', or even on my MySpace page!

Here are some other Blair Witch Project related pages:

IMDB
Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 IMDB
Wikipedia

A&E's The Blair Witch Project Fantastic's Guide
BlairWitch.net

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