I’d heard so much about the Blair Witch Project that when I finally saw it, it was a letdown. What’s the big deal?
The most interesting thing about this movie is how much money it made. According to Wikipedia, The film is arguably the most profitable film in history. With a budget of $22,000 and a worldwide gross of over $248 million, the film’s gross was more than 11,000 times its original budget.
It was popular because it wasn't a big deal. There’s no special effects. There’s no soundtrack. There’s no twisty plot with a surprise kicker at the end. Some kids get lost in the woods and get scared.
It’s interesting because we’re numb to huge budgets, expensive CGI special effects, and intricate smarty-pants plots. The reason Blair Witch was so popular is the same reason The Bourne Ultimatum was so popular. The Bourne Ultimatum was so simple it was simply amazing. I could hardly believe I was watching a two hour chase scene with a fight in the middle. There wasn’t any plot. It was just Bourne chasing and being chased, with a fight. Yet, it grosses $441,161,071, according to Wikipedia. It outgrossed the previous two Bournes.
That's what blogs and YouTube are all about. We’re tired of Big Media, and we’re looking for the online equivalent of The Blair Witch Project. A fat guy lip-synching The Numa-Numa Song song gets millions of hits. It has no production values, plot, special effects, nothing. The crappy webcam picture is blurry and the camera doesn’t move, so the guy even goes out of the frame briefly. In the original video, even the sound was bad- the ones you find online now have the sound digitally remastered. But I watched it, more than once. It’s hilarious precisely because it's so crappy! The BBC has reported it has been viewed more than 700,000,000 times.
Blair Witch spawned dozens of copy-cat "found footage" horror movies, and I think they're all shit. We don't have to write a decent script, we can have crappy editing and camera work and we don't have to have a soundtrack: because it's found footage! If a movie is another found footage fiasco, count me out.