How Did People Assume The Blair Witch Project was Real Footage?

The Blair Witch Project is considered to be the horror movie that began the found footage era among the horror genre. The found footage aspect in this movie was shot so well, with only a $60,000 budget. The footage felt so authentic, and the reactions/emotions of the three main cast members did a fine job. It truly felt like I was watching an actual documentary of what happened to three people in the woods, and the mention of the three of them still missing to this day was a nice take for the creepy storyline. 

And I wanted to clarify…that I am aware that this is a movie. 

Just a scary movie that was expertly shot with the use of a camera. 

I have no idea how people believed this was real footage. 

Did it really have to do with the awesome advertising the writers did for the release of their film? 

They put up missing posters of the three cast members, used their real names for the movie, and people apparently told the family members that they were sorry for their losses. 

Of course, the families knew that their kids were fine lol. No way in hell the writers could have played that joke on the actual families…because that is a different level of insanity. 

And also, if this is true, the writers found a way to have people do a news report on the three missing college students. 

While all of these advertising strategies were genius, I still don't understand why people fell for this 'scheme.' 

Here are the reasons why I don't get why people thought this was real footage.

1. If it was real, we never would have seen this footage in a movie theater. 

I highly doubt that real footage of three missing people would have been released in theaters. That would have been impossible, and very disrespectful to the real families of this had actually happened.

2. If it was real, this footage would have given to authorities, and never shown to the public. 

I honestly think the FBI would have gotten a hold of the footage. The local sheriff would have to give up the footage to the top dogs, because they would need a national manhunt to search for the three missing kids. 

3. If it was real, this would have been considered the scariest disappearance of all time.

I got to be honest here, if this was real footage, I think this would have traumatized a lot of people. If the FBI along with the families decided to turn this disappearance into a future documentary on Netflix or something. This would scare a shitload of people for YEARS. 

Imagine how people would obsess over the disappearance of Heather, Mike, and Josh. 

We horror fans have come up with a lot of theories as to what we think happened to the three main characters in the film, but if we were to look at this movie from a REAL STANDPOINT, what sort of theories would we come up with?

I guarantee a lot of people would assume the witch was real, and some people would be terrified to go into those woods, or they would explore the woods in search of the either the witch or the house at the end of the movie.

4. If it was real, I would never go camping. 

No seriously, if this movie was real, I WOULD NEVER GO CAMPING. I would be freaking scared, imagining what those three kids went through. But if my family or friends force me to go, we are bringing multiple weapons. I don't care how we accomplish this, but if we need to bring a freaking bazooka, WE WILL.

So yeah, if this movie was real, this would have been one of the most scary and tragic discoveries in true crime history. An unsolved case like this would go viral for years, leading to so many theories as to what happened to these three people. 

But at least it's not real. 

And this movie got an awesome reputation, so at least we got something for us horror fans to talk about for years. 

But man, how did people fall for this???

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Thank you for reading!

Emy Quinn