1999: The Blur Witch Project and us!

I remember it so well even today. Me, Leo and Micke sat in Micke's basement in his parents house, this was the fall of 1999. Micke had a tape, a bootleg tape of the biggest success in the United States that year. This was more or less before everyone had internet 24/7 so we hadn't heard that much about it.

But Micke claimed it was real. It was the real deal. 

The Blair Witch Project. I was skeptical, of course. Why distribute real footage like a horror movie? Wouldn't the relatives of the victims be against this? I can't even imagine size of the lawsuits. Anyway, we started to watch it. 

And remember, this was on bootleg tape. VHS (for the crappiest quality ever!) and Satan knows what roads that version took before it landed in Micke's lap. That was the scariest shit I ever seen. Really. I'm not ashamed of it. No Sir, but it was fake. Of course. It became even scarier because you couldn't hardly see what was going on, it's late at night, it rained (could be my imagination there): very typical Swedish weather during the fall.

We called it The Blur Witch Project after that, because it was so damn blurry.

That tape spread among us and a couple of months later we decided to make the first parody of The Blair Witch Project EVER. We called it The Ninja Spirit Project and it's about a couple of ninjas getting lost in the forest.

Maybe a year later the New York branch of Entertainment Weekly emailed me (Yeah, I had that!) and asked if they could buy a copy of our parody because they where doing a special about Blair Witch spoofs.

They payed a healthy sum for a tape, DHL came for it and since then it's been quite. I still wonder how they reacted after seeing that tape featuring a couple of very miserable ninjas improvising in fake Japanese for 40 minutes.

Poor them, poor them....

Comments

[Megatron]

"Micke had a tape, a bootleg tape of the biggest success in the United States that year. This was more or less before everyone had internet 24/7 so we hadn't heard that much about it.

But Micke claimed it was real. It was the real deal."

Now I understand why you love this film so much.

Personally I remember hearing two teenage girls at McDonalds arguing about this film, wether it was real or not.

I never got caught up in the hype.

"The Blair Witch Project. I was skeptical, of course. Why distribute real footage like a horror movie? Wouldn't the relatives of the victims be against this? I can't even imagine size of the lawsuits. Anyway, we started to watch it."

Exactly what I thought.....therefore I never believed it.

"That was the scariest shit I ever seen. Really. I'm not ashamed of it. No Sir, but it was fake. Of course. It became even scarier because you couldn't hardly see what was going on, it's late at night, it rained (could be my imagination there): very typical Swedish weather during the fall."

Perfect setting for such a movie.

"That tape spread among us and a couple of months later we decided to make the first parody of The Blair Witch Project EVER. We called it The Ninja Spirit Project and it's about a couple of ninjas getting lost in the forest.

Maybe a year later the New York branch of Entertainment Weekly emailed me (Yeah, I had that!) and asked if they could buy a copy of our parody because they where doing a special about Blair Witch spoofs.

They payed a healthy sum for a tape, DHL came for it and since then it's been quite. I still wonder how they reacted after seeing that tape featuring a couple of very miserable ninjas improvising in fake Japanese for 40 minutes.

Poor them, poor them...."

hahahhahahahha....what the hell.....?

NO, YOU LIE!

Can´t you upload this somewhere...?

Love to see it......great fucking essay.

I wonder how entertainment weekly responded in NYC.....ahhahahhah..."Soooo.....indie filmmaker in Sweden huh.....stan, push in tape and turn off the lights!"

Let the fun begin....thanks Fred, love these anecdotes.

[Fred Anderson]

I'm desperately trying to get my hands on the movie, we'll see if I succeed :)

[Megatron]

Fred: Great news......I´m hoping you succeed in your quest.

[Fredrik]

I never liked "The Blair Witch Project". I saw it late, and had already read a lot about it and knew it was "fake". Seeing it earlier would probably have made a difference.

What I did like was the early promotion they did, with the websites and all. They really succeeded in fooling people to believe it was real. All respect for that!