The Blair Witch Project It premiered at Sundance, first, and in movie theaters, later, in 1999, and closed the century by revolutionizing the horror genre and giving origin of what would be a new subgenre without which we could hardly understand the way of making horror today: the founded footage (found footage).
With a budget of $60,000 to make their film, amateur directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick created an entire mythology around a supposed witch in the woods of Maryland and bet everything on a simple (and more than economical) marketing transmedia: They made the public believe that three film students had disappeared in the woods while filming a documentary about the Blair Witch.and that what was shown was, precisely, the found footage that those kids had filmed before disappearing.
Despite being one of the most profitable films in the history of cinema (it grossed nearly 250 million dollars, multiplying its budget by more than 4,000), the directors never managed to stand out in cinema after this success, perhaps due to their refusal to enter the gears of commercial cinema. The three protagonists of the film, who were then unknown performersthey did not have much better luck. The three also lent their own names to the characters.
It is difficult not to think about the film and go directly to the very close-up of Heather Donahue in the dark, crying and snifflingasking for forgiveness from the mothers of her companions and her own parents, convinced that they were going to die in the forest. That shot, without a doubt, is cinema history.
Donahue was 25 years old when the film was released, and he will turn 50 next December. The Blair Witch Project It was her third foray as an actress and, during the first decade of the 2000s, although none of her works were very successful, it seemed that she would continue to have a career on screen. However, his latest films Manticore and The Morgue (2005 and 2008, both for television) were a real failure, and Donahue did not act again. In an interview for GQ In 2016 he said that Making that movie was “a little like being a cancer survivor, in a sense”.
“Maybe like a small type of skin cancer,” he added. “And you see the scar and you think ‘Isn’t it great to have survived this?’ But you definitely don’t want to do it again (…). It’s like, what am I going to do that will top that? That will always be the first line of my obituary.”.
In the end, as time goes by, his feeling towards the film and the exploitation that is still done to it is one of resentment. Perhaps for this reason, years ago he decided to change his name and took a 180-degree turn in his professional life.
Now she responds to the name Rei Hance and, in addition to being a writer and gardener, she presents herself on her social networks as a spiritual guide..
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