Whatever happened to the guys who made the Blair Witch Project?
It’s hard to overstate the impact that the 1999 indie horror movie “The Blair Witch Project” had on both audiences and cinema history. The film’s found-footage style and intricate marketing tactics, such as missing persons posters and fake news clippings, managed to generate almost $250 million at the box office. The unresolved mystery, however, is: What happened to the filmmakers who managed to pull off a terrifyingly impressive feat?
The film was written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, a pair of film students from the University of Central Florida. Together, they created the legend of the Blair Witch and wrote a screenplay that relied heavily on improvisation. They sent the first cut on a small film festival circuit and implemented the feedback they received before sending it to Sundance. From there, it became an unexpected hit.
Unfortunately for both directors, “Blair Witch” is where the bulk of their success ended. Two sequels were filmed, but neither filmmaker directed either movie, and they were poorly rated.
Myrick continued to direct a few indie horror films, but none reached the same level of acclaim. His second-most popular movie is “Solstice” (2008), which stars bigger names, such as Amanda Seyfried and Tyler Hoechlin. Despite the casting, the film earned only a 29% on Rotten Tomatoes.
In 2006, Myrick started dabbling in the film business. He co-founded a division of Warner Home Video that focuses on horror films. However, even that was short-lived, lasting a mere two years.
Sánchez’s career took a similar path. His most popular film besides “Blair Witch” is “Exists,” another found footage horror movie. This one earned a meager 36% on Rotten Tomatoes. Since 2014, Sánchez has turned his focus to TV instead of film, directing episodes for over 15 shows, including Supernatural, Lucifer, and Yellowjackets.
Despite the limited commercial success of the directing pair, the film’s style and marketing have a long-standing legacy within the genre. Both Myrick and Sánchez made sure that found footage and immersive campaigns are here to stay in horror cinema.
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