Had a weird talk with a video store clerk about 'The Blair Witch Project'

I was digging through the discount bin at this little rental place (you know, the ones that still exist somehow) and the clerk came over to chat. He's maybe 60 years old, been working there since the 90s. He told me that when Blair Witch first came out on VHS, people would return it looking genuinely shook and asking if it was real footage. I always thought that was just marketing hype you know. But he said he had a customer who genuinely believed the three students were still missing and that the movie was evidence. It hit different hearing it from someone who was actually there handing out the tapes. Made me realize how much digital media has killed that kind of raw confusion. Has anyone else met someone who actually thought a found footage film was real back in the day?

2 comments

2 Comments

james9216d ago

Saw a similar thing happen with Paranormal Activity back in 2009. My buddy rented it from Blockbuster and came back saying it was too real, swore the producers got the footage from a real haunting. Crazy part is he was like 25 at the time, not some kid easily fooled. The internet was already big then but people still fell for it. Take this with a grain of salt but I think that early found footage stuff hit different before everyone got so jaded online.

joelthomas16d ago

Disagree a bit @james92. Paranormal Activity was just a clever marketing trick. People knew it was fake, they just wanted to believe. Found footage worked because it felt gritty, not because anyone actually thought ghosts were real.