WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
A nostalgia trip for anyone in the UK who grew up on dial-up Internet, Findus Crispy Pancakes, and playground rumours that couldn’t be fact-checked online. We’re not historians — we don’t do dates, and we barely do facts — but science says reminiscing gives your brain a dopamine hit, so think of us as your weekly dose of hazy memories, childhood flashbacks, and confidently misremembered events.
Expect frequent arguments about who remembers things properly as we rummage through the UK’s collective memory box.
WHO REMEMBERS? The UK Nostalgia Podcast
Who Remembers........The Blair Witch Project? (With Ben Meakin)
A handful of sticks in the trees. A map that won’t behave. Voices in the dark. We invite special guest Ben Meakin to explore how The Blair Witch Project turned bare-bones filmmaking into a cultural earthquake and convinced so many that it might be real. We trace the eerie alchemy of early internet marketing, missing posters, and a TV “documentary” that made a small-town legend feel like a true crime case. No jump scares, no creature reveal—just the dread that grows when the camera keeps rolling and logic thins.
We break down why the performances still sting with authenticity: the frayed tempers, the looping arguments, the exhaustion that sounds unscripted because much of it was. From restricted rations to midnight noises outside the tent, the production engineered panic and captured the kind of terror you can’t fake. That rawness feeds the film’s most enduring gift to horror: ambiguity. The final image offers no closure, only implication, and that’s why it lingers. We also place Blair Witch within the found footage lineage, showing how it set the blueprint for low-budget horror and proved that minimalism and diegetic cameras can be more frightening than effects-heavy monsters.
Could the myth work today? With modern debunks and social feeds, probably not in the same way. But the core anxieties—getting lost, hearing laughter where no one should be, not seeing what hunts you—remain timeless. Along the way, we talk ethics and aftermath, the price the actors paid, and how the film’s lightning-in-a-bottle timing made it a once-only phenomenon. Want a crisp Halloween watch that respects your time and still gets under your skin? This is the one.
If you enjoy the show, follow, share with a friend who loves horror, and leave a review so more curious listeners can find us.
Link to the article mentioned on the pod
https://theweek.com/articles/531471/blair-witch-project-oral-history
Hello and welcome to the podcast. Who remembers? In this Halloween special episode, we ask Who Remembers the Blair Witch Project?
SPEAKER_01:Hello, hello. Happy Halloween. This should be going out on Halloween if Ling Lin gets his finger out. Well, anyway, go on it, Liam.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, but obviously, well, before we've introduced, we're we're all record there's three of us on tonight's recording. We're all recording from Remote Woodland um in tribute to this episode. So yeah, just hope we're all still okay.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. So we are, as you said, as you alluded to, we're having a very special guest, um, a ghost of the podcast world coming back from the dead. It's uh former Blaze Pod creator Ben Mo Money Meeking. How are you going, sir?
SPEAKER_04:I'm all right, thank you. How are you guys?
SPEAKER_01:Very good, really, really good. We want obviously what to get you on for ages, but we were rumming an R in about a topic, obviously, between us all saying, I don't know, should we do this and should we do that? Then we said we were doing the Exorcist for Halloween week, and immediately you were like, Blair Witch, that's what I want to do, make it happen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I I don't totally remember why this sprang to mind, really. I mean, we'll we'll get into it, I suppose, but like it's not a film I have like massive uh fondness for. I guess it's not it wouldn't be like my favourite film or anything, it's just immediately, yeah. You know, when you said you were doing Halloween-y type stuff, I just thought that actually falls in that nighty sweet spot.
SPEAKER_02:I think, by the way, this is an absolutely brilliant choice, and I I think I briefly mentioned it in Exis. We recorded that a while ago, but I still I've re-watched it for the purposes of this recording, and I still stand by it's the creepiest film I've ever seen.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'd like to just say because a lot of people were saying surely Andrew hadn't seen it, I hadn't seen it, but because I'm a proper professional, I have actually watched it in preparation for this. Uh I don't know what to where to start with, actually. I mean, because I think what you really want to talk about, Bennett, uh obviously, just correct me if I'm wrong, is more about the hype of it all rather than the film itself.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I th I think that's more interesting to me, I guess. So I uh yeah, that and that is just so nice, I think. I think my relationship with the film, I suppose, and and horror generally, I I don't I watch a lot of horror films, but I wouldn't say I'm like a horror aficionado. In fact, to be honest, I'm a bit of a wuss. Like some some of the like major horror franchises I've just like never touched because I'm like that would just freak me the hell out, to be honest. Including stuff like Paranormal Activity, which is obviously another sort of found found footage thing, but this film, like not only did it, and I'll be interested to get your guys' take on this because you're like a year or two older than me, I think, as well, but it falls right in that sweet spot of like I was about 14 or 15 when it came out, so I was you know kind of stupid, essentially, not very worldly at that age, and obviously it came out right at the end of the 20th century as well, which sort of is at that stage where the the internet and communication and the world generally is a very different space. So I've been fascinated it with it from the moment I first heard about it, I suppose. I actually didn't see it until I think maybe two years after it had been out. I saw it for the first time on video, and uh I I was yeah, I sort of steeled myself to watch it in broad daylight, and then it slowly got dark as I was watching it, and by the end of it, I was just scared shitless. And uh I I completely agree with you, Liam. I think I mean you just sent like a gif of like a half-second clip of Inside the House at the end. I think that that with another 25 years of horror films under my belt, I think that final scene is probably the scariest thing I've ever seen in horror. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:When did you see it, Liam? Just before we because obviously the first time I saw it was last week.
SPEAKER_02:And I I don't like sort of when anything's too hyped, I don't like to sort of jump on the the sort of hype train. So I didn't watch it immediately. I I've probably watched it uh I don't know, a couple of months after it came out or whatever. I wasn't I wasn't one who I certainly didn't see it in the cinema, so probably whenever it came out on whatever the next platform was. I mean actually maybe by then maybe that would be the following year. Maybe I saw it on DVD the following year. I don't I don't know, but I I was still because it was that sort of pre-everything could be searched on your phone or even your laptop, you you didn't know everything back then like you do now. Yeah, I still wasn't when I saw it, I still wasn't sure if it was real or not. It still had enough.
SPEAKER_01:This is this fascinates me, this fascinates me, this side of it.
SPEAKER_04:Because I think this is one of the things that put me onto it, actually, is when you were uh so your your Exorcist episode will be out by the time people. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah, so you talk in that one. Sorry, uh you give me an advanced preview, which is why I know how you oh yeah, only for the stars, yeah. Absolutely. Um yeah, so in that one you talk about like you just almost this disbelief that like oh people were being sick and like you know, they had an ambulance on hand at screenings and stuff like that. And yeah, I I want to know what you guys think about um like yeah, whether it is believable how people reacted to this film, because I can I can tell you as a you know, I can give you my memories as a 14-year-old on it, and I I do think there probably is that like three or four years where you can just be sort of gullible enough to go with it, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:I think if you were like weird, it's the early days of the internet as well, obviously. So there's none there's nothing now where you could type it in, is this real? And you'll get an AI response saying, No, obviously it's not real. This I think one of the things, if I'm right about a Blair Witch project, is that they use maybe one of the first big films, if not the first big film, to use the internet to make make it into more of a story.
SPEAKER_02:They set up a an actual page and they created like notes from her found journal and and the actors are obviously called the the names as well. Obviously, the names of the absolute genius decision, yeah. They weren't characters, they put they played themselves, they none of them had done anything huge since, and we were we were led to believe this was filmed four or five years before the release. And and yeah, I I didn't know watching this, and generally I'm quite skeptical of these things, and I think one of the master strokes, and I don't want to sort of steal any of your thunderbend, but I think it one of the master strokes is you never see the the bad thing. It's all in your own head to make of it what you will. But I remember so I this was a stage when I used to be probably probably sort of pre-nightclubbing, but I used to go around to go to the gym and then go to a mate's house and we'd watch a film and order a pizza, and I remember watching this film and being really creeped out walking home. Like we've seen all sorts of sort of slash horrors and things like that that don't really bother me. This is the one that I remember walking home and feeling genuinely like really freaked out. It really got inside my head this.
SPEAKER_04:This uh this is done to me for like dark woods, what Jaws did for the sea, I guess. It's just like I just don't don't want to go near trees at night time, basically, after seeing this film. And like any any other film that has that kind of um, you know, that sort of night vision camera panning around the woods at night thing. I'm instantly just like, nah, I can't.
SPEAKER_02:But there's an absolutely a growing dread and panic that even when I watched it today, you regardless of whether you believe it's true or even if you watched it now knowing it's not true, I still found that same feeling today as I watched it in in the sunlight. I told you guys I was doing a couple of jobs around the house, I was sort of half watching it. Still, as it got towards the end, I was still feeling that oh god, this is this is horrible.
SPEAKER_01:It's interesting this, because I didn't get this. I thought it were decent.
SPEAKER_02:I thought you should be playing the local hard man card.
SPEAKER_01:I know you can't play playing the local hard man cards the Halloween hard man. Send me inwards and see where it happened to Blair Witch.
SPEAKER_02:Um but then I think you'd end up confusing the Blair Witch, like you wouldn't know where you'd camped and you'd be freaking out. Oh, yeah, really sad, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, not one part of me would think there's a witch, it'd just be thinking once again I'm lost. Like, I couldn't.
SPEAKER_04:I was gonna I was gonna say this for later, actually, but if if you two did your sort of um you know Chapel St. Leonard Roadshow, but you did it as the Blair Witch project in the woods, like what would happen?
SPEAKER_01:Uh Lee would get really angry with me. Uh because I well you'd have to set the tent up for a kickoff because obviously I've got the practice. Don't like to talk about it, but you know, if you're bringing it up then. Um but yeah, obviously he'd have to set the tent up um and do all the cooking. Either if you're good at map reading, keeping directions or anything like that, you can't. Yeah, I imagine Liam thinks he is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I don't know. I'm a bit dubious about that, but I've done some orienteering, I I think I would be fine. I mean, I actually read something that said you can there's a few things you can read into this and a few theories perhaps we'll touch on at the end, but one of the things was that potentially some of the stuff in their equipment, and it sounds to be more like speakers and sort of audible devices than recording devices, but some potentially could have had magnets in that possibly could affect the compasses, which is one of the reasons why they couldn't have the way out of there.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I've read that. I yeah, I've read that the because the yeah, I don't I can't remember what it was exactly, but that's why the compass was so wrong, and that's why they're I think I'm very good at sort of logic though.
SPEAKER_02:I think I would think, right, we're gonna have to start breaking branches and and creating a sort of every five metres a path to show where we've gone. I'm seeing I'm not walking around in circles all day.
SPEAKER_01:But I think when you came to that old house that don't actually exist because you've I mean it's basically they're in a time loop, aren't they? I think that's what I sort of it's another theory, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:That's just yeah, yeah, one of the sequels kind of suggests that that's what it is, but the original create the original creators were uh not involved in those sequels.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's interesting because I got that because of the house that they were talking about that didn't exist anymore. But yeah, yeah, yeah, I can understand.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I believe they they co-released, I don't know if it was the same time or afterwards, actually, but they released a documentary about a serial killer living in the the woods and that potentially there was some sort of time loop where that they ended up in the 1940s version of events or something. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, should I tell you what? Should we do a brief overview of that brief overview of the film better if you want to go through that? Because obviously not really that much happens in terms of a storyline. I'm gonna say, yeah, same way, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I haven't re-watched this, like I've seen it a couple of times, but I've probably not seen it for like 10 years. And I I thought uh maybe I should watch it again, like for this, but then I thought I don't for the purposes of talking about it, I don't really feel like I need to, because it's not a it a it's a film that's like quite deeply embedded in my brain. Do you know how long it is, by the way? This is just surprising. Like an hour and twenty. It's a short one, isn't it? Yeah, 81 minutes, which is mental considering it's less than a football game.
SPEAKER_00:And I've seen I've seen scarier football games to be fair.
SPEAKER_04:There's there's no way it gets released as 80 minutes these days. Like they're definitely. Oh no, probably not.
SPEAKER_02:No, but I think all the better for it. When I came to Oh, yeah, because that's fine footage as well.
SPEAKER_01:It works. Rubbing my hands together.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, brilliant. It's an hour and 20. So many films now that I go to watch that are like three hours, and I think I ain't got time for that.
SPEAKER_01:So it's just padded it out and maybe lost the suspense, I think, if they'd have padded it out more.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. The story it can be told in 20 seconds, essentially. There's yeah, three three student filmmakers who it doesn't seem know each other very well. I think Heather, the um is the sort of uh like the the leader, I suppose. She's the one that's like driving this project, and she gets on board a couple of cameramen to go with her and be part of it. Go into these supposedly haunted woods where allegedly a you know as an urban myth of a witch that lived there and used to, you know, uh like abduct and kill children, basically. I can I can give you the full uh I'll talk about the myth generally in a moment, I guess. Uh they're out there, they're hoping to film a documentary essentially capturing you know footage of spooky goings on, etc. And uh yeah, it all it all goes to shit, but it's like uh it's very sort of you know, it's not really a lot of like explicit goings on, like they find some strange things like piles of rocks near their tents that they're sure weren't there before, and like these creepy stick figures that start hearing things in the night, and then eventually one of them goes missing, they all sort of kind of break down as a like a social group, if you like, and start to lose their their rag with each other. They lose the map, they get lost, they've been hiking for like six days or something, they've no idea where they are. Eventually they stumble upon this old house in the dark, and uh while trying to find their missing person, they all ostensibly get killed. And the film just ends. Like there's no sort of definition. Do they get killed?
SPEAKER_02:Probably, but uh certainly yes, but we don't know that, and that's that's part of what's very clever about it. Is to me that that's what I find more chilling is that had we seen some kind of beast man walk past the camera at the end, then it's like alright, so there's some kind of weird creature living out in these woods. I'm all right in thinking. We have no idea to me. This because I was watching it again today, and it's the first time I've thought this. I've seen theories that maybe the two guys killed her and wanted to freak her out. One of the original stories that was that one of the guys was her ex, and that added some context to to how they might know her, but that wasn't how it was in the final cut. But I just thought, is it three people effectively suffering a group breakdown? That they're lost, they're scared. I was trying to sort of justify what it could be. So they're crashing at night. Is that some kind of forestry work going on in the distance? Uh what about his blood in the uh in the Yeah, that that's the bit of a we don't we don't know that's his they they find a weird bundle of rags and blood and teeth that looks very much like the clothing he was wearing, but there's no they don't do that sort of thing where they oh no, it can't be his clothes. Oh no, oh no, look it is, it's got his name tag in it. There's no like ridiculous moment to prove anything, it's just all implication. I get what you're saying, though, that that that bit is a little bit like oh fucking.
SPEAKER_01:I like the fact it's I love oh I love open-ended things anyway, because obviously you can summarize I like the idea of them like descending into madness. I think I'm right in saying that they there there was a shot which did show some sort of so one of the guys who directed was gonna be in a white flowing dress.
SPEAKER_02:That's right, yeah. And one of where they where they run out of the tent at night, they didn't know the directors were gonna start banging on the tent and make they were playing kids laughing and playing real noises, babies crying. They did freak them out, they did start limiting rations, they barely engage with them throughout the course of it, they just gave them a drop point where they'd leave food for them. But that bit where they run, there was a kind of guidance that they should all pan to the left and see this thing that was the witch, but none of them did it in the moment of actual genuine panic, they all just ran, and the directors actually preferred that cut. So, yeah, which I agree. Yeah, we should probably we should have seen it, but we never do because there's a bit where she goes, Oh my fucking god, what is that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, what the fuck is that's always stuck with me. That her reaction I I really want to talk about the actors. Maybe this is the point to talk about these actors, man, they're like they do an incredible job in this film. Like is it when they I think this is part of why the mystique of it was able to go on, I suppose. I I I would challenge anyone to be more sort of naturalistic than than they are.
SPEAKER_02:I mean, part of that is though that this they said basically that it's as close to doing freaking them out as they could. They didn't know what they were gonna do. They would wake them up at 3 a.m. with weird noises and sounds, they were chucking rocks and branches around outside the tent at night, they were restricting rations to them, they knew they'd not slept well. They deliberately wrote little minor briefs of of argument into their characters, but then advised them to ad lib that and start genuinely arguing with each other. Yeah, it is, yeah. They've created this kind of real tent. And and I think what's so clever about some of it is if you were gonna fake this, which ultimately we now know it's not real, but if you were gonna fake this, some of the dialogue and some of the scenes are ridiculous. They repeat each other, they repeat lines far too many times, somewhere the saying doesn't quite make sense, but that feels so genuine. The amount of swearing three people just having a falling out with each other.
SPEAKER_01:The amount of swearing really uh was something that I I sort of picked up on. Is that it's not normal, you don't write that, do you? I mean, no, I know obviously most films have some sort of rad lib. I'd say every three swear every three words is a swear word, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:Well, and they they genuinely were getting on each other's nerves as well. There was um so I I didn't realise I've maybe I've forgotten this one, but until I read the I reread this fantastic oral history of Blow Witch, which um I don't know, I could send you the link if you want and you can share it with your listeners if you like. But they're saying um originally, so it's it's let me get this right, it's Josh that goes missing, isn't it? He's the he's the one of the three that disappears. Originally it was supposed to be Mike, the other bloke who was supposed to go missing. Josh and Heather were like getting on each other's nerves so much, and it was it was like you know, it was affecting the footage essentially, you know, like if they were just arguing, like for real, like they were really sort of getting into a bad spot with each other. So they made like a late decision of like they just told Josh basically one like one morning, like that night, you know, at night, two in the morning, get up, walk out of the tent. You know, if anyone sees you, just tell them you go to the toilet. Um, and basically they just picked him up like beyond the tree line, just uh said, You're dead, like that's it, you've you're finished in the film, you're not in it anymore because your character's been killed. And yeah, I I think that's that again is just contributes to this naturalistic feel of it. Because yeah, they did just give like a rough outline to each actor at the start of the day, like this is what we want you to do today, we want you to hike to this point. This is roughly what you might see on the way. You know, we want you to start to, you know, maybe be a bit more scared of the three and things like this. And yeah, it's absolutely amazing. I mean, I just think they do such a fantastic job. I mean, they've they've the sort of the dark side of this is they must have got absolutely stiffed out of this, those three people. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The whole film only cost 60,000. They reckon a lot of that was the rights for a certain song, so that yeah, they they paid them next to nothing, and none of them have.
SPEAKER_04:They won't have taken like percentage points or anything. You know, it's an indie film, so yeah, yeah. This obviously went on to earn like hundreds of thousands of.
SPEAKER_02:247 million was a taking, but this is a while ago, this is at the point of the documentary I watched, it'll be more now, and this is off a 60,000 pound budget. And at the time that it was the highest sort of independent growth set ever. I think it has been beaten by something else.
SPEAKER_04:It was so as recently as I think ten years ago, so someone might have surpassed it, but it was the highest ratio of like budget to yeah, profit, if you like. So yeah, they must have earned it.
SPEAKER_02:Because it was a sort of torture session for them as well. I think it really put them off sort of acting as a career. I think that they all sort of found it really unpleasant.
SPEAKER_01:And I've read posters by people who said that they didn't know that that they weren't, you know, it wasn't real until they turned up at some award ceremony. I can't remember which one it was like Disney Awards or something like that. It can't be Disney awards, it'd be terrible.
SPEAKER_04:They were genuine missing posters for them, which yeah, you know, people got IMDB to list them as missing, presumed dead for like a year after release.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely incredible. Yeah, it do you think they'd do that now, I and B Diggs? They're now because like you said, it'd be too easy to ask AI and it just find something somewhere that said actually, no, this person recently.
SPEAKER_04:You just find a post by a post by you know, by a friend by a friend or something.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:So I went to school with her and she's just our shopping yesterday. Exactly. Um, so yeah, I think the artists do an amazing job. I mean, like I just thinking back to that final scene, and this this like 26 years on or whatever, this is still stuck in my head. The way Heather freaks out when Mike runs downstairs and then stops responding. I I honestly don't think I've ever seen like a more accurate depiction of pure terror.
SPEAKER_02:It's genuine, like guttural, it the screaming is not just like horror film, ah. She's like out of her mind.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, she sort of already know they're all about to die, essentially. Have you ever been that scared?
SPEAKER_02:Obviously, not that scared. So I was gonna give you an example there that kind of suits that. So the only time I've ever made a noise like so I don't know if I told you this before, Egg, I'm not sure, but I was once uh I was laid in bed next to Jody about I don't know, say say 10 years ago. I think we'd had one of the kids, but maybe not two. I thought you were gonna leave it at that, you know. And it was about, I don't know, say half two in the morning, three in the morning. Oh, you have told me this. I half woke up, and I used to kind of have like sort of I'll still occasionally have them sleep terrors where you can half awake, half asleep, but I woke up and I looked at Jody, turned round and looked at her, and I thought, I'll just get a drink of water. And I thought she was laid on her back with her head turned to the left to look at me. She was actually laid on a front with her head turned to the right looking at me. So as she turned her head round, I thought her head went round the wrong way on her neck, and she said, and I made a noise that wasn't a scream. She said I kind of went like a Brian Clough young man. Yeah, she said it with like a weird low scream, like a like just a terror noise. Like yeah, that's that's the the only time.
SPEAKER_04:What about you, Ben? Also like the most scared you've ever been. I don't know. I used to see it, like I only as a kid these, but I used to get like I think I think it's sleep paralysis or yeah, um, like really particularly if I was like ill and had like a fever or something, I'd just have this like incredibly intense fear. Like I remember I was like with my parents like holding me down to stop me, like you know, basically throwing myself down the stairs or something in in just total panic at this random object in my room. So yeah, probably something like that. The only other thing that springs to mind is when Kiefer Moore like controlled the ball at Webloom and passed the backwards.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's a good that's a good one. I mean it's weird. I've never like really I think the most maybe the most I don't know what the most scared I've ever been. You know what one of them might be actually is remember when we had that earthquake not so long ago, about 15 years ago, really bad earthquake.
SPEAKER_04:And I woke up it wasn't that bad, was it?
SPEAKER_01:No, everything was falling off the wall.
SPEAKER_04:Okay, fine, maybe it was a big one.
SPEAKER_01:So we were about like yeah, 3am. So I had this like crappy little room.
SPEAKER_04:So we know people that live in Los Angeles.
SPEAKER_01:No, but this is what this is what I mean. So this like little rickety sort of thing that he had, and everything it fell down on the floor, like and everything fell off it. And I looked and I think like my calendar had come off the wall or something like that. Something like that. I would because obviously I didn't think it's an earthquake. I've only living in fucking England. There's no the north of it when I have earthquakes, are you?
SPEAKER_02:I remember the the sound being the freakiest thing about that. I don't know if you had kind of heard it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it woke me up about and I was I was genuinely wandering around my house thinking I honestly in my head could not think anything other than I thought, well, it can't be the wind. It that has that has to be a ghost. There's no nothing else.
SPEAKER_04:I thought ghost as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I thought this it has to it has to be a ghost.
SPEAKER_04:So I think we could go sorry, carry on. Oh sorry, no, I'm interrupting you for once. We had like a uh sorry that was like 2007 or something, I think when it's we had like a you know, and there's like massive CRT TVs, you know, like before flat screens essentially, on like a a little sort of desk thing in in uh in our bedroom, and that and the TV was rocking. That's what woke me up. The TV was like rocking backwards and forwards, and I got out of bed and like stopped it with my hands and just stood there like what the fuck? Well, that's a ghost.
SPEAKER_01:That's clearly a ghost, yeah. Yeah, so I redeemed about 7am, and I don't know why I didn't put my TV on earlier, just because I was genuinely scared. I weren't like screaming, I would just it has to be you're in your brain's thinking, logically, oh no, it'll be that. Oh no, it can't be that, you can't be that. So then I put TV on, it's all loads of earthquakes, and I thought, oh for fuck's sake, yeah, you're nothing vibrating or falling.
SPEAKER_02:I just remember the sound being like something I've never heard before, like a really weird vibe obviously I suppose sums it up, but vibration, but it was kind of high frequency and low at the same time. It was really odd the sound, that's what I remember more than things rattling around.
SPEAKER_01:Anyway, sorry, that's it. Yeah, play a witch, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I just think the actors did an amazing job. But just I just want to spin it back, I guess, to um just to that early internet thing. The this film doesn't work today, like in terms of like if you release this film now, like even if they did forget if you know say found footage films just hadn't existed up to this point, and you release this film now, no way it has this level of success. And yeah, a lot of it is I think in the way it's seeded with the unknown actors and yeah, the fact they use their real names, and it's I don't know if there's a better example of like viral marketing than this. I mean, I think um you mentioned this earlier, Liam. Like they did they made quite innovative and extensive use of the internet for 1999 or whatever it was, like sort of '98 into '99, to actually get a cult following of this before it was even released.
SPEAKER_02:So I was false police reports, there were interviews with local uh sheriffs, and like there were there were things you could find that would absolutely make this feel real.
SPEAKER_01:They had a doctor they air a documentary on the sci-fi channel, so like a a renowned channel in a way, as a serious documentary about the Blair Wage, not about the film, about oh, this thing, and then before the film had come out, I think.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So that added to this sort of oh, oh shit.
SPEAKER_04:So did you I mean I don't I think we sort of all danced around this really. Like, did you think this was real when it came? Well, like when it came out, forget when you watched it, like you know, when you were aware of this film, did you think this is footage of three people who have gone missing?
SPEAKER_01:I didn't, to be honest, but that's nothing to do with because I'm like unbelievably smart or anything. I would just I I think something something in me thought they wouldn't show this at a cinema show like it's that's the big sort of like uh almost like a count, like a I don't know, like an aha thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04:Like people are like, how can it possibly be real, you fools? Like, you know, they're not showing a bluming snuff film on like you know 500 theatres around.
SPEAKER_01:But the family, like if you went, if this did happen to to us three, for instance, like your your missus go, yeah, yeah, get it out, film will make a bit of money out of that.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, put all footage up. What about you, Liam? Then I'll tell you my sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02:So I certainly when I watched a trailer and was aware of the film coming out, thought thought this was a real thing about people who've gone missing. I'm not entirely sure by the time I watched it whether I knew or not, but even if I did, I still had that little bit of doubt in my mind because it really freaked me out that I'm not sure if this is real or not. This is fucking mental. And and I actually thought as well, what what they missed a trick on is that they should have, because I I often thought when I was thought back on it, yeah, but why would it just finish there? Like they should have put a message on to say that the the footage after this was too distressing to be shown in UK cinemas or something like that. Because I I thought, why if the cameras are still rolling, why can't we see whatever's going on in this house?
SPEAKER_04:Well, I think it's so I I don't know as I thought it was like real real, like being that sort of um you know, are we gonna see people get killed on screen? Like real people, surely not. But I I think I thought certainly before I watched it, like this is almost like a like a like a plea for more information from the family. And that is actually I whereas I look at the sort of the timeline on the the original Blair Witch website. Now that is how it was positioned there as well. They're like so. This according to the s the story, the like the information the website gives you, they the film itself, the the footage is shot in 1994, and then it's it's is found a year later, studied by the police and local law enforcement and stuff, eventually released to the families, and they're just like, nah, they we'd there's nothing else to investigate with this. And the families then that makes more sense on. Yeah, the families passed it on to another a film company to examine the footage and piece together the events of October. Which that is completely possible.
SPEAKER_02:Because I listened to some true crime stuff, and they'll keep things back for a while, but then after a point, if they've got no leads, they will start to release audio recordings of calling.
SPEAKER_01:Still though, would they put it would would this have worked better as a scam, obviously not as a as a film, if they'd never put it out at a cinema and maybe just gone straight to VHS release? Obviously, they won't have made as much money or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02:No, no, but I think that's that's the difference. Yeah, they probably could have kept it far more plausible for far longer had it stayed quite small. Because you've got obviously what class they're not going to start turning down multi-million pound offers for for too much. Oh, of course, yeah, and it is a film. It kind of became so it kind of grew so quickly that they had to cash in on it. I yeah, I I think you're right, they could have kept it smaller and more believable, but why would you? Like ultimately they made hundreds of millions of pounds out of the film.
SPEAKER_04:I think why what I also wanted to think that I was like, well, if this isn't you know an actual snuff film of real people being killed, then I was like, I'm willing to believe that the story is real, yeah, yeah. And we're just we're just watching a reconstruction of it. Yeah, yeah, and these are just actors playing the you know, the original Heather, Josh and Mike that went missing. I was like, willing to buy into that because I was 14, uh 15, I guess. And just like, you know, you kind of just you're fascinated by horror and being like a bit freaked out, and internet rumors are just becoming a thing at that stage. Like I think that's such a massive thing about this film, is people just weren't we weren't internet literate back then. It was 1999. There was no social media, there was no I mean Google existed, I think, but like even search engine, like you generally wouldn't know how to use a search engine for something like this. Like, how would you go about finding is the Blair Witch real? Like, is the Blair Witch project real? You just ask Jeeves, yeah. But then it probably would just give you the Blair Witch website.
SPEAKER_01:And as you said, and you're not gonna go on uh Friends Reunited and say first thing, by the way, do you know the Blair Witch Project is real?
SPEAKER_04:And the so way that media is consumed, I guess, is is so different now. When you think of all the different websites and YouTube, you know, there's no YouTube deep dive by like a thousand different channels into this film, like here's the freakiest moments of this, here's what this, here's what the ending means, and all this. And yeah, it would just be reviewed on like I don't know, like a really niche sort of movie, you know, even a movie-dedicated website probably didn't really exist by then. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:I think as well, what what again we've we've mentioned it already, but what makes it really clever is you don't see anything, there's nothing to tell you that there's a monster in this film. There's like you said, it could either be those three going mad. It could either be a thing. Or it could be one of those pranking the others, or it could be two pranking one, or it could be Imagine if Rio Ferdinand walked out, you'd be murked. Apparently there was uh well I've got something to add to that, I'll just ask you at the end, actually. Um the first thing I want to mention. So I don't I don't know if you remember Ben, because you've not watched it for a while, but the the last people they see, the last human interaction they see before the the three go off on their own is two fishermen. And apparently there was supposed to be some more implication that they were either pranking them or involved in some kind of threat or menace, or that it was some kind of locals that were were messing them about, and they decided to go against that, but there was certainly at some point that that could have been more, they were they were supposed to be bigger characters than they were apparently.
SPEAKER_04:As in like uh narratively, that was supposed to have more importance, like that was it was supposed to be more plausible that they were involved in in what yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So in theory, we might in the background have seen them in a certain shot, or we might have seen Jeremy Beadle with these fake disguises on. Oh, I knew he'd Beadle. But but yeah, apparently there was supposed to be, and again, I'm I'm only going off certain things that I've read. I I haven't talked directly to the directors, believe it or not, but yeah, apparently there was they were supposed to create some at least possibility that they were being messed around by certain local community. Um I've I've heard there's a thing I don't know if you've I've watched Alaskan push people on Discovery, I think it was, and they they got kind of harassed out by the locals messing about at night, sort of shining torches in the lights and stuff. They didn't like outsiders being there and filming. Um I mean so this is something completely I'm I'm going on a tangent here, I'm just I'm just thinking out loud there, but something that I like that they kind of get as well. That and and hey, you'll probably be annoyed how many times they take us back to the Joe Rogan podcast. Here we go.
SPEAKER_01:Get that fucking 24 fucking Blair witch on this screen.
SPEAKER_02:You seen that video of that fucking witch popping out of that fucking tree. No, but there's um there's a bit on there that she said that that she said there's a there's a woman on there who lives out in the wilderness on her own. And she said something that really stuck with me that kind of creeped me out a little bit. And I think this this film gives the feeling of that, is that she said, when you're out and you know that there's not a human around you for 200 miles, she said, Yeah, you might be aware that there's a bear, you might smell a scent of an animal, you might hear an animal noise. She said, But there's a there's a feeling that when you're in a space where there's not supposed to be any other people, that you get an absolute feeling of dread. She said she only had it once, and it was because it turned out there was some people that had come near to her and ended up trying to intimidate her, but they certainly seem to have this feeling that this is not animals, this is not the wind blowing tr branches off trees. That there's something here that we should be on a sort of primeval level really afraid of. And again, it goes back to what you said about the acting men. I think they really do capture. I I also think their acting is very good in a sense that they're quite irritating, all three of them. There's not one likable character in it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and they they don't really know each other either. So there's not supposed to be like an established sort of friendship. There's but they are just kind of there for a paycheck, aren't they? Like and they are heather's there sort of creatively, but Mike and Josh, I think, are just like just in it for the you know the what little money they're gonna get out of it.
SPEAKER_01:They are they are dislikable, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. Because I was watching it over the first 25 minutes. I was it that sort of got to me a little bit where I was thinking these are just a bunch of fucking pricks. Like I don't really care, but that is part of the when you obviously as the film goes on and on, I I think it's not the fact that they're dislikable as such. I I I don't really know it. The it makes it more real that they're not sort of these like so much easier to go like, hey, hi, hi mom, Jeremy, and all that.
SPEAKER_02:Is it her uh sorry I should uh is it Heather? What's what's the name of that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, Heather, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I've found her quite brash and irritating right from the start, and I think the fact but but they kind of need that in her character because she needs to keep filming and it winds them up. But that I've seen people saying, Well, you'd stop filming if you got this scared, yeah. But but then I've also said things that people say it's kind of a defence mechanism, and it's a bit like I I would say it's more sort of people are just cowards now, but these days when things happen that people film things on the phone because it allows you to distance yourself from it on a on a personal level, you're viewing it as a cameraman rather than uh I think that makes sense psychologically, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not sure that everyone does it for that reason, but I do think there's that thing. If I've got my phone in front of me, this is not really happening. I'm I'm reporting on something, yeah. I'm not in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not involved in this.
SPEAKER_04:I think that's one of the challenges of this this genre, if you like, found footage, uh, which I'll I'll talk about in a second, um, because I'm really interested in this. Uh is that like, why would you keep the cameras on? Like, surely you just stop doing that. But I think it makes sense in this film's world because they are trying to make a documentary and like Heather's like really you know that's her sole purpose for being there. Yeah, if there's weird shit happening, that's what she's actually gone behind. So she probably deep down is like, I don't know. I've met some content creators who would definitely the cameras are I mean, I would I wouldn't, by the way, if I was involved in this, if I was somehow in this.
SPEAKER_01:Look at him.
SPEAKER_04:You're like, fucking it's a fucking my camera would be in that river that they keep crossing.
SPEAKER_02:Get me running down the stairs from this angle.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we do that again?
SPEAKER_02:Like the sort of apparently the logic is that she wants to document everything because there's still an assumption they will get home eventually, despite how terrified they are. But then right at the end, when they sort of genuinely fear for the lives, the logic behind them using the cameras in the house is because that's the light source, they've got the torches on the cameras, which whether whether you think that's a stretch or not, it's plausible. I think it it kind of makes sense to me.
SPEAKER_04:Like when I was watching it, that at no point did I think, why the hell has she still got the camera on? I was like, that's how they're gonna see, like this. That's yeah, it's how she's gonna find a way around.
SPEAKER_02:It's almost a bit of security as well as well, isn't it? That like I'm filming you, you know. If if it's a person like we've got you on camera here, don't do anything to us.
SPEAKER_04:Killing me in the corner, mate.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think I I think that makes sense. I don't think that's a like a plot hole or anything like that, to be honest.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so so found footage, like it existed before this. I'm like, this is like a subgenre I I've sort of obsessively watched for so I can't tell you why.
SPEAKER_01:I like the idea of it, but yeah, yeah, you've set as well.
SPEAKER_04:I have seen some absolute crap fan footage films. Like, I'll I will watch any fan footage film apart from paranormal activity because I think that would just scare the shit out of me.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we were talking to um Mark Webster Webding of Tufted Club actually this weekend before we recorded this, and we were talking about horror films, and he said that's the most scary film he's ever seen.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I'm not touching that. I've I've seen like enough clips of that to think that's gonna get it. It is another thing. I think it's because it's in a house, like rather than in the woods. Like I don't live in the woods, I do live in a house. Yeah, I don't I don't want that in my life.
SPEAKER_02:It's just shots of like people being dragged out of bed that are done really well that are like really freaky. Um I think from from a very brief bit of digging I did today, there's some kind of is it cannibal hunters or something?
SPEAKER_04:There was quite an early found footage of I'm gonna say a name here, which I think might be the name of a band that get mixed up all the time. Is it cannibal holocaust?
SPEAKER_01:I know what you're talking about. Yeah, that is where apparently the the myth is someone actually did die in the recording of that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I don't know if it was so Cannibal Holocaust is a film. I want to say Cannibal Corpse, which is definitely a Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Cannibal Holocaust is where I don't know if it didn't. I think the director actually went went to court, got taken to court because yeah, because they thought uh there were that many people who thought that there was a real killing in it. Um but as far as I'm aware, it's not true.
SPEAKER_04:There's a film called The Last Broadcast, which I do recommend actually. It's it's very I mean, if you think this is low budget, that um that feels even lower budget. That came out maybe two years before this. Um but this is Blair Witch is the first mainstream found footage film. Like we're as like cinema goers or film watchers or whatever, like you you 99% of the population will never have seen any of the things. Yeah, this felt new, didn't it, at the time. And it's and that absolutely enhances its like mystique and it's it's you know possibility of being like uh you know, a real that sort of urban legend feel feel. I mean, yeah, I think you guys talked a couple of weeks ago about like you were talking about creepy pastors. I think I can't remember why.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Kal Candl Kova were talking about, yeah. When we talk about back push, which is another thing I find really interesting.
SPEAKER_04:Um this is essentially like one of those, that like urban myth that like is this real? It gets passed around. You know, they did some quite clever viral marketing where they had people, uh, the filmmakers, they said they had like people go to they paid like just you know random students to go and go on to university campuses and just ask around, like with missing posters like have have you seen these people? And they had like VHS copies of it of the film like before it had been released, and like getting people to pass them around and stuff like this. So did a great job of that, but I think yeah, it's it's such a challenge, I think, making a found footage film that you can look at for 80 minutes without the funny it would be overpolished.
SPEAKER_02:Do you not think? Do you not think what was so great about this is things like like I said, that some of the dialogue's poor. Apparently, the scene where she's zoomed in on a face that's been parodied of a nose.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's that would that wasn't uh meant to be a bit.
SPEAKER_02:It wasn't intended to be a real close-up on her eye and nose. It was supposed to be she didn't know she'd got the zoom button pressed. I think the fact that the directors went so vague with the dialogue, I just I just think it'd be it'd be overworked to death now. I don't think they'd leave it as rough and ready as it was, and that's what made it so so real or so seemingly real.
SPEAKER_04:And I I think there's a a a way in which we understood like video cameras at that point, you know. Uh what's the word I'm looking? Like a home video camera. Camcorder. Camcorder, thank you. Yeah, yeah. Like that was, you know, it was obviously a thing in the 90s, but you know, the there wasn't like 20 years of sort of uh you know, student filmmakers, you know, where you could just get hold of like a digital camera for you know a hundred quid or whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Well I did around this time I would have been at college doing media studies. It was fucking massive. The cameras, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_04:Like carrying around you couldn't carry those around with you, like in a you do actually get to see a shot of I think it's Mike, and he's got this this camera's like a rocket launcher over his shoulders. That's that's the only bit of like uh sort of immersion breaking. You're like, yeah, that's definitely getting left behind. Neither I'm not carrying that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so we did it today, and it was just like three kids, and they said, Oh, I think walking around in circles, hold on, let me get Google Maps up.
SPEAKER_03:Like, yeah, yeah, that'd be on the route out for us.
SPEAKER_02:Oh man, and then at night when they're camping, it's like there's noises outside. Hold on, let me turn on my thermal imaging camera on my iPhone.
SPEAKER_04:Oh, yeah, no, it's uh let me just go live on Twitch or something, just so plenty of people are watching this in case something bad happens.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, you're gonna you can still get lost in the woods, obviously, with no signal, but there was backpackers in I want to say Australia, I don't know if that's true, where they went um into a woods and no one that genuinely no one's ever seen him again. They're obviously presumed um murdered.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but I think the outbike is thousands of square miles, isn't it?
SPEAKER_04:And don't get me wrong, I think these it's like the Appalachian Mountains, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think there's an awful lot of nothing, isn't there?
SPEAKER_01:Like I think it would be very easy to get lost out there. But we've been to Chapel St. Leonard's where there's no signal in many, many places, to be completely honest.
SPEAKER_02:So yeah, sometimes no Wi-Fi, no running water in some places. Yeah, it's that that is the closest we've been to in Stranded, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01:Uh honestly, like just massive tangent. Oh, by the way, we're gonna get that episode out soon. We have we have been to Chapel St. Leonard's, but there's a lot of carry off.
SPEAKER_02:No, that's that's on me, though.
SPEAKER_01:That that that's we we are gonna get that out at some point. But honestly, some some points there you do feel like you're in the 1940s, and in places like that where there's no you you could you get lost in Chapel St. Leonard's the ghost of Chapel St. Leonard's coming after you.
SPEAKER_04:Just get to the bar and come back, and Liam's just stood in the corner.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, just Liam stood in the corner, yeah. Well, I don't know if I've said this live on the podcast before, but I once went to the bar and came back, and there was a guy in the corner of the bar, sat with his wife and kid, and he was genuinely doing a full headstand vertical. Just they weren't looking at him, nobody was talking to him, he was just doing a full headstand on the floor. I I went back and I was laughing my head off. Joey said, What are you laughing at? I said, just look around there and tell me if that's normal. Completely wide-eyed, like, what's he doing?
SPEAKER_01:Sorry, we are on a tangent here, but uh there's another story when we went this time where there was that guy going around everyone going, I fucking hate scouts. I fucking hate scouts. And he turned around to the table next week, is he who's your sport, man? So straight faced as well, Liverpool. Is that all right?
SPEAKER_02:But now I do I do wonder. Sorry, yeah, but and and I think it's a good point, Ben. You said about like jaws put a generation of people off going into the sea.
SPEAKER_01:Uh my dad, I asked my dad by the way, what his scariest film was, obviously. He's ever and he said jaws, and I said you can't have that, but yeah, it'd definitely be up there for me, I think.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, that's yeah, and and it's that real sort of build-in menace, which is awful. And but at least you you kind of see the bad guy in that.
SPEAKER_04:And I think this is understandable as well, it's it's a tangible thing in the real world.
SPEAKER_02:I know it's supposed to be there's some kind of almost semi-supernatural. I think as you get into the later Jules films, it becomes well.
SPEAKER_01:Obviously, now we know as well with Paul Sykes, like all you have to do is punch him in ear oil. So yeah, all right. I swum it.
SPEAKER_02:Imagine that being Jules, like he just comes back in. Not shark infected, yeah. But no, this I do get what you mean. Like this there's a there's a point of me now that I'm I'm fine, sort of I I take the dog out for a walk some nights quite late. I've walked again on Chap St. Lenard's on the front, there's no lights, pitch black, it's really dark. But being in a woods at night, there's something a little bit extra, and I don't I don't know how much of this contributes to that or if it's just a general fear that we have as people, but yeah, I there's there's something this has given me about being uh sort of just in a woods where you don't quite know where you are and you don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Not seeing the the uh for I don't know what the right word is, the not the offender, but you know the um antagonist or whatever. Um yeah, we do not offend down the billage. Yeah, um yeah, the fact that you don't see the bad guy, as you said, really, is that uh I think that's genius, and the fact that you didn't want to do that. All the best horrors, pretty much, uh or the bet or the not the best horrors, or the scariest stories are when you you leave it going, what was that all about? Like what what was like the best ghost stories that you read and things like that, and even stuff like Stephen King novels. I mean, I know you sort of get uh but the best bit of reading those novels is when you're halfway through going, what the fuck's going on here?
SPEAKER_04:And I think I don't know again, I'm not like uh like have a comprehensive knowledge of every horror film here, but I feel like that was quite unusual to do that. I know we've talked about Jaws, but that was that was like 30 years previous to this, or near us. Like most most horror sort of like the big horror films like leading up to this release, and things where it's you know it's like the slasher films where you do see the serial killer a lot, or the exorcist as we talked about, or even uh stuff like Don't Look Now on screen for the entire film, basically, the Exorcist or you know your monster or alien films like uh what's it the Halloween and yeah and all that. Yeah, so it this I think this does stand out a little bit. I'm sure there's other examples as well, but um that I've just can't think of off the top of my head. But like I think that is a an accidental master stroke. It obviously wanted to a budget would have meant that they couldn't show too much anyway, but if they actually did try and get something that would appear on camera, yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_02:I think it's all the better for not seeing it. And and I think the genuine I know sort of said that that moment for me was the most scared I've ever been, but I once went to uh I was in Spain, stayed at my auntie and uncle's and I was due to fly back, and for whatever reason they ended up dropping me off late at the airport, and I sort of said, Look, it's fine, I'll stay here and I'll get the first flight back in the morning it was Granada Airport, and the airport this was about eight o'clock at night, and then the airport shut, so you couldn't actually stay in the airport. I was expecting just to keep on a chair or something like that. So they basically kicked everyone out that was left, and I was left on my own in a car park, surrounded by woodland, a few lights, but so I had to spend overnight, and and the the police kind of came up to me at one minute, and I was trying to speak to them in broken Spanish to explain to them missed my flight, need to go in the morning. No way, Joseph. Well, I was sort of saying, Can you give me a lift to somewhere like a travel lodge or whatever? But they didn't really understand. But then the worst thing that he said before he drove off to me is he said something like any trouble, you run fast as you can, you run. So it's not resident evil. Yeah, I think what he meant was because as it kind of got into the early hours, a couple of cars came driving round, and I I don't know if there was sort of like people looking for people who might have left cars with things in because they were sort of circling around. But I put my bags up on top of this sort of like air vent thing, and then just basically paced it, paced up and down all night, trying to look as tough as I could. Yeah, but every car after a bit starts to look like there's someone in it looking at you. Every leaf that blew felt like a footstep. There were dogs barking in the woods.
SPEAKER_01:Well, obviously, it's really known, obviously, psychologically, that if you're in the dark of it or whatever, you you are not knowing faces, yeah, it's terrifying. But your brain makes faces out of it, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I I could genuinely see people as I moved, like that, and it'd be a shadow, but it'd be like somebody just poked their head round out of the car window. And and that so I had about seven hours of darkness, and I was absolutely terrified. And and I can imagine after three or four days of not sleeping and that building, your brain could take you to all sorts of places.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I think I'd just give up if I was in like if I was in the shoes of these filmmakers at that stage. I'd just be like, I'd I'll forget it. Yeah, I'd just I'd probably just find a way to try and just like jump climb a tree and jump out of it headfirst or something. Yeah, I'm not I'm not waiting for you to come and get me.
SPEAKER_02:That's a very different ending, isn't it? I I think you're like Carl Pilkinson where he's doing his sort of diving, you jumping off like a two-foot tree stump.
SPEAKER_01:Like just like where can there be a place in the game Jonathan Pierce comes off?
SPEAKER_04:Um so yeah, one of my things I thought this is a hot take while I was thinking about this film. Did the Blair Witch project accidentally create fake news and false flag operations of things? I'd like to know made something that wasn't real into something that is very, very believable. And my other counter-argument to anyone who would say, like, I can't believe you thought this was real, would be to just look online the amount of mainstream conspiracy theorists. Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:This is not like that we found the person who found this real. That this was generally like a lot of the population thought, oh my god, this is horrific that we've got this found footage. And yeah, I know what you mean, like in terms of fake news, planting stuff before it was even released for people to be able to go and find to back up an argument. It's that it's that pure echo chamber of you can go and find things to back up your argument that this is real. We'll we'll put enough out there. And and yeah, I think the only way you could do this now you'd have to do it as a retrospective. So you'd have to say, you'd have to now plan a load of material about something, and then say, actually, do you know Round of Blair Witch project? This one got swept under the carpet because it was a bit odd, but this was found at a similar time. And if I think if you've if you've built up enough backstory that uh seemingly has the correct dates, maybe you could fool people you you couldn't do it as it's being found now. I don't think that would work.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think you could get away with it now. I I I don't I I don't think you could. I think it might be a good idea.
SPEAKER_04:People are too internet literate, I think. You'd you'd be able to see like this photo was you know posted like last week or created last week or something. Yeah, you could see like the you know, it won't pop up on like the Wayback Machine, for example, you know, this is the being.
SPEAKER_01:I think you'd find people who who want to believe it so almost make themselves believe it because a lot of people do that nowadays with certain things. Oh, that's true.
SPEAKER_02:You'd have to go back and say, like, these were found journals and photo albums that have only recently actually come to light on the internet, but they were found in the 70s, and actually this woman locked them away and said they would never be seen, but she died a couple of months ago and they've now been seen by the public. That can work. This is great. Are you writing this?
SPEAKER_01:Wouldn't it have been scarier? Like obviously you could do this now as well, fairly I would have thought fairly easily. If it was filmed like it was 70s footage, or in the city.
SPEAKER_02:But again, you'd have to be careful for sort of the the the kind of data stamps on things that yeah, you'd have to film it on old, you'd have to find old equipment and film it. Yeah, it wouldn't be possible to have the equipment, would it?
SPEAKER_01:No, I suppose not, unless you're not.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know. I don't know whether there's still ways of generating I mean I don't know whether people still have archived old Polaroid things that can still be used or I mean you can bring photos to life now, can't you, and stuff from the But this is the only way I think you could do it is so you couldn't set this type of thing now because there's too much around our modern history, but I think you could maybe set it in the past and say all this information's only just come to light because the great grandma of the person who died said that she would take this to a grave with us. She actually won a shoe box. She wanted it buried with her, but actually the funeral home refused, and it's now come to light.
SPEAKER_01:And look at this, it's incredible. He's writing the scripts, he writes the scripts himself. Clive Tilsley says when Gareth Bails goes.
SPEAKER_02:But no, yeah, I think in summary, you know, this should be released on Halloween. So if if you are listening to it live, it it is only an hour and 20 minutes. So if it's not too late in the day and you do want to finish your evening with something that is genuinely creepy, well, whether you've seen it or not, I would still say this is a fantastic spent of an hour and 20 minutes.
SPEAKER_04:It's so easy to get sucked into it, I think, even knowing what's happened. So I I didn't mention this earlier, but like so in that sort of two years or year or whatever before I saw the film, I read the transcript online. I used to like this was a very nerdy artist.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I saw you sent this actually, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Uh hobby of mine. Um, there used to be like a website that basically had loads of film scripts, and you know, at like four 15 or whatever, I was like, Oh, I I want to be a film a screenwriter or a script writer or something when I'm older. And so I would read like these scripts from films that I really liked. Blair Witch had a transcript on there, which is funny because there was no script. Like they literally didn't write any dialogue. That's essentially what it is. But I read the full back in '99 or whenever, before I saw the film, I read the full transcript, scared the shit out of me. And even like I found the link and was reading through it again the other day, and just reading their reactions.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we've all postaled.
SPEAKER_04:It's so evocative to me. Like pulling me back to that late 90s thing of like, yeah, this this scared the crap out of me. That line of heaters be like, what the fuck is that? When they're running out. Oh my god, what the fuck is that? What the fuck is that? All these years on. So yeah, I was um well, just yeah, I don't know if the sort of winding down now, but something that I can't be the first person to have thought of this.
SPEAKER_02:This is not an original thought, but it always used to make me laugh at the time that I used to kind of think of it as the Tony Blair project. Would if you run out of your tent at night and that where she says, Oh my god, what the fuck is that? and it panned round to the left, and there's like a sort of witch in white, or Tony Blair stood staring with a big grin on his face, which which would actually be more if she said, Oh my god, what the fuck is that? It's fucking Tony Blair, oh my god, it's fucking Tony Blair. I think it was Tony Blair with such a bizarre ending, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_01:It's fucking Tony Blair.
SPEAKER_04:Tony Blair with the new Labour, New Danger, red eyes.
SPEAKER_01:He would have been Prime Minister at this point as well. So you know, yeah, in his second term.
SPEAKER_02:Because there were images of him with that like sort of satanic devil, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:When he did the Iraq war, imagine why.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, it's it's fucking Tony, it's the Tony Blair witch. They've all got it wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I think I think I'd rather see Tony Blair than a witch, personally.
SPEAKER_02:I think that'd be my yeah, but which is just a woman. I know what you mean, that in itself is more creepy, but it's Tony Blair, we're in the middle of the woods, it's fucking Tony Blair. Is he in a suit? Is he is he doing is is Alison Campbell with him and like Gordon Brown? Full suit, he's not moving, or maybe he's doing that gesture with his hand, you know, like where he's gonna be able to do it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I know I'm doing it myself now, yeah. Well, what we need in the country today, yeah. I'll tell you what, wouldn't be scared of Keir Starmer. It's got a bit political there. So I think uh I just think it were like a plot just some. Imagine I, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god, what the fuck is Oh no? It's just Keir Starmer pissed off.
SPEAKER_01:It's just loads of wood. It's just it's just yeah, there's nothing going on there. Can you help us? I wouldn't thought so. Um anyway. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
SPEAKER_04:Just to summarise my thoughts on the film, and then you can you can carry on doing your impressions and I'll go away. Um I just think it's like the reason I wanted to do it, I guess, is I just think it's it's such lightning in a ball. You know, we've touched on this like throughout this as we've been talking, I guess, but like I don't think this could be anywhere near the phenomenon it was today, if it was made today. The circumstances around it of like low budget student, like actual, you know, almost amateur filmmakers and uh you know really unknown, inexperienced actors, as you know, budget constraints that meant they couldn't reshoot or even like you know have much of a script or anything like that. And then the fact that it came out at a point where the internet just wasn't or information wasn't as readily available on the internet. There was no you know, high high speed, the internet speeds meant you couldn't have like video dissections of key scenes or anything like that. I just think it's I think it's I it's not like it wouldn't even be in my like my top 50 favourite movies or anything, but I just think it's I just think it's an amazing achievement in everyone.
SPEAKER_02:Is it your scariest film to date, Ben?
SPEAKER_04:I would say so, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I would say it's mine actually, yeah. I don't for the X is what we did actually, uh the last one. But what you'd said just there, Benny, brilliant because it it it could only that film could only have happened probably in 1999. It could have happened before because I don't think the internet was big enough, and I don't think it could have happened a year later.
SPEAKER_02:It's just the right sprinkling of internet.
SPEAKER_01:That's the only time that that could have worked, that that film, and that that's that's that's a mad thing to think of.
SPEAKER_04:That yeah, total happy accidents, I guess. Um yeah, maybe like I said, it's it is still pretty sad for the actors because yeah, they they kind of it's really interesting reading that oral history with some of Heather's quotes, which I assume are quite cagey, I guess. I'm sure she's not speaking entirely from her heart in what she's saying, but reading between the lines what she's saying, this it's kind of fucked her up, this film. Like you know, like I imagine mentor. I think Joshua Mike says they had like years of therapy after the film, which is it's not what you expect to read about someone who's like struck gold as a a you know, a beginner actor or actress. Um, but yeah, it I it almost feels like they regret what it became, I suppose. Like there's a real sort of sad note about it, I guess. But again, just contributes to this mythology around it all.
SPEAKER_02:For anyone who wants to watch it, it seems like every every few years they do pop up and do like a sort of QA. And it seems like I think one of the guys has gone on to have a semi-successful career, but but Heather and the other guy have done very little since, and it seems like they're retired from acting pretty much. Yeah, they they just pop up and talk about the film occasionally and how much it damaged them effectively. And yeah, I I don't know if you'd get away with it if you'd sort of use professional actors and you know I I I don't know because effectively they they bullied it.
SPEAKER_01:I don't think it would work if I if like Tom Cro Tom Cruise were in it to be on it. Oh my god, what the hell's that?
SPEAKER_04:And they I mean they talk about it as they don't talk about like they were mistreated or anything. There's a there's none of that. I mean, I don't. If that happened, but if it did, it's not. They don't talk about it. It's more just it blew up way more than they were expected. I think Heather actually says, like, I was I wasn't protected, like I wasn't prepared for what was gonna. And you know, there were people like actually pissed off with them when it turned out that they weren't dead.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. I remember they got booed. Like I say, uh, it was some sort of award ceremony or the or something.
SPEAKER_02:They got booed for the actors because I think particularly Heather's said her mother had had a lot of letters of support when they believed she were missing, and then sympathy cars and stuff, yeah. That then she kind of got a lot of hate.
SPEAKER_01:She should have done a GoFundMe. If it had been a few years later, like it would have been alright. Like another major not Major Charles, what's his name? The come on, what's his name? Come on, oh Captain More information?
SPEAKER_04:Oh, Captain Tom.
SPEAKER_01:Captain Tom, yeah, his fan, right? Yeah, we could have another Captain Tom. I nearly said Major Charles, because it's Captain Tom, yeah. She could have got a swimming pool out of her mum if she'd have thought ahead. But anyway, right, we better wrap up because we're all running out of time.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, sorry. Sorry if that wasn't like a total barrel of laughs episode. I really enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_01:I really said that every every episode, but I did I'm a bit like sort of I'm waiting for the episode that you don't really enjoy, and then we'll know that it's a good idea. Well we've done a couple that we didn't release.
SPEAKER_04:But yeah, sorry, just before we finish, just did you find this scary, Andrew?
SPEAKER_01:Not that scary, to be honest, but I don't I don't I I can't say this without seeing it like I'm bragging. I don't really get scared that easy about films, to be honest. I'm not really a sort of yeah, I'm not really that I I I get I'm quite jumpy, jump scares and stuff, but there weren't any jump scares really.
SPEAKER_02:So but did you commit to did you sort of were you flicking through your phone looking at shifting for players in 1994 at this time?
SPEAKER_01:Or were you actually watching it? No, no, no, no, I give it a rest for that particular day. Uh but no, no, honestly, lights down, watching it, really quiet, dog weren't even in the room, nothing, just sort of watching it.
SPEAKER_02:I don't know how you can't feel that sort of building.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's the tension we're building and building. I think I don't know. Like I say, I enjoyed it. I I don't think I was that scared. I don't know why. I can't, you know, I don't know. I've not really seen a film that I've been absolutely The Exorcist scared me, but I think the story of the Exorcist there scared me more than the film. Do the idea that you can be when I was younger, being oh, you could be possessed by this Satan thing. And as we said last week though, or a couple of days ago, whatever, is that the fact that that film got banned, you think this must be that the again, the hype to that were almost made it more scary than it was. I don't know. I can say I can only I can only be honest, and it it I yeah, I wasn't really that scared by it.
SPEAKER_04:Hardman Haig.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is I ain't got a bald head for nothing. God gives you a bald head when you're uh when you're tough.
SPEAKER_04:Is that right?
SPEAKER_01:Is that is that the uh the seal of a prisoner? You could probably be with some other people.
SPEAKER_02:You and Harry Hill say that often.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, yeah. Both wear glasses as well. So anyway, thank you so much for that.
SPEAKER_02:I think that's a fantastic Halloween uh choice. It wasn't necessarily going to be a Halloween choice, but it works perfectly for this day. So all been well. If you've heard this on Halloween, enjoy enjoy the vibes, enjoy the creepy vibes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, thank you very much, Ben.
SPEAKER_04:Hey, my pleasure. Thanks. Uh thanks for you know temporarily ending my podcast retirement to talk about something.
SPEAKER_02:And what's even weirder for the listeners, if you don't know this, Ben actually died a couple of years ago.
SPEAKER_01:So yeah, I'm not on Blaze Pony, it would play by an hour. But yeah, but yeah, thank you very much for that, uh Ben. And we'll see you hopefully for another episode soon.
SPEAKER_04:Cheers, guys.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you for listening to Who Remembers. If you want to get in touch with us, you can find us at who remembers pod at outlook.com. If you are a right wing fascist, you can find us on Twitter at Who Remembers Pod. Or if you're a wokener, you can find us on Blue Sky at Who Remembers Pod. Once again, thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time for more remembering.