I had arguably the best possible viewing experience of this film: I was ten years old, my family had just moved to a new house, and I found an unmarked VHS copy of The Blair Witch Project in the basement that had been left behind by the previous owners. I watched it alone in the dark on a CRT TV and was completely convinced that everything I was seeing was real. It was 2003-2004, and the only thing I knew of the movie was the name and that it was "recovered footage". I didn't sleep for a week.

A few months ago I showed The Blair Witch Project to my Vietnamese girlfriend, who had never even heard of it. At the end, she said it was boring and not scary, and she felt very frustrated by what she saw as a lack of structure and payoff.
Later that evening she took a shower, and when she came out I was standing in the corner of our dimly lit living room, just like the character in the movie (you know, as a joke). She screamed at the top of her lungs, started crying, and made me promise to never do that again.

Turns out the movie was scarier than she thought.

You should have had Josh standing on the corner the whole review.

"The first ten minutes or so is the first part of the movie." Now THAT'S analysis!

One of my favorite realism elements is that they all have their own equipment. Ex. The last scene in the house, Mike has the sound equipment while you're watching from Heather's perspective. As she's running down the stairs you hear her voice getting louder as she gets closer to Mike in the basement. Genius.

I actually had the privilege of meeting the director of Blair Witch, Eduardo Sanchez. He told me that they gave the actors walkie-talkies so he could keep in touch with the actors, a compass so they knew where they were going, and a note with certain lines of dialogue that needed to be read, but the actors would improvised the lines in so it sounded spontaneous. He's really a super nice guy. He's also super tall.

I can't believe Jay once had 12 friends...

I was in scouts for 15 years and I did plenty of camping in the woods; Blair Witch creeped me out because of how damn authentic it feels. When you're in the woods in the pitch black, and you hear twigs snapping and leaves rustling off in the darkness, your mind bristles with fear and anxiety. The movie nailed that feeling for me.

I think it scared me more than most viewers because I've been in that situation.

This is the earliest rlm video I could find where you clearly see Mikes dementia setting in

Josh?!!! JOSH! JOSH? JOOOOSH!!
Mike: "Bbbrad?...Carlos?"

it's fun that Mike, who's normally down for paranormal stuff just says 'this is fake, and I don't care'.

Jay saying "actually there's cannibal holocaust and there's the last broadcast" in that voice is my favorite thing redlettermedia has done

The younger fisherman being interviewed in Blair witch is my friend's dad, Ed. I've totally done community theater with him.

I gotta disagree with Mike. Jay is right; the scariest thing about the movie is that we don't have any idea of what's happening or what anything really means. Like with the stick figures. It would've been cheesy and really taken away from the film of we had this explanation of "oh these sticks mean that someone's gonna die" because what makes it so effective and so eerie is that we have no idea what it means. This movie thrives off its subtlety, and there's something about finding stick figures hanging in the trees, with absolutely no context, that is just plain creepy.

I actually still love this movie, love how vague it is, LOVE how mixed the lore is. It feels like a real small-town legend, where people all give different versions of it and none of it makes sense.

What I love about RLM - an engaging 25 minute discussion about a movie, and in the last 5 seconds completely unprompted bullying of an actor from an entirely different movie 😁

I love the fact that cartoon Network did an entire parody of the film with the Scooby Doo cast and aired it on the channel every Halloween.

Here's an idea. Go camping, bring a portable DVD player and watch this at 1am in your tent And tell me you don't get a tad apprehensive.

The theory that the two guys were gaslighting her and set up to kill her really changes how the movie feels. But then the sequel says "dude the witch is real, time travel bro"

3:47 Jay forgets the word "Splash"