Rotten Tomatoes posted a video celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Blair Witch Project, the brilliant and terrifying horror movie that opened back in 1999 ( I saw the movie twice in the theater the first weekend it opened. I was twelve at the time. I remember going to see it with my older brother and I can’t imagine my parents knew he was taking me to see it).
What makes this post relevant to Art Meets Commerce is that The Blair Witch Project was really the first movie to use full advantage of what the internet had to offer (and this was well before web 2.0!). I remember sitting at my computer (Windows ‘95! AOL 7.2!) and watching whatever new video would be posted on the website and follow the story of the three missing film students. Not only was the preview terrifying but people thought that it was in fact a real documentary and three students did actually go missing.
By creating a very comprehensive website with maps, footage, and stories about the witch that haunted the woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland, The Blair Witch Project marketing team managed to capture the attention of an audience. They were able to keep them coming back for more and blur the lines between fiction and reality. Brilliant.