13 Movie Hoaxes That Completely Fooled Everyone

10. The Blair Witch Project Is A Real Documentary

Heather Donahue Blair Witch
Haxan Films

The Blair Witch Project was one of the first movies to use viral marketing techniques to sell itself to audiences, and that it did incredibly well with a highly plausible online campaign, claiming that the film's three "stars", Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard, had genuinely gone missing in the Burkittsville woods while shooting the "documentary".

The Blair Witch was a fictional legend conceived by writer-directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez for the movie, and they used the website BlairWitch.com to convincingly present it as a centuries-old myth. This, combined with their fabricated missing persons posters, caused many to believe the film was real.

Of course, to contemporary audiences it may seem ridiculous that a clearly fictional found footage horror film was ever thought to be legit, but back in 1999, with both found footage and viral marketing being new, edgy concepts, plenty of people were fooled.

Advertisement
In this post: 
Goldfinger
 
First Posted On: 
Contributor
Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.