hours of footage were then edited down to less than
an hour and a half.
The three characters, named for the actors them-
selves, are shown interviewing several residents of
the town (renamed Burkittsville) who have fragmen-
tary knowledge of the Blair Witch legends. Subse-
quently the filmmakers hike deep into the woods to
find the witch’s house, shooting random footage as
they go, but they quickly become lost, disoriented,
and frightened. They encounter sinister arrange-
ments of stones and constructions of sticks, and after
Joshua disappears one night, Heather and Michael
hear what sound like his anguished cries. Eventually
the two come across a crumbling, deserted house,
but as they search it frantically the film comes to a
jolting, ambiguous conclusion.
Ostensibly,The Blair Witch Project—a jerky, grainy
assemblage shot with handheld cameras—is the stu-
dents’ footage discovered a year after their disap-
pearance. Devoid of special effects, the film suc-
ceeds by leaving virtually everything to its viewers’
imaginations. Nothing supernatural is shown and
no explanations are offered, but the film’s con-
stantly shifting images, its characters’ banal, repeti-
tious obscenities, and its general sense of dread are
highly unsettling.
Shot on a budget of $35,000, the film debuted at
the Sundance Film Festival and was signed for distri-
bution by Artisan Entertainment. Thanks in large
part to a canny publicity campaign on the Internet,
it grossed $248,300,000 worldwide by the end of
1999—a record for an independent film.
Impact The Blair Witch Projectwas the subject of
cover stories inTimeandNewsweekand quickly be-
came a cult favorite among Generation X and Gen-
eration Y audiences. It was praised by prominent
critics, and although it failed to win any Academy
Award nominations, it is generally acknowledged
as the most inventive horror film sinceThe Shining
(1980).
Further Reading
Corliss, Richard. “Blair Witch Craft.”Time, August
16, 1999, 58-64.
Leland, John. “The Blair Witch Cult.”Newsweek,Au-
gust 16, 1999, 44-49.
Smith, Sean. “Curse of the Blair Witch.”Newsweek,
January 26, 2004, 56-58.
Grove KogerSee also Film in the United States; Generation Y;
Grunge fashion; Independent films; Sundance Film
Festival. Blended families
Definition Family structures with two married or
cohabitating adults in which at least one adult
has a child from a previous relationship
During the 1990’s, the term “blended family” appeared in
reference to remarriages after divorce involving children.
Because of dramatic increases in cohabitation among par-
ents with children, the term began also to include families
resulting from cohabitation.
Other terms for blended families include restruc-
tured families, reconstituted families, remarried
families, or stepfamilies. Most stepfamilies occur
when a remarried parent has a child with his or her
new spouse, creating half siblings, but also form with104 Blended families The Nineties in America
Eduardo Sánchez, left, and Daniel Myrick, directors of the hugely
successful filmThe Blair Witch Project. The film grossed more
than $1.5 million in its limited-release opening weekend and be-
came one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time.
(AP/Wide World Photos)