The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 low budget independent horror film, financed and distributed by Artisan Entertainment. The narrative is presented as a documentary pieced together from amateur footage. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company. The film features Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams all as themselves.
It tells the story of three young student filmmakers who get lost in the woods while filming a documentary about the eponymous local legend. After being terrorized by an unseen presence for several days, they mysteriously disappear, one by one. Neither the students nor their bodies are ever found, although their video and sound equipment (along with most of the footage they shot) is eventually recovered, several feet under a building foundation that was made at least a century ago.
The release of the film on July 16, 1999 came after months of publicity, including a ground-breaking campaign by the studio to use the Internet and suggest that the film was a real event. It was very positively received and went on to gross over US$248 million worldwide.