Scarred - Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez
It’s the final Tuesday installment of Scarred, and today we’re bringing you the nightmarish experiences of the duo behind The Blair Witch Project. Considering the tone of that landmark horror film, is it any surprise what scared these two men?
First up is Daniel Myrick, whose latest project was the murderous cultist film Believers.
The moment when the kid runs into Bigfoot in the woods in, “The Legend of Boggy Creek.”
Scared the pee out of me when I was young. Still get goosebumps.
Eduardo Sanchez has also been keeping busy, most recently with Altered, a tale of alien abduction and vengeance.
The PATTERSON-GIMLIN film is probably the scariest single piece of media that I’ve ever seen in my life. I don’t know if you call it art or entertainment, but it chilled me to the core when I first saw it as a kid and it still creeps me out every time I see it.
I know that there have been hoax allegations and sure, the Bigfoot looks like a guy in a suit, but if it was a hoax, then it was perfectly planned in every way. The fact that the Bigfoot was far away. The movement of the camera – shaky as shit because the guy was on horseback. The way the creature walked. That little look he gives back in the infamous FRAME 352. All of those elements were so perfect that you couldn’t help believe that it was real. That shit was a masterpiece.
That film, in my opinion, was the spark that lit the whole Bigfoot craze in the 70’s, perfectly timed to haunt my childhood. Bigfoot was everywhere and I watched every single TV show about this creature even though I knew it would fuck my life up for weeks afterwards. Showers with the bathroom door open, leaving my light on at night, even sleeping with my parents at times because I was afraid that I would see that dreaded Bigfoot shadow peering in through my bedroom window.
Years later, the spirit of that little piece of filmmaking became a major contributing factor to the initial idea that later became THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. Actually, our goal at the time was to make a feature-length documentary filled with PATTERSON-GIMLIN style moments. I can only hope that we came close to succeeding.