Even The Actors Are Terrified Of The Movie ‘The Blair Witch Project’

The classic 90’s horror film “The Blair Witch Project” turns 20 years old this summer–and two decades later, the actors who played the three doomed students in the film are speaking out about how hard their roles really were.

Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams played three college students who venture into the Maryland woods in search of the Blair Witch, who is believed to haunt the forest. The fictional film was famously filmed documentary-style. To keep their performances authentic, the producers kept the actors in the dark about what exactly they’d be doing. In fact, the families of the actors believed the film was a documentary as well.

“The initial reaction of my loved ones was that I definitely should not go into the woods with a bunch of guys I didn’t know. My mom wanted to know if she could have all of their Social Security numbers. All my friends pitched in to make sure that I bought a knife,” Donahue told Oh My Mag, a British magazine.

The actors were also deprived of food and sleep during the eight-day filming, and the filmmakers scared them so that their reactions would be authentic. It worked: the actors’ performances were so realistic that many who saw the movie believed it was real, and that the actors had indeed died mysteriously after encountering the Blair Witch. Donahue says her family received condolence messages after the film’s release.

It might have made for a good horror movie, but it wasn’t good for her acting career, Donahue told Oh My Mag.

“Being dead? How did it affect my career? Adversely,” Donahue joked.