Twenty-seven years after the groundbreaking premiere of The Blair Witch Project, its creators are back with a new film, The Influencer Project, which offers a modern take on documentary-style horror. The new film follows real-life influencer Chiara King as she travels to Copenhagen to document the "glamorous business of online fame." As cameras capture her every move for her followers, a menacing stalker emerges, blurring the lines between content and evidence, follower and predator, and fact and fiction.
Producers Gregg Hale and Eduardo Sanchez, who were instrumental in the original Blair Witch Project (Hale as producer, Sanchez as director), shared insights into The Influencer Project's connection to its predecessor and offered a glimpse into the upcoming Blair Witch Project reboot, slated for release in 2027.
Sanchez explained that incorporating modern technology into found-footage films is a natural evolution. "If you're setting a found-footage movie in this era, then that's the language that we're living with: social media influencers, vertical video, surveillance cameras, cop body cams," he said. While offering few specifics about the new Blair Witch movie, he acknowledged that "eventually if you're making it in this era, you have to play with the toys that are available."
Hale added that their creative process prioritizes story over format. "It's not like, ‘Oh, what is the language of found footage and how are we going to use that to tell this story?’ It always starts with what is the story and when is the story set and what are the characters doing and how does that affect how it would be seen?" he stated. Sanchez echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that the tools used in a film are dictated by its time period.
Sanchez noted that the constant presence of cameras in The Influencer Project is more easily justified in today's hyper-connected world than it was in the original Blair Witch Project. "Blair Witch took place in 1994," he recalled. "Heather [Donahue, who starred in that film], had a 16mm film camera because that's what you shot documentaries on back then. And then a Hi8 video camera was just [for] behind the scenes, a cheap [way to] shoot stuff." In contrast, he explained, "you cut to nowadays, you don't have to worry about that at all. There are cameras everywhere. It's easier to tell the story."
While The Blair Witch Project's horror stemmed from a literal monster in the dark, The Influencer Project delves into more grounded fears associated with online life and audience reaction. "There’s always somebody lying in wait ready to either interact with you in a good way or interact with you in a terrible way," Hale said. He revealed that the horrifying elements in the film are drawn from Chiara's real experiences as an influencer, with many of the depicted online interactions having been directed at her personally. The "spiritual connection" between the two films, Hale explained, lies in their exploration of dangerous environments. In Blair Witch, the characters chose to enter the woods, where they encountered "bad shit." In The Influencer Project, however, "you don't even have to make the choice to enter that wilderness. We’re living in that internet wilderness all the time."
The Influencer Project is currently in theaters.