The Lobster Dance

Oh, The Blair Witch Project (1999); be still, my teenage heart. Broadly‘s interview of the cast, “They Wished I Was Dead’: How ‘The Blair Witch Project’ Still Haunts Its Cast,” stood apart for me from other interviews gearing up for Blair Witch (2016) because of the attention to Heather Donahue’s discussion about being a woman in film, being conflated with her character, and the famous and oft-parodied apology scene at the end of the film.

Image: Heather Donahue wearing a beanie, crying, speaking into a camera with the focus on her right eye. Via Broadly.

Donahue: I had actually done a student film two years before with a young female filmmaker who definitely had a lot of bravado. I had to think, “What kind of woman would actually keep the camera running through horrible times?” A normal person would have stopped filming, so I had to take that character to that extra driven edge. I don’t think there were a lot of female characters like that in movies at the time. Definitely I feel like things have changed a lot. There’s been a little more leeway for female characters. I won the Razzie for worst actress that year, and I think that was partly because of the character being judged, rather than the performance. She was a very driven woman who didn’t wear mascara and was on camera in 1999.

Teenage me greedily consumed all the fake documentaries about the Blair Witch, because I am a sucker for a good legend or folktale–and I love the history (well, fake history, in this case) side of a ghost story more than I can possibly believe in ghosts. Camp safely, dear readers. Read the interview here.