Untrue Ghost Stories and Fake Documentaries

The Blair Witch Project and Death of a Ghost Hunter

Aug 10, 2009

Touting a film as being "based on a true experience" can draw an audience. Here are two very convincing films that are presented as true stories or documentaries.

The technique of filming a movie as if it were an amateur documentary adds a dimension of reality. The actors talk directly into a hand-held camera, sometimes the camera jumps, all adding a sense of someone filming rough footage. In the two following movies, the watcher is left wondering whether what they have just seen is a true story, or pure fiction.

The Blair Witch Project

This 1999 film was a very convincing film that left watchers wondering how much of it really happened and how much was made up. Part of the media hype leading up to this film included a website on the Blair Witch and other information that gave the story a sense of reality. It was also the first film to make it big to use the documentary style filming of someone talking into a camera, and allowing the events to unfold through what has been recorded.

So how much of it was real? Not much. First of all, there is no Blair Witch, and no one got killed in the woods in pursuit of her. The only grain of truth is that there is a similar legend about the Bell Witch, which may have been an inspiration for the story. However, the Bell Witch legend has very little to do with the Blair Witch story. For the most part, the Blair Witch was totally untrue and the documentary style and intense advertising campaign leading up to it were only media hype to give the film a sense of reality. The producers wanted to make a fictional movie with a sense of gritty reality by using the documentary technique, and in this they succeeded…almost too well.

Death of a Ghost Hunter

In 2002, Carter Simms was a ghost hunter who agreed for a fee to set up a paranormal investigation of the Masterson House, which was rumored to be haunted. The house's owner, Seth Masterson, a Los Angeles TV producer, hires Simms to investigate after his cleaning lady experiences disturbing events. Twenty years before, Minister Joseph Masterson and his family were violently murdered inside the house. Since that time, the place has not been lived in. Simms and her 3-person crew hole up in the house to record paranormal activity. Three days later Simms is dead.

This 2007 film, recently released on DVD, is another example of a fictitious story filmed in part as a documentary. Like the Blair Witch, it never happened. And yet parts of it seem strangely familiar--almost as if at least the backstory could have been taken from some newspaper headline. In truth, the story was not even based on a real event that was fictionalized. A thorough search of old newspapers and the Internet bring forth no evidence a paranormal investigator named Carter Simms ever lived or died in this way. Likewise, no research can be found on the Masterson House or the grisly murders that supposedy took place there.

Other films, such a Cloverfield, also use the technique of the shaky webcam and footage found after the filmer is dead. Though Cloverfield is very convincing in its presentation, there is no question that the storyline of a giant monster loose in New York is purely fiction. But in the case of The Blair Witch Project and Death of a Ghost Hunter, there is room for doubt.

Click this link to read a review and comparison of the horror movies The Strangers and Them

The copyright of the article Untrue Ghost Stories and Fake Documentaries in Horror Films is owned by Vickie Britton. Permission to republish Untrue Ghost Stories and Fake Documentaries in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.