In June 1999 , a minivancrashedintoStephen Kingwhile he was out on a walk , land him in a hospital bed for weeks . During that time , his son evince up with a portable television , a bootleg VHS tape , and a directive : “ You got ta watch this . ”
The film wasThe Blair Witch Project , which had generatedbuzzat the Sundance Film Festival that January , but had yet to be considered a originative employment inhorror filmhistory . The fractured , shaky footage , combined with the effects of the painkillers that King had taken , made for an peculiarly chilling viewing experience . So scary , in fact , that he could n’t finish the movie .
“ midway through it , I read , ‘ twist it off . It ’s too freaky . I ca n’t , ’ ” King tell during an audience for Eli Roth’sHistory of Horror(availableon horror cyclosis platform Shudder ) .
But the author ofIt , Carrie , and countless other repugnance classic is n’t one to back away from concern . As UPROXXreports , King eventually did watch the rest ofThe Blair Witch Project , and he even write about its genius in a foreword to the 2010 rerelease of his 1981 nonfiction bookDanse Macabre . To King , the film ’s low budget and low timber were what made it so expert .
“ It may be the only time in my life when I drop out a repulsion motion-picture show in the middle because I was too scared to go on , ” hewrote . “ Those did n’t look like Hollywood - position Natalie Wood ; they looked like an factual forest in which actual people could actually get fall back . ”
Though King evidently had an easier time making it through the movie without analgesic obnubilate his judgment , theendingstill left him flash-frozen in terror .
“ If you ’re like me , you catch the citation and endeavor to escape the terrified ten - year - former into whom you have been turn back , ” King wrote .
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