Living in Seattle back in the day was pretty great!

      In the past there were a lot of cool places to check out on the weekends.  One such place was a personally owned VHS and DVD rental store downtown operated by an amazingly fun elderly woman.

          One Friday night my friends and I were out driving around aimlessly when we decided to stop and get some burgers from the unintentionally erotically named Dicks burgers downtown near an awesome comic shop.  The five of us were sitting on the curb near the car and eating the aforementioned burgers when I offhandedly mentioned that I had never seen a horror movie. This was the invitation for my friends to playfully bully me about my lack of scares. Jeff, the oldest in the group, suggested we rent something and head back to his place for a late night viewing with the hope to see a urine stain appear on my jeans.  I apprehensively agreed with a few stipulations.

      We drove to the video store and made a b-line to the horror section. I made the simple rule that it couldn’t be something gore based. I wanted ghosts or something creepy.  You know, the kind of movie that makes going to the bathroom later that night a real problem.  On the way to the horror section I was distracted by the unusually large anime section for the late 90s  and that’s when she approached me.  The owner of the shop got my attention and asked if I was with the horror kids.  Wondering if they did something wrong I gave a noncommittal "yes".  
The owner smiles and handed me a VHS tape with no label or title.  She told me “there is an ongoing investigation in rearguards to this tape but we seem smart enough to maybe see something that no one else has noticed yet." She furthered her point with the quip that I usually rent subtitled content so I have to be intelligent.  "Its really scary but please make it to the end and tell me if you see anything that could help”.  I was confused but I really liked her so I replied “Kay” with what has to be a nervous look on my face.  I ran to show my friends who had been bickering about which movie to get.  Satisfied with the mystery tape we made our way back to Jeff’s place.  

    We got snacks and piled on the couch. For some reason we all sat right in the middle, which was totally OK with me due to being crammed next to the girl I liked. The movie started but it looked like something made by high-schoolers. Not too professional but the subject matter was interesting enough to keep us going.

These weird guys and a girl were about to go in to the forest to search for the Blair witch. Yeah, it’s that movie. I was 100% in! As the movie played it got more and more engrossing for all of us. No one even got up to get a soda or more snacks. When the shock ending happened, no spoilers, there were no credits or anything. I was almost totally sure it was real. I must not have been alone in that thought because it was about two hours of fighting games before we decided to head home. In quiet fear we made our way to the car and piled in. My brave face payed off with the prize being to hold the hand of the girl I liked all the way to where the car ….. broke down ….. in the WA state woods.

      So yeah, fear took over and we were all completely convinced that we got cursed for watching a haunted snuff film. After all the guys got out to “fix” the car we had a conversation in hushed tones about our new cursed life and how it sucks but at least it would be short.  We opened the hood and looked at the engine then somehow came to the conclusion that we telekinetically fixed the engine. To my surprise it actually worked!  The car came to life and we got the girls home then went to a Denny’s to talk about how freaky the “movie” was.  Eventually I got home about 4:00AM and went to sleep.

      The next morning we got together again and went to return the tape. The super cool owner took the tape back and made iced tea for us then motioned for us to sit down. She talked to us in extreme detail about the film and asked if we saw anything that might help find the kids.  In all honesty I LOVED this and I think it led me to like YouTube horror stories and dark mysteries today.  After our chat we took off and went on with our weekend.

      Months later the Blair witch project was being advertised on TV. This sparked us to tell everyone who would listen about the film. The word of mouth for this movie was insane!

We went to see it and noticed it was kinda different and way more clear of a recording. I think what we saw on the tape was a rough cut.

After the movie so many people were convinced that it was real at least until the main three actress and actors were on TV for some award thing.  The masses then finally understood the whole situation.

    Looking back I have to say that the video store owner sold that film so perfectly! I love her for that!

    All in all that’s how you sell a movie. We saw it for free then told everyone about it and paid to see it later when it came out in theaters.

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