The Blair Witch Project was the Obsession and Backrooms of its era. It sold at Sundance but nobody expected it to make over $100 million. And I’ll admit, I resented it back in 1999, but they were ahead of me. Found footage proved to be a valid genre, and even though I wasn’t scared by the rocks or sticks, the characters hanging onto their film when lost in extreme circumstances was more valid than I understood yet in my 20s. And if the film doesn’t scare you, the cinematic experiment of watching actors react to a situation, improvising in the woods, made good drama.
The shaky cam was obnoxious back then, but decades after Paul Greengrass, it seems measured and subtle. At least Blair Witch only shakes during extended takes, not jumbled shots edited togehter.
A 4K upgrade wouldn’t make sense but Lionsgate Limited did come up with a new way to experience The Blair Witch Project. Restored from original Hi8 video, it really looks like found footage now not transferred to film.
Seven new bonus features are also worthwhile. Season of the Witch is 30 minutes long, contrasting the viral marketing then and now. The one regret everyone seems to share is using the actors’ real names. Josh Leonard and Michael C. Willism still remember scenes specifically. Sadly, Heather Donahue didn’t participate and the guys give her credit and reveal she was the target of misogyny. It’s nice to see Sundance in 1999.
Extended Lore is 13 minutes on the making of the Syfy Channel special with the deleted material from the pseudo-documentary. That special, and another one made for Blockbuster Video, are included in the legacy bonus features.
11 minutes on Matt Blazi shows how he documented the making of The Blair Witch Project and found some of the talking heads in Maryland. Another 12 minutes is on ancillary merchandise, including ones the filmmakers don’t care for. A 9 minute feature on archiving the original materials is interesting, as film schools and alt weeklies covered the marketing, not the hype it became.
Another nine minutes on the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle, Washington shows how the filmmakers gathered their materials for the exhibit. A Neal Fredericks tribute is 10 more minutes with an archival interview with Fredericks and reflections from the other filmmakers.
A common theme across these new features is that 1999 was a rare time when something could go viral, but the internet was not yet so big that it would become toxic.