The Blair Witch Project - Festival Cut (1999) ***1/2
"You're still doing your documentary THING, man."
I saw The Blair Witch Project (1999) in its original limited theatrical run (a couple of weeks before its wide release) at the Kendall Square Cinema in Cambridge, MA. At that point, a lot of people still believed the events in the film were real. I saw the film at least once more when it was released on DVD, but it had been a minimum of 25 years since the last time I watched it. It was cool to see BWP in a theater again, with an audience that included several people who had never seen the film.
The movie holds up well, slightly better than expected, even. I'm not really into found footage films, but there is no denying that BWP is the benchmark. This was my first time viewing the Festival Cut, which includes a few extra minutes that were trimmed for the theatrical release. It doesn't drastically alter the feel of the film, but it had also been so long since I'd seen it that I wouldn't have been able to spot the differences.
After watching the feature, we screened the mockumentary Curse Of The Blair Witch (1999), which is such a well made companion piece (which I had also not seen for at least 25 years). It nails the look and feel of that style of '90s TV documentary, adds excellent lore to the legend of the titular character, and further deepens the mystery behind what happened to the three student filmmakers who vanished in 1994.
The movie holds up well, slightly better than expected, even. I'm not really into found footage films, but there is no denying that BWP is the benchmark. This was my first time viewing the Festival Cut, which includes a few extra minutes that were trimmed for the theatrical release. It doesn't drastically alter the feel of the film, but it had also been so long since I'd seen it that I wouldn't have been able to spot the differences.
After watching the feature, we screened the mockumentary Curse Of The Blair Witch (1999), which is such a well made companion piece (which I had also not seen for at least 25 years). It nails the look and feel of that style of '90s TV documentary, adds excellent lore to the legend of the titular character, and further deepens the mystery behind what happened to the three student filmmakers who vanished in 1994.
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