Before I get into the formal review of this book, let me enchant you with a tale of my childhood – by stealing one of the book’s devices.

The Blair Witch Experience

Vinny Murphy

Vinny Murphy is an American Writer and expert Create-A-Wrestler maker guy, and is best known for that piece he wrote on Mallrats that Kevin Smith actually read. Well, he at least re-tweeted it.

It was in July of 1999 that I saw The Curse of the Blair Witch on the SciFi Channel. The special might be one of the most ingenious bits of marketing in film history, adding a ton of valuable background information to the tale and planting the seeds of doubt in a skeptical audience. Not to mention that it was as adeptly conceived as the theatrical release. Now, I knew at that point that it wasn’t real. My early teen arrogance probably would have led me that way even if it was, but I did become obsessed with it. On one of my weekly trek’s with Chris (who you might know from Thirty Knapp Road), I even bought a T-Shirt for the film from Suncoast… without seeing the movie. Ahhh, T-Shirts, the sure sign of conceptual devotion. Though I missed its theatrical run ( I was NOT going with my parents), I was able to watch it on VHS the week it came out. Its impact on my perception of storytelling and conceptualization was profound. I had never seen anything like it and, even after years of film study, have yet to see as effective an execution of the format. Chris and I would even film a parody of the movie on his father’s camcorder. I’d show you it, but its terrible and absolutely not funny. I also found out later that Chris hadn’t seen the film at the time and was oblivious to my constant attempts to directly parody scenes.

Bummer.

I was, however, wearing my sweet Blair Witch shirt during the shoot. Man, I miss that shirt.

Russ Gomm’s The Blair Witch Project features far more interesting and insightful anecdotes than mine, including some from Writer/Director Eduardo Sanchez. It also features a nice history of the film, even finding time for a good amount of commentary on the second one. As anyone who has dug into the production knows, there is a lot of cool world building for the film presented in other media. This includes the original webpage which portrayed the events of the film as real, a terrifically innovative technique in 1999. You can still find that original material here. Gomm covers the inception and execution of all this as well, which is one of the points that extends the book further than the typical Arrow Films Limited Edition booklets. There were even a couple of television specials I was completely unaware of, including The Burkittsville Seven, an even darker, Showtime-aired counterpart to The Curse special. I think the most intriguing aspect of the book is Gomm’s masterful contextualization of the information provided. There are a lot of tidbits in the book that I’ve heard before, but now I feel I have a much better grasp on the production. By book’s end, the reader will truly feel they saw the process from inception to release. Some of the information on that inception is especially fun, as there were a few influences on the film that I never would have called, but certainly see now. The book itself is the same dimensions as the publications found in the Arrow Video Limited Editions, and is suitable for display right next to the Lionsgate Blu-Ray release. It’s almost as if Arrow has created their Blu without getting the rights, with cover art matching the quality of their film releases. My only real issue with the publication is the length. Yes, it is longer than the typical Arrow Blu-Ray booklets, but it still feels a bit more like one than it probably should. Gomm hits all the important points, but I think it could have been even stronger with more interviews and specifics. The breaks in the narrative all make sense, but a little more meat in-between could have really put this one on a pedestal. Regardless, this is a must-have for any Blair Witch or horror fanatic and I hope that Arrow Books continues to go after cool, niche titles like this.

The Blair Witch Project by Russ Gomm is now widely available, you can find it easily on Amazon.