Fans of the horror movie genre must be aware of one horror film of the 90s which had helped revive the found footage narrative (after ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ in 1980) and had also become a benchmark for horror movies thereafter. Yes, you guessed that right. The movie is none other than the 1999 horror flick ‘The Blair Witch Project’. And in a fantastic piece of news for Blair Witch fans, another reboot is reportedly (via The Ankler) on the cards at Lionsgate.
The supernatural horror flick ‘The Blair Witch Project’ came out in the year 1999. Made on a shoestring initial budget, the film had grossed around $250 million at the box office and was well received by the critics. The film was followed by two sequels ‘Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2’ (2000) and ‘Blair Witch’ (2016) but they failed to live up to the expectations of their predecessor. Besides the two sequels, the widespread success of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ had subsequently spawned a slew of comic books, video games, and novels.
‘The Blair Witch Project’ follows three students who venture into a forest to make a documentary on the Blair Witch legend, but never come back. A year later, their spine-chilling camera footage is found, showing the viewers about their mysterious disappearance. It was one of the earlier films to effectively deploy the found-footage filmmaking technique. The film, although well-executed, was slightly ahead of its time.
The parent film currently holds an impressive critics score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 167 reviews. It’s streaming in India on the Lionsgate Play OTT platform. Now, all eyes will be on the next potential ‘Blair Witch’ movie. However, it remains to be seen whether the reboot would be at par with the original movie, or who knows, maybe even surpass it.