Don’t worry—there’s no world in which lo-fi horror classics exist The Blair Witch Project it gets some of that smooth 4K upgrade. The 1999 movie became famous because it looks like it it really was filmed by a team of young documentary makers lost in the tropical forest: moving, grainy, strange light, not always in focus.
Although we now know part of the “true story” Blair Witch was a gimmick, the found footage still finds new ways to surprise us. According to one of the film’s producers, Michael Monello, the film is finally—25 years after it debuted in theaters—getting the kind of home video release that its creators (the film was written and directed by Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick) always intended. .
The new version comes as a result of a technical snafu that accidentally went uncorrected decades ago—and apparently makes a noticeable difference in its appearance. Here is Monello’s social media post revealing this:
After 25 years, our mini movie, ‘The Blair Witch Project’, will FINALLY be released as we always intended. Here are the details for the curious. pic.twitter.com/w6S4dm2KKI
— Mike Monello (@mikemonello) November 11, 2024
“The Blair Witch Project shot on Hi8 video and 16mm b&w film and edited on Media 100XR, an indirect editing system widely used at the time,” he wrote. “Since theaters at the time didn’t have video projectors, we had to transfer our DigiBeta master to 35mm in a process called ‘telecine,’ basically recording video on a special screen in a controlled environment with a 35mm film camera.”
He explained that there was nothing they could do at that time. But when The Blair Witch Project was going from theaters to home video,”[distributors] Artisan has made a huge mistake” and instead works not on a DigiBeta master, but a 35mm wire transfer.
“This introduced major movement errors,” explained Monello. “It gave the Hi8 film grain and washed out all the colors with a brownish shift, drowning out the details. The editing of that transfer is 3 layers that dissolve, rather than hard cuts!”
The new version, he said, is the film as it was intended to be viewed, and it was “scary” to begin with; the new transfer’s “looks, movements, and hard cuts create a more psychologically terrifying effect than all previous versions.”
The release comes with 90 minutes of deleted footage and a new documentary, he added. But there’s a catch: this will be a Region B release only—that’s Europe, not the United States. (Monello advised fans to “contact Lionsgate on their social media channels” to request a US release; American fans with the ability to play Region B Discs it can be take it from the Second Site website, how much. You can also go to that link to see the full list of special features.)
And speaking of Lionsgate, the studio recently announced that it is working on a new version of the Blair Witch. To that end, a fan at Bluesky asked Monello if he would The Blair Witch Project actors—Heather Donohue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams—are involved in this new release. Recently, actors have spoken out saying that they were not included in the big profits of the indie film, despite their important part in its success.
Monello replied: “They were promised to participate, but because of their ongoing problems with Lions Gate they chose not to participate.” Note that none of us get paid for it Blair Witch anything else. Our work on this was unpaid, and we only did it to finally get it out into the world the way it was meant to be.”
The Blair Witch Project it’s already scary as hell. It’s hard to imagine an even scarier version—but we’re interested in watching it and seeing if that’s the case. Will you check it out?
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