Happy anniversary, Ellie Kedward
Don’t go into the woods tonight
Heather: It’s very hard to get lost in America these days and it’s even harder to stay lost, so we have that on our side. What?
Mike: Well, we’re doing a pretty goddamn good job of it.
Today is the 24th anniversary of the premiere of The Blair Witch Project, one of my favorite movies. I just paused it to post this. In honor of this occasion, I have made the ad-free version of my found footage episode, What’s Your Motivation, Heather?, and its companion resource entry (I create one for every episode, currently porting them over from WordPress) available for everyone.
This 24th anniversary tribute of mine is dedicated to my mom. When I showed her this movie, in my sunlit house, she turned to me in all seriousness when it ended and said, “We have to find them.”
Enjoy the episode, then enjoy my hyperfocused attention to detail in the resources’ post, then order my friend Matt Blazi’s book about the making of the movie, 8 Days in the Woods.
And why not, while you are at it, take advantage of my dislike of summer and my countdown to Halloween coupon—half off for the next year until Halloween. Then all of the posts like these—the ad-free podcast episodes, plus their companion resources episodes—plus more private entries, will all be available to you for 2.50 a month. You’ll help me out a lot, and lock that price in for a year, until the 25th anniversary, when I’m going to have Matt on the podcast. Oh, hey, Matt.
(If you already belong to Patreon, let me know, and I will give you a free paid membership here.)
They might go on forever compared to our footsteps.
—Mike
Click first to listen to the episode here, then click to read the episode’s resources below. But first, I leave you with some photos of one of my most prized horror possessions: Josh’s Blair Witch Mix. The inside photo blurred as I took it, but I thought it looked creepy, so I left it as is. What the message above Josh’s head says is: “Dedicated to the memory of Heather, Mike, and especially Josh, whose great taste in music inspired this album. R. I. P.”
It’s designed to be the mix CD he might have made to take in his car for the trip into Burkittsville and up to the Black Hills Forest.
Blair Witch was legit scary, legit good. It caught a lot of flack from serious horror fans, but it stands as an important evolution in the genre, and it stands up in spite of dozens (hundreds?) of repeat hollywood versions over the years.