The original Blair Witch Project can never be replicated. That’s less because of the movie, and more because of the changing times: In the era of social media and instant fact-checking, the idea that audiences would come to see a fictional horror film believing it to be a documentary — which really did happen during the film’s initial theatrical run — is absurd. But internet access was not as widespread back in 1999, and it was much easier to control the narrative around a movie, particularly a tiny one that came out of nowhere like Blair Witch.
It’s also easy to forget that The Blair Witch Project pioneered the “shaky cam” style that’s become ubiquitous in modern found footage movies — not to mention that it essentially invented the found-footage genre! It’s a singularly influential film, in short, and redoing it requires a fresh angle on the concept. Godzilla Vs. Kong director Adam Wingard tried in 2016, basically redoing the plot of the first film with updated 2010s camera gadgetry. That didn’t go so well, so now another attempt is in the works.
