For those who aren’t a fan of The Blair Witch Project, this article nor the fantastic bluray edition by Second Sight Films will change your opinion. Its okay to not like a film, not all films are made for everyone. For those who do love this 1999 horror classic (yes I call it a classic!) then you definitely have to snap up this packed bluray set. I don’t need to go into why I love this film, just that I do love this film and even watching it within the past few days. It still chills me! So, what makes the Second Sight Films edition so ‘fantastic’ Well here we go.

Lets start off with the packaging, its great it comes in a rigid slipcase featuring new artwork by Timothy Pittides and the limited edition set comes complete with a 184-page hardback book with archive production materials, new essays and an additional book ‘Heather’s Journal’. (the standard edition contains all the extras, but not the hardback book or the rigid slipcase) On the bluray itself (its a two disc set) Disc One contains three versions of the film. 1: The Theatrical Version which runs for 81 mins, 2: the festival cut (which isn’t the rumoured 2 hour plus version, but is in fact 4 minutes longer than the theatrical), and 3: the theatrical version but this time in its 35mm remastered version.

The transfers of all three versions look great, and the sound is also top notch and looked great on my 65 inch screen. On Disc One are two commentaries, 1 which was also on the DVD previously and features the films producers and directors. Its a really good commentary although the one thing about it that did niggle me when I listened to it on the DVD was the semi often references to ‘this scene was longer’ and ‘there was a scene here which we cut’ and yet on the DVD there was no sign of that deleted footage. (but keep reading, that problem will be solved with this new edition from Second Sight)

The second commentary features Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Josh Nelson who weren’t involved with the films production but certainly do know their stuff about The Blair Witch Project. I started off planning on listening to a few minutes of it (I’m generally not a huge fan of people talking about a film they hadn’t worked on, when it comes to commentaries) but I did sit and listen to and thoroughly enjoy hearing Alexandra, and Josh’s thoughts on the film and learned a ton from it. So this is one of those instances where ‘I stand corrected’ when it comes to me thinking that just because someone didn’t work on a film, that their commentary wouldn’t be great- It was an excellent chat track. 

Now that rounds up Disc One- but stick around- Disc Two is where the real footage is to be found.

I adore special features, whether its commentaries or documentaries, I always love to check those out and its a huge part of why I love the releases from Second Sight Films, they always contain gems! When I first saw the press release for The Blair Witch Project a few weeks ago my eyes headed straight towards “The Blair Witch Documentary: a new feature-length Second Sight Films production” on the special feature listing and so, the very first thing I checked out when I had the discs in my hand was that documentary. I got my snacks, dimmed the lights and pressed play on my bluray player.

Written and Directed by Jed Shepherd (writer & executive producer of Host, and Dashcam) The Blair Witch Documentary is one of the best ‘making of’ docs that I have seen. It literally covers everything about the film. From its ‘oh i have an idea for a film’ to the films pre production, its production, its editing, its marketing (which is a huge part of The Blair Witch Project’s success) its release, the pitfalls that the filmmakers fell into and also avoided, the festival run- as I said. It literally covers everything in its 2 and a half hour run time which flies by!  If I had bought this documentary on its own with nothing else on the disc, then it would still have been worth the money. Jed Shepherd has done a fantastic job at not only locating all the footage for this doc (much of it is archival) and assembling it in a way that it feels like we the audience are along for the ride in making The Blair Witch Project.  There is also a huge amount of ‘modern day’ shot footage where we hear the thoughts and stories from the producers and those involved in the films production telling stories with hindsight. 

The Blair Witch Project Documentary truly is a gem. After spending a wonderful 150 minutes watching this documentary, I decided to see what the deleted scenes are (I’m also generally not a huge fan of deleted scenes as they often feel very out of place and they were cut for a reason weren’t they) I stand correct yet again in that had I skipped past the 91 minutes of deleted scenes, I would have missed great footage. For the most (other than perhaps the last 2 or 3 scenes) the deleted scenes seem to be in order which means that for most of the 91 minutes you are being treated to pretty much a new film, nearly an hour and a half of new footage watching Heather, Josh and Michael in the woods, the town etc, struggling to complete their project and get out alive. It works so well as a companion to the film itself. Definitely worth venturing into the deleted scenes footage. After the 91 minutes of deleted scenes, there is another 16 minutes of silent 16mm footage which is interesting but without sound it doesn’t give too much impact. But its worth seeing for completists.

That took me up to a fantastic 4 hours and 15 minutes worth of The Blair Witch Project footage without evening watching the film (which I did the morning after)

Special Feature wise on Disc Two there is an 11 minute featurette The Blair Witch Project: Analogue Horror in a Digital World by Mike Muncer which was interesting but how it could compare to the 150 min making of- was always going to be a struggle.  But I liked what Mike did. There’s also a previously released 45 minute documentary Curse of the Blair Witch. This was used as part of the 1999 marketing campaign for the film and is a fun watch. I have seen this before though but its still great to have on the disc. 

For those very well up on The Blair Witch Project, you may notice that this Second Sight Films release doesn’t contain every single documentary ever made about the film, such as Sticks and Stones: The Exploration Of The Blair Witch Legend which was originally also part of a 1999 special VHS promotion at the time. But that’s okay. This doesn’t claim to be the release that houses every single bit of Blair Witch content out there (and there is a lot) However the Second Sight Edition is easily the best version of the film I’ve seen and contains the very best special features that I think this film could possibly have. For those wondering if Heather, Josh and Michael take part in any newly shot footage for the film. No they don’t but if you watch Jed Shepherd’s feature documentary then the filmmakers do talk about not only the sale of the film to Artisan but also how the films release affected the three amazing lead actors. 

My summary of this Limited Edition Second Sight Films release for The Blair Witch Project. Is that its a 5 out of 5, 10 out of 10. Jed’s making of documentary gets 5 out of 5 and 10 out of 10 and for fans of The Blair Witch Project. Second Sight have done such a fantastic job with this release and so Second Sight Films get 5 out of 5 from me too.

Before I had seen this bluray set. I sat down with filmfan Stu Miller and we had a chat about The Blair Witch Project. Here is that video chat.