The Blair Bitch Project (1999)
The tagline for this film says it all:
"In 1999 three hundred and twenty-four people set out to parody 'The Blair Witch Project,' only one starred LINDA BLAIR." Yes, it's a spoof of "The Blair witch Project." but the film, a 20-minute short, is so damn funny that it's an injustice to the film to call it merely a "spoof." It pokes fun at almost every individual scene in the original. It not only spoofs it; it copies it with the exacting attention of Gus Van Sant with a hard on. It's a scene for scene spoof.
Blair plays Heather and filmmaker Scott LaRose, a stand-up/actor/hyphenate, plays one of the two guys who accompanies her into the woods to film a documentary about the Blair Witch. LaRose pulls a major coup getting Blair and is wise to very rarely make "inside jokes" about her or her cinematic oeuvre; There's only a couple of "Exorcist" mentions. Instead he sticks to the subject at hand and rarely makes a misstep. The preview audience that crammed into the No Dance alternative space to see the film with me laughed continuously throughout. There were maybe only one or two short "dry" patches in the entire film.
I got to hang out with LaRose a bit before the film and he is a genuinely nice, amusing and talented guy. I hope the film opens up numerous doors for him. He takes a film dying to be spoofed, ignores the millions of other wannabes who have already done so, garners the casting whippity-bam of the year, and makes the absolute most of all these opportunities. If you see only one spoof of "The Blair Witch Project" this year. See this one. The only catch is, you have to have seen the original for it to work itself to its full advantage. But, if you're one of the millions who slapped down $7 to do so (especially if you felt cheated), you will get your money back here. Here's the return on that investment in junk pop culture.
Note: Allan Murray, who wrote the script, plays the other guy in the "trio."
