I was reminded by the recent 10 year anniversary of The Blair Witch Project about a story a friend of mine, named Timmy, once swore was true.

Timmy isn’t a liar, though sometimes his stories become a little fantastical, this one was still interesting. He was out in the woods, I think it was in Colorado, when he happened across a fire that had been made a few days before. Inspecting the fire, he realized that it was built to burn piles of papers and documents…

…and headshots.

He claims that the pile of partially burnt papers were headshots, resumes and personal documents of Heather Donahue, the lead woman in the Blair Witch Project. He said it was kind of creepy finding a featured character in the Blair Witch universe had actually stomped off into the forest to destroy her old, post-Blair With life. Timmy estimates that he found these documents (including journals) around 2002, which corresponds with Donahue’s disappearance from film and TV (assuming that she wasn’t filming Taken, which aired in 2002).

Now, this is the kind of person Timmy is: he feels bad when he starts leafing through the files, headshots and correspondence. He felt like he was being invasive, so rather than take all the documents he could and pour over them in his spare time, he collected everything and took it to the ranger’s office, dropping it off at the lost and found.

I was always kind of curious as to why Heather decided to so dramatically turn a page in her life, or - if it wasn’t her that had these documents - I was curious as to what kind of Blair Witch fan would collect all this stuff that appeared to be personal documents.

Probably the kind of fan that would want to see a 2.5 hour directors cut of the the film, which filmmakers Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick are interested in doing if Lionsgate lets them…

From Rotten Tomatoes:

“There’s plenty of fan interest, though not so much from Lionsgate, but I really would love to put out a two-and-a-half hour version of the movie on DVD; like a Criterion edition with a bunch of extra footage,” Sanchez tells Rotten Tomatoes on the film’s 10th anniversary. “The first time we cut the movie, we knew it was too long — it was about two and a half hours. There’s a lot of good stuff that didn’t make the film. I’m really happy with the film and I think we cut it as well as we could.”

I don’t know. I was as big of a fan of the Blair Witch Project as anyone. My first screening included a glossy book of backstory and absolutely no idea what it was that I was going to be seeing. I don’t think I’ll ever be in a horror audience that was more surprised and impressed than the first screening of Blair Witch in Denver, but that’s my argument against a Director’s Cut.

Unless they are going to cut in an actual witch (a horrible idea), the tension of the piece is kind of lost. I know all we’re building up to here is a guy standing in a corner, so why would I want an additional hour of exposition?

If you like Blair Witch, like me, but -also like me - don’t think a director’s cut is necessary, THIS Rotten Tomatoes interview includes new behind-the-scenes footage and an interview with the filmmakers that sent me down memory lane.

Though I just ended up standing in a corner like I always do.