While Pittsburgh might be primarily known for its sports team, it’s also got a solid history with horror, whether it’s as the filming location for films like George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Creepshow, or the home of Tom Savini’s Special Make-Up Effects Programs. Plenty of horror lovers (this author included) call the city home, and now, the University of Pittsburgh is honoring that love by adding some special materials to their library system.
The University of Pittsburgh Library System features a widely-known Horror Studies Collection, allowing students and researchers access to items from across horror history, and now, items from the 1999 found footage hit The Blair Witch Project will be joining its ranks, courtesy of the film’s producer, Gregg Hale. The collection, which contains archival materials from directors like Romero, Wes Craven, and John Carpenter, will add numerous marketing and promotional items from the film, including missing persons posters, as well as a large swath of items demonstrating the film’s impact, including reviews, articles, games, comics and other tie-in media
The collection also contains a wide variety of horror-related ephemera, including scripts from Craven and Carpenter, literary papers of horror writers Linda D. Addison, Gwendolyn Kiste, Daniel Kraus and Tim Waggoner, first editions of Frankenstein, Dracula, and various Edgar Allan Poe works, as well as horror pulps and comics.
The Blair Witch Project was originally released in 1999, and is largely considered one of the most successful independent films of all time, grossing $250 million globally. The film eventually received two less successful sequels, as well as novels, comics, and video games, but it’s also largely credited with reviving the found footage genre, making way for films like Paranormal Activity and REC.
The Blair Witch Project is available to stream now on Prime Video.
