The University of Pittsburgh Library System has added archival materials from The Blair Witch Project to its Horror Studies Collection.
The acquisition includes production materials and promotional items, like the infamous missing person flyers, along with reviews, articles, games, comics, and other tie-in media demonstrating the 1999 film’s impact.
The materials come from writers-directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick and producers Gregg Hale and Mike Monello.
“We’re thrilled to find a permanent home for our collection of records, memorabilia, and ephemera from a little horror film that lucked its way into cinema history,” Hale said.
“What’s particularly interesting is that nearly all the students we teach and show this collection to have lived with the internet their whole lives,” noted Horror Studies Collection Coordinator Ben Rubin. “And this is a look back into the era just before that, and at such an important part of how today’s film marketing landscape came to be.”
The new collection will be processed in the spring, but some highlights are on display now in the Archives and Special Collections Exhibit Gallery on the third floor of Hillman Library.
The Blair Witch Project joins an extensive Horror Studies Collection built upon the bedrock archival collection of filmmaker George A. Romero.
Other materials include scripts from John Carpenter and Wes Craven; the literary papers by Linda D. Addison, Gwendolyn Kiste, Daniel Kraus, and Tim Waggoner; first editions of Frankenstein, Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe works, horror pulps and comics; and more.
