The Blair Witch Project opened on this day 25 years ago. Despite facing off against the runaway hit Runaway Bride, it was a pop culture sensation, with audiences flocking to it in droves based off “scariest movie ever made” hype before social media was even around to make that into a thing.

Now, I am not using hyperbole when I say that many, many people thought that Blair Witch (no, I’m not talking about the belated entry that had that title) was a true story. And since it takes place in Maryland, well, let’s just say I heard a lot about it. Friends and family from out of state asked me if there was a real “Blair Witch” out there, some of them appearing genuinely concerned for my safety. And this even happened years after the movie came out! Sheesh! (Weirdly enough, Runaway Bride also took place in Maryland, so that was a big deal here too. Richard Gere could be seen reading our local paper!)

Naturally, something like this was inevitably going to find itself ripe for parody (Scooby-Doo of all things actually had a brilliant spoof for Cartoon Network, while an episode of The Powerpuff Girls was far less successful), which brings us to the subject of today’s header. The Tony Blair Witch Project is a “movie” produced and released in 2000, and I’m 99.9% certain this is how the pitch for it went…

Now, The Tony Blair Witch project is infamous for making IMDB’s Bottom 100 and staying there for a very long time, but it remains virtually impossible to find. Filmed without a script (no shit!), the “plot” involves a bunch of documentary filmmakers who venture into the woods to search for “The Tony Blair Witch” (at least I think that’s what they’re doing) who may or may not be related to British Prime Minister Tony Blair (initially, I thought this movie was from the UK, but it seems it was actually shot in Alaska, which is where Elmo went to get away from Rocko, but that’s a topic for another OT). From what I’ve gathered, it abandons the Blair Witch concept entirely in the third act and throws in evil rednecks, and I’m begging all bad directors out there to please remove “evil rednecks” from the list of things they need to include in their motion pictures. The rednecks in question are cannibals, apparently, because why wouldn’t they be?

(Note: this “trailer” contains some “violence”; it’s all extremely stupid, but you still may not to watch it at work. I’m not here to get you fired.)

So…where did this movie go? And how did anyone watch it in the first place? Well, back in the day, you could order it from the director’s website (for $14.99, plus shipping), but this was only ever on VHS. And, yeah, someone out there paid money to buy this. There are a handful of reviews online which appear quite legitimate, including this one which seems to non-ironically praise it as being “more entertaining” than the the very film that it’s lampooning. Huh.

But now…you just can’t find this thing. About 40 minutes of it has supposedly emerged online, while a full version of it can also be viewed without sound and “atrocious and unwatchable” video quality. The demand to discover this one isn’t strong enough to really get the internet behind it, so it’s unlikely that any of the (presumably very few) folks out there who purchased it on video are ever going to upload it on YouTube. In other words, this spoof of found footage movies has become…lost.

Have a great day, y’all!