The Blair Witch Project Cast to Appear at Canton Palace Theatre for Special Screening

Twenty-seven years after The Blair Witch Project redefined independent cinema and grossed $248 million worldwide, cast members Michael C. Williams, Heather Donahue, and Joshua Leonard are launching a national theater screening tour.

The Canton Palace Theatre Screening And National Tour Dates

The monthlong horror series at the Canton Palace Theatre features the landmark indie feature on Oct. 3, where the three lead actors will attend the screening and participate in a post-show question-and-answer session.

Following the opening stop in Ohio, the tour schedules additional theater appearances across the country. The itinerary includes the Elsinore Theatre in Salem, Oregon, on Oct. 10, followed by Seattle’s The 5th Avenue Theatre on Oct. 11. Later in the month, the tour moves to Pennsylvania for a screening at the Keswick Theatre in Glenside on Oct. 29. New Jersey audiences can catch the trio at the Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood on Oct. 30 and the Count Basie Center for the Arts in Red Bank on Oct. 31. The final scheduled stop takes place at The Egg in Albany, New York, on Nov. 1.

Early Internet Marketing Drove the 1999 Horror Flick

In the late 1990s, Michael C. Williams was among roughly a thousand actors with an acting background who auditioned looking for a break to get on screen. Released in 1999 by Artisan Entertainment, the movie featured the trio mysteriously going missing while their unearthed footage comprised the premise of the psychological horror flick.

Armed with handheld cameras and an improvised eight-day shoot in the woods, the filmmakers crafted a pseudo-documentary that relied heavily on early internet marketing.

Despite landing on the covers of Newsweek and Time magazines and appearing on late-night programs like Late Night with Conan O’Brien and The Tonight Show, the financial return for the cast did not match the historic box office windfall. Furthermore, Williams emphasized that despite audience confusion, the cast members understood they were acting and were never actually lost or in real danger during production, explaining, And … maybe even a bigger misconception is that we were actually scared and didn’t know anything that happened to us. People just didn’t believe we were acting. But we knew it was acting. We knew it wasn’t real.

Audience Perception And The Legacy Of Improvised Horror

Before the film became a surprise 1999 box office hit, nobody expected the low-budget project to become a sensation. Williams, now 55 and working as a middle school counselor and school theater instructor in New York, stated during a recent telephone interview, We really felt like we were doing something unique and special. I never thought it would be unique or special enough to do what it did. I expected people to be curious about it. I expected it to make the rounds maybe with a cult underground following of people passing around VHS tapes and things like that. Williams also noted that his middle and high school theater students do not treat him like a big movie star, adding, They appreciate (the film), and I thin

Looking back at the film’s enduring impact on the horror genre, Williams stressed that viral marketing alone could not sustain the picture’s reputation, stating, The acting has to be believable. I do think our performances are pretty believable, and if not, it never would have done what it did. The marketing helped and was huge (during) the dawn of the internet, but without the solid foundation of the acting, whether or not people actually believed we were really scared, it doesn’t hold up or do as well. As the actors prepare to reunite on stage for the autumn tour, the shared experience remains exclusive to just three individuals who survived the unexpected cultural phenomenon.