'Blair Witch' Sequel Sneaks into Comic-Con

When Comic-Con attendees last week settled into their seats to watch a screening of a new horror film called The Woods, they had no idea that they were about to witness, arguably, the convention's biggest surprise. The Woods turned out to be a secretly produced sequel to the 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project, and by all accounts, the new film also turned out to be surprisingly good.

The film was shot and edited last year under the direction of Adam Wingard and his script collaborator Simon Barrett. The pair had previously worked together on The Guest and the critically acclaimed home-invasion horror flick You're Next. Their sequel to Blair Witch picks up where the original film left off and places its characters back in the forbidding woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, where numerous other young people have gone mysteriously missing. The new cast includes young actors Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Corbin Reid and James Allen McCune. McCune plays the brother of the original film's Heather Donahue, the film student who led the first ill-fated expedition into the woods.

The surprise sequel could end up being a redemption of sorts for the universally reviled 2000 sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. It might also remind moviegoers that the original Blair Witch, while responsible for a torrent of inept found-footage-horror imitators, was itself a genuinely frightening and groundbreaking example of bare-bones horror.

The sequel is set to be released in theaters on September 16 under the title Blair Witch.