Newcity staff

Jerry's Witch
Columbia College alum and filmmaker Jerry Vasilatos recently released a "Blair Witch Project" parody called "The Blair Witch Rejects" on the home video label of his Nitestar Productions company. Vasilatos, profiled by Newcity in 1996, had overcome a devastating accident -- whereby he was dragged 40 feet by an elevated train and lost a leg -- to direct "Solstice," the story of a forlorn young man's Christmas travails through Chicago. With the "Blair Rejects," which got a favorable write-up in Entertainment Weekly last month, Vasilatos, who now lives in L.A., got the opportunity to poke fun at a burgeoning industry. "There were several independent groups in L.A. all jumping on the 'Blair Witch' bandwagon," Vasilatos says. "To me, that's what was spoofable... filmmakers haphazardly rushing to ride the coattails of something else." The story (available at www.nitestar.com) follows a group of disorganized filmmakers chasing the legend of the West Woods witch, but who find that knocking off the Blair Witch phenomenon is fraught with problems -- including the numerous other film crews out in the words trying the same thing. When the group gets lost and is forced to spend the night in the woods, they encounter everything from a miniature Stonehenge to the phantom strains of "Taps," all leading to a hilarious conclusion. "The whole thing became a slapstick farce," Vasilatos says.

(03/09/2000)


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