The board of the Henderson County (N.C.) Public Library ordered May 14 the removal of the Blair Witch Project from its video collection. However, the book based on the sleeper independent-movie hit of 1999 will remain on the shelves, according to a May 15 Associated Press report.
The board’s decision overrode the recommendations of the materials-review committee, which was comprised of two HCPL staff members and trustee Maxine Mays. One of two board members who abstained from voting, Mays asserted that while she disliked the film, “The point is, why do I get to say what other people can see?” Trustee Stan Shelley countered, “I do not think it should be in the library” because he found its “excessive use of vulgar language to be objectionable.”
A mock documentary about three student filmmakers who disappear in the woods while making a movie about the local legend of the “Blair Witch,” the video of the film had been borrowed 69 times since its August 2000 acquisition by HCPL, library director Bill Snyder told AP. Trustees declined to reveal who had challenged the video.
Posted May 20, 2002.