Nothing interesting can be said of Paris Hilton, the mantis-like creature who represents celebrified Homo sapiens in its purest form. Except this: One of her aunts is Kim Richards, the ’70s child star who appeared in such fine cultural offerings as No Deposit, No Return, James at 15, and, most significant, Escape to Witch Mountain, the classic 1975 Disney flick about two badass kids with magic powers. Richards’s character, Tia, was the Buffy of the 1970s preadolescent set. Also noteworthy is the fact that Escape‘s villains were played by Ray Milland and Donald Pleasence, which is just awesome. (The villains in the 1978 sequel, Return From Witch Mountain, were played by Bette Davis and Christopher Lee, which is also just awesome.)
And what of Ike Eisenmann, the young boy who played Tony, Tia’s brother? In 2002, he directed and co-wrote a short movie called The Blair Witch Mountain Project, a Blair Witch parody and nostalgia exercise that features appearances by several actors who had roles in Escape to Witch Mountain:
In the 13-minute-long production, filmmaker Blair Billingsly (played by actress Hope Levy) seeks out members of the Witch Mountain casts and visits various locations where the movies were shot in a quest to uncover why, more than 20 years after their initial release, the pictures remain so popular. As she encounters many of the actors, she becomes increasingly obsessed with finding Tony and Tia, the two “alien” children who starred in the features. At one point, she even interviews famed celebrity biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli (author of Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness and Sinatra: Behind the Legend, among other books).
You can watch The Blair Witch Mountain Project here. It’s cute but, um, not so good.
