FREEDOM, Maine (AP) — Heather Donahue is strolling via the woods as soon as once more. The star of the profitable low-budget horror film “The Blair Witch Project” has an on-screen historical past of stepping into scary conditions in a forest.
However this time she is merely choosing up an outdated soda can somebody carelessly left on a path. And he or she would not need to be wherever else.
“For me, reading fairy tales, I always wanted to live in the forest,” stated Donahue, 51, who moved on from appearing way back and now lives in rural Maine. “It is absolutely as magical as it seemed in those storybooks.”
However the final a number of months of Donahue’s time within the Maine woods have been something however magical, or peaceable.
In a accident harkening again to her way back film profession, Donahue has been embroiled in a spat with locals in her tiny, 700-resident city of Freedom that hinges on her marking bushes with the sort of orange blazes that assist folks discover their approach within the dense forests.
Donahue had been a member of the city’s governing physique, its Choose Board, however misplaced a recall election not too long ago after an argument about whether or not a rural street that cuts via the woods is public or personal. The matter stays unresolved, with the city and abutting landowners preventing it out in court docket.
The street on the heart of the dispute
The street in query is Beaver Ridge Highway, a slim, partially hilly stretch flanked by wild vegetation and songbirds that goes from paved to gravel to grime because it stretches deeper into the forest. A number of abutters of the street say the unimproved part is personal and to make use of it for actions resembling all-terrain car using constitutes trespassing. Donahue, and the city itself, maintain that your entire street is public.
Donahue painted the orange blazes utilizing historic maps to point out what she holds is the middle of a public easement. Abutting property house owners have been incensed and the primary profitable recall petition drive within the city’s 212-year historical past adopted. Donahue was eliminated in April and an election to choose her successor is deliberate for subsequent month.
Tyler Hadyniak, one of many abutting property house owners, stated the recall wasn’t simply concerning the orange blazes or the woodland path. He stated it addressed a sample of conduct by Donahue that chafed longer established residents within the yr since she took workplace.
“I was relieved that the recall was successful. I thought Heather’s demeanor and behavior toward others was just unbecoming of a town official,” Hadyniak stated.
Life after ‘The Blair Witch Project’
Donahue, who’s initially from Pennsylvania and has spent lengthy stretches of time residing in California and touring overseas, stated she is conscious of her standing as what she referred to as “a lady from away.”
She arrived in Maine after a winding journey wherein she struggled with alcoholism, left appearing, grew to become a medical marijuana farmer and wrote a memoir.
Donahue stated she got here to the Pine Tree State eight years in the past, overcame her habit and purchased land in Freedom in 2020. Not too long ago, she has labored as a life coach and shared her passions for gardening and medicinal vegetation with anybody who will pay attention.
She is not particularly considering reliving the glory of starring in “The Blair Witch Project,” which was launched in 1999 and is among the most profitable unbiased motion pictures of all time. The movie sparked a resurgence of curiosity in “found footage” model horror motion pictures, wowed critics and polarized audiences with its homespun tackle terror. It additionally led Donahue to years of authorized wrangling over compensation and the suitable to her likeness.
Donahue makes occasional tongue-in-cheek references to the film in passing, but in addition stated it struck her a number of years in the past that her life was inseparable from the movie in ways in which weren’t completely snug: “I had this really difficult moment of realizing my obituary was written for me when I was 25.”
Ordinarily, the most popular gossip in Freedom considerations the peskiness of the native blackflies or the standard of the fishing on Sandy Pond. However the row over the street has turn out to be the speak of the sleepy city some 30 miles (48 kilometers) northeast of the state capital of Augusta.
Donahue has defenders on the town, together with Bob Kanzler, who served on an area roads committee and agrees the disputed path is public.
“Heather has done a wonderful job in researching these discontinued roads in town,” Kanzler stated. “I know the road is public.”
Regardless of the continued battle over the street, Donahue stated she has discovered peace in Maine. And he or she’s not going wherever.
“I mean, this is where humans flourish,” she stated of the Freedom woods. “I’ve figured out a way to do a lot with very little. That was all kind of centered around being able to walk in the woods.”
