The best thing I can say about Blair Witch is that it makes you really appreciate the original movie. Have you been on the fence over whether The Blair Witch Project was movie brilliance or a boring slog through the woods where nothing happens? Rather than being the terrible sequel that makes you question why you even liked the first film, Blair Witch forces your to reexamine and appreciate the things the progenitor did right. The feel of authenticity. The character study of how a group of people turns on each other in a time of hardship. The clever film style that started a genre. The vague notion of whether there really was a Blair Witch or if the group was being stalked by a redneck serial killer. Director Adam Wingard throws all of these out the window and gives us a movie which would never lets you forget that you’re watching actors and not something that could ever be mistaken for real found footage. Throw this on the same pile of forgotten sequels with Book of Shadows: Blair Witch II (a movie that I actually like for being a good-bad movie).
James (played by James Allen McCune) has uncovered some footage that his sister, Heather, is still alive. Despite her mysterious disappearance about 20 years ago, he is convinced that she’s still in the same spooky house in the same spooky woods that she disappeared in. The footage shows a reflection the mirror that James is convinced is his sister but to me look like a witch. Presumably Heather is still running around in terror in the same spooky house. The timing of this entire movie is weird. James’ friend a Peter (Brandon Scott) says he was on the search party that looked for Heather. Twenty years ago? He and James look like they’re in their 20’s. Was Peter a search party baby?
Lisa (Callie Hernandez) is confident that with all the tech at their disposal there is no way they’re getting lost in the woods. Twenty years means better technology. James and his crew get a drone, a GPS location device, and, most conveniently, Bluetooth cameras that make everyone look like mid-2000’s middle managers. I must have missed the part where these cameras have unlimited battery life and unlimited memory. “Footage” from these cameras make everything look like a first-person video game. In my estimation, Blair Witch has more in common with Hardcore Henry than a found footage film.
No one ever seems to take the off, either. There’s a scene where Peter has a look at a bandaged wound on Ashley’s foot. Ashley (Corbin Reid) got the cut while walking barefoot through a riverbed, a move that ranks very high on the “dumb things people do in a horror movie” scale. The camera does a conventional shot/reverse shot scene, and it made me wonder, “How are they possibly getting this footage?” This is when I noticed the Bluetooth. To which my follow-up inquiry was, “They planned on wearing these Bluetooths to bed?” Their ears must be less sensitive than mine, because I’d be whipping that straight off.
Blair Witch reeks of trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. It’s not the film’s most grievous sin, though.
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It’s a little odd that its little brother of a movie that hit the theater in the 90’s decided to change things up by becoming more extreme and in your face. The Blair Witch now puts weird worm creatures in people’s bodies. She snaps bodies in half. And she’s not hiding in the shadows anymore. We get a good glimpse on the Witch herself on several occasions. She’s a tall, gangly creature that is quite possibly an alien. Remember how it could be possible that a deranged local or even Josh was the killer in the first movie? That’s of the table now.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Blair Witch.
Why do people stand in the corner? Why does everyone seem to ask in circles in the woods? Well… there’s backstories for that — all of which make the mythos seem sillier and sillier. Another reason I like Book of Shadows: in its own way, it respected the conceit from the first movie that the Blair Witch might not actually exist. If the witch exists and is an alien that makes you stand in the corner… well, that just raises further questions!
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I will give the movie credit, though: it is filled with legitimate scares. Like the first movie, it’s got great sound design. Each snap and each creak are ominous and haunting, especially since the film has no soundtrack and is often plunged in silence. When the drone takes off, its rotors fill the audio with something that sounds like a horror movie score.
The higher definition footage lets the darkness play extra tricks on your eyes. Barely defined shapes are suddenly threatening, as if they can jump up and take life at any moment. There’s a good movie in here about the terrors of camping. It’s a shame it had to be a Blair Witch sequel.
Rating: 3/5 stars.