Blair Witch
Dustin Chase
Right next to The Huntsman Winters War, Alice Through the Looking Glass and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, you will find Blair Witch listed among 2016’s most unnecessary sequels. The original 1999 phenomenon The Blair Witch Project captivated audiences around the globe using handheld footage. This would be the first time a mainstream release used that gimmick. That film was so convincing in the pre-social media age, that many took the “found footage” film as authentic. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 bombed hard, and ended the series hopeful franchise. 16 years later the horrible filmmakers behind V/H/S have decided to add another worthless remake/reboot/sequel to a year with little originality.
Heather Donahue and her documentary crew went missing in Burkittsville, Maryland 16 years ago. Her brother James (McCune) has never given up hope of finding her. He along with college friends venture back into the Black Hills where she disappeared after a local resident claimed to have found tapes. Their intention is to camp and find a mysterious house that appears on the found footage, but according to police doesn’t exist. Equipped with the latest camera technology, including a drone, the crew of four, along with the two locals get spooked after the first night. However, at a half days walk deep in the woods, they can’t find their way out as strange things begin to happen and the panic sets in.
A frustrating horror film that desperately tries to reinvent something that was an accidental hit in the first place.
The Blair Witch Project worked due to its novelty. Today there is a gimmicky found- footage movie every month. Paranormal Activity (2007) was The Blair Witch Project of this generation. What this film delivers is a continuation of a story and event that has long been bypassed with too many other projects. Director Adam Wingard delivers a frustrating horror film that desperately tries to reinvent something that was an accidental hit in the first place. Blair Witch follows the same path as the original script which in of itself is boring and pointless watching a new group of people end up exactly where the previous characters did.
The sound editing as the scene switches from one body camera to another is supposed help put the viewer on edge, but it’s distracting, annoying and unrealistic to believe this found footage would have been edited so poorly. Trying to look at this realistically, the four fun seekers can hear trees falling in the distance, and screams from miles away, yet when someone is running full speed towards them they won’t notice until they are in their face (jump scare retardation). Most horror movies create scares by helping the audience understand the situation. This script however is so chaotic and manic there comes a point where the characters are so moronic and the events nonsensical that it becomes a time game. How many people left on screen to die before I can leave the theater.
Final Thought
Fails on nearly every level to reproduce the effect the original had over an audience being introduced to a new kind of horror film.