“Blair Witch, ” a modern take on the 1999 film “Blair Witch Project”, contains the same essential story beats as its predecessor without any discerning twists and turns.
Set 20 years after the first film, James (James Allen McCune) discovers evidence his sister Heather, the previous film’s protagonist, might be alive.
James sets out to the Black Hills Forest with documentary film student Lisa (Callie Hernandez), best friend Peter (Brandon Scott) and his girlfriend Ashley (Corbin Reid) to find his missing sister. Along the way, the group partners with couple Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry), two Blair Witch buffs who discovered the video evidence in the dense and highly populated woods.
Their situation starts to go awry as things go bump in the night and mysterious happenings begin to occur. As the previous film already established, it’s clear that most likely everyone will die, which sucks out most of the suspense.
Director Adam Wingard wasted no time to quickly get into the lore of the supernatural elements by building off of the witch’s powers. By this point, the audience is already aware of the witch and her capabilities, but most of her background is needlessly retconned.
Like “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” and “Creed,” this soft-reboot stars a new cast while continuing the story and including additions to the overall lore of the universe. But, while the two aforementioned films followed some of the same beats while keeping the story fresh, “Blair Witch” is a modern-remake with terrible execution.
Poor utilization of elements from “Blair Witch Project” betrays the documentary-style elements with fancier, Hollywood-style gear and the usage of typical horror movie tropes. Classic clichés such as loud jarring noises, jump-scares, characters becoming overly scared and the black guy dying first have all ruined an otherwise potentially great soft-reboot.
The film feels like it’s going on forever, despite only reaching the 90-minute mark. Half of the film is spent setting up the outing to the woods and the characters; and the second half is screaming, running, and sticks being broken. Perhaps the most exhilarating part was the final act, where small corridors of the dilapidated house in the forest come into play.
“Blair Witch” is shot through various cameras that each character uses. One major change is the use of point-of-view wearable cameras with amazing picture perfect quality that beats out GoPro. The film also wants to remind that it’s very much like its predecessor by giving the Blair Witch buffs an older camera that contrasts the modern high-tech.
The problem here is that after the success of “Blair Witch Project,” many horror films utilized the same documentary style. “Paranormal Activity” kept things fresh by twisting that filmmaking aspect by utilizing security footage. “Blair Witch” didn’t exactly reinvigorate the formula, nor build upon it.
Even though “Blair Witch Project” didn’t exactly invent the fictional documentary style, it felt like watching a real life documentary film made by film students. Whereas the previous film was created with an indie film budget of $60,000 oppose to “Blair Witch’s” $5 million budget, there is a larger loss of horror when it was beautifully shot with various cameras that otherwise felt more Hollywood than indie.
I hope that in the “Blair Witch 3,” anyone who happens to find the next footage gives it to the FBI, let some of their agents stay overnight in the forest, and if anyone disappears, napalms the woods and build a strip mall. That will at least provide some closure on the whole series.