Blair Witch Review

Blair Witch

Lisa: "There's something out there..."

    Blair Witch is directed by Adam Wingard (You're Next, The Guest) and stars Callie Hernandez as Lisa, James Allen McCune as James, Corbin Reid as Ashley, Brandon Scott as Peter, Valorie Curry as Talia, and Wes Robinson as Lane.

Well, it's obvious these people don't know what they're in for.

    After finding his sister's final tapes of her wandering the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland before she went missing 17 years ago, James is now determined to find out if she's alive, even if it's just a trace of evidence of what happened to her. Lisa, a friend of James and documentary filmmaker, decides to film this à la found footage view. James, Lisa, and two more of his friends, Peter and Ashley, are joined by mysterious residents of the Burkittsville on their night into the woods. As always in a horror movie about going into a forest, bad and scary things happen. Is the legend of the Blair Witch who haunts these woods real? Yeah, of course. However, it's still creepy as f**k

Please tell me in 10 seconds why you think I should grab your hand and help you because all I've seen you do, so far, is make bad decisions at every corner.

    I don't know how many might recall my review back in October of last year, but I made a list of my top five favorite horror movies of all time. The Blair Witch Project was number five on that list. Yeah, it's probably the opposite opinion that a lot of people have for that opinion, mainly due to the shaky camera and very open interpretation to ending, but I have a soft spot for it because of the mystery vibe it gives off. Unlike a lot of people, I personally tend to not get sick over shaky found footage. I know a good amount of people do get sick (my friend I saw it with had to leave Blair Witch for a second because it was hurting his head). So I do understand, but I won't notch that down from the movie, as a whole. It's really just a style of filming that most everyone isn't used to. Anyways, when I saw the original trailer of Blair Witch, it was actually named The Woods. I guess I wasn't too excited about it. However, when the new unveiling of the name came about, naming it Blair Witch, I had high hopes and expectations for this sequel. The original, like I said, is one of my favorite horror movies of all time. Unfortunately, Blair Witch is pretty much the same film as its original. It's a rehash. The same beats throughout the movie are felt: a group of friends go to the Burkittsville woods to film a documentary, they're told about the legend of the Blair Witch, they don't pay attention to the warnings and spend the night, weird s**t happens, people die, there's a scary house, a person is in the corner of the room with their head down, then the movie ends *QUICK SPOILER* with the camera being dropped on the ground. I swear, there wasn't much that this movie improved on. It had some improvements that I liked, but I wish those improvements took the movie in a way that isn't a retread of the original. Blair Witch takes place 17 years from the original. There are obvious technological updates that have been made, but they weren't used to its fullest potential. What I'm thinking of specifically is the drone that had the camera mounted on it. It allowed the characters and the audience to see more of the woods from a higher distance, but all that it does, in the movie, is fly high and look at trees and the sky. I just believe that with time, better opportunities for advancements are presented and should be achieved. Yet, Blair Witch doesn't use them well.

This is the new snot bubble moment.

    I'll give it this: the lore of The Blair Witch Project is refined with more information because of Blair Witch. I wasn't expecting more elaboration with what and how the witch manipulates people, but I'm glad I saw it because it was the best part of the movie. Once you step into the witch's environment after nightfall, time starts to act strange. One character assumes to have remembered another character "just as they remember" days ago, even though it's been just about five hours since they haven't seen them. Another addition to the lore is an explanation of why, in both The Blair Witch Project and Blair Witch, people are facing the corner of a room. It's interesting information, thus garnering it more points as to why I didn't dislike this movie totally. Blair Witch just drops the ball on how the story is presented. The little details, like additions to the lore, are really cool, but that only goes so far. In retrospect, Blair Witch may have just been a short film or at least written as a part of a wiki page.

This scene is one of the new interesting aspects that wasn't in the original film.

    The last act of the film dives a little more into the originality, in terms of adding to the lore. It's genuinely scary and that's what I wanted out of a movie that shares the same name as one of my favorite horror films. Those frightening parts were held in mostly the last act (I would say the last 20 or 30 minutes). The rest of Blair Witch used jump scares. I f***ing hate it when horror movies use these cheap tactics in order to "get" the audience. I mean, it works in some respects when it works together with the movie, but when there's a sound and someone points a flashlight to the empty woods at night, you can't just have their friend tap the person on the shoulder and get a scare that way. It doesn't blend well with the story and it doesn't allow the viewer to be legitimately scared. Still, the last 20 to 30 minutes of the movie actually had me stapled to the chair so I wouldn't jump.

Come back! I'm sorry it was such bad timing that I said "hello" to you behind your back!

   

    In the end, all Blair Witch has to offer is some interesting cool facts provided to capture the fan's attention, but not much else. If you haven't seen 1999's The Blair Witch Project, it might actually be more useful to you to see 2016's Blair Witch instead. The only reason I'm saying this is because this is literally the same movie. If the 1999 version did not exist, I would probably be giving this a much, much, much higher score. Sadly (but not truly sad), it does exist. I'm not taking a big crap on this movie, even though it sounds like I am. It's a horror movie that teenagers could put on TV during Halloween to be freaked out. Otherwise, Blair Witch is just pretty OK. Two last notes: I didn't want to mention Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 because it doesn't exist. Don't even think about it. Also, even though the lore was beefed up a bit more, there are STILL more questions that I have. What was in that girl's leg?...

2.5/5

PRO

• New additions to the fable
• Last act is genuinely scary

CON

• Pretty much the same movie as the first one
• Jump scares galore!
• Disappointing tech updates

Blair Witch is rated R for language, terror, and some disturbing images

Click here to watch the trailer

Blair Witch is now in theaters everywhere

    Thanks for reading, everybody! I really do appreciate it. Please subscribe to my blog and follow me on Facebook and Twitter to receive updates on new reviews and trailer drops. Also, if you've already seen Blair Witch, comment and let me know what you think of it. Thanks again!