It’s not that often that we can point to a modern film as having invented an entire genre. 1999’s The Blair Witch Project is one such movie. It followed three Maryland film students who go to the Black Hills forest to make a documentary about the titular “Blair Witch.” Supposedly, the entire movie was compiled from the resulting footage from their fateful trip. This approach gave it an astonishing level of realism that had never been seen in horror movies then, and in many ways is unmatched since. Dialogue was improvised (other than the basic framework of the story provided by the directors) and attempts were made to deliberately scare the cast without their knowledge. This approach was so effective that upon its release, much of the general public believed the events of the movie to be real, and the ingenious internet-based marketing strategy only added more fuel to the fire.
All of that context begs the question – is a new Blair Witch movie really necessary in 2016? The story was nicely wrapped up in the first one, and found footage movies are a dime a dozen nowadays. Would it be nearly as scary and impactful now that we know it’s not real? Well, Adam Wingard is here to prove us wrong. As the heir apparent to John Carpenter, his new film comes off of the release of 2014’s outstanding The Guest (it’s on Netflix, trust me on this one) and 2011’s wildly entertaining You’re Next (along with a few other interesting short horror films). So, going in, I had very high expectations given the talent of the creators involved. The reveal of the movie was exciting too – fans of Wingard’s had known he was working on a project called The Woods before it was later revealed a few months ago to be a sequel to the classic 1999 film.
Furthermore, I saw the original film for the first time three years ago, fully aware that it was fake. Not only did I find it scary, but I also appreciated the depth and realism afforded to the relationships between the three central characters. If anyone could recapture these elements of the original film while adding some new dimensions to the proceedings, it’d be Wingard.
I regret to inform you that the final result is more than a little disappointing. I had heard it lauded for being one of the scariest horror movies in recent memory, and it just didn’t resonate with me in that regard for the most part. It also must be said that I am easily scared in jump scare-heavy horror movies (to me the laziest breed of
horror movie, and unfortunately the most prevalent), which this film certainly is. Maybe the reason for its ineffectiveness stems from the fact that it repeats the beats of the original movie on several occasions, while only adding a few new twists on the formula. Furthermore, the realistic banter and relationship-building between the characters just isn’t there. The end result feels far too scripted – an unfortunate result of hiring an accomplished writer-director duo who are used to making an entirely different type of movie.
The plot starts off with a smart concept – the lead in this movie is the brother of Heather Donahue from the original movie, and he recruits his friends to go find her, and, you know, film the whole ordeal. The script then frustratingly refuses to do anything with this information. The context of their relationship is never really made clear, which robs the finale of any potential emotional weight. This also gives rise to a completely maddening plot hole. In the Blair Witch universe, the footage from the original movie is available on YouTube, and all of the main cast of 2016’s Blair Witch have watched it by the start of the movie. However, upon entering the woods, they become just as clueless and ignorant to their surroundings as the other characters did in the original. They all learn absolutely nothing from watching the video. This plot decision makes our new heroes look like idiots, rather than the in-over-their head college students of the first film. It immediately strips the characters of almost all of their relatability.
On a more positive note, the acting is good, and the expressions of terror on their faces are often more chilling than the events that are provoking those reactions. The new spins on the Blair Witch mythos that do exist in this film are decently effective and they expand upon the lore of the original film in new and interesting ways. However, I won’t spoil them for you as they are the only legitimately surprising things in the whole movie. Moreover, the film is updated smartly to 2016. The characters use body-cams, high-quality DSLR’s and drones to mark their position to assure they don’t get lost. But of course, they do get lost. And they start dying. In very, very similar ways to the first one. These sequences are legitimately eerie at some points, once the filmmakers stop going for jump scares and commit themselves to building tension. Yet, here lie the true problems with the film. It can’t commit to being a true sequel. It settles for just being good enough. Every time it threatens to really challenge the formula in the way the original did, it reverts back to reprising beats of a film which had the element of surprise as one of its defining factors.
While these positive marks rescue the film from being a complete disaster, they aren’t enough for me to recommend for you to seek it out for yourself. The film can’t commit to being much more than a glossy, inauthentic remake of the original, which is truly disappointing given the talent involved. Only seek it out if you’re a die-hard fan of the original, but even then, I imagine you’ve seen it already.
