Blair Witch - movie review

Blair Witch

Plot: After discovering a video showing what he believes to be his vanished sister Heather, James and a group of friends head to the forest believed to be inhabited by the Blair Witch.
Cast: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid
Director: Adam Wingard
Rating: 15 (strong language, threat)
Runtime: 1hr 29 mins
Release Date: Thursday 15th September 2016

Are you ready for more yelling into darkness? For an hour and a half of shouting names? For cameras shaking so much you feel ill? How about a film that thinks sticks, branches and leaves are scary? Then Blair Witch is just for you. Can you tell if I liked it? Blair Witch (originally titled The Woods before a surprise name change) is the third entry into a franchise that never sold me from the beginning. Yes, it is a cult classic and was very inventive for its time but looking at The Blair Witch Project now, it's so boring. Seventeen years later, this film suffers from the same problem.


In 1999, when The Blair Witch Project was released, it was nothing short of a phenomenon. Not necessarily because it was the best film ever made, but because people thought this was real right until the credits rolled. A fake website was set up explaining the disappearances of the three characters and the found footage genre was completely new so audiences actually were terrified in their seats. It was only after the film was released that the wool was pulled away from their eyes and the story was false, the characters were actors and everyone had a little laugh. Having been only a year old at the time, I hadn't seen The Blair Witch Project until a year or so ago and with all the hype and promise that this was the scariest movie ever made, I fell asleep halfway through. No word of a lie, I took about a ten minute nap. I knew that the actors were safe so I was never scared for their well-being. That feeling was multiplied ridiculously in 2016's Blair Witch because I was in the same boat as everyone else knowing that these are ACTORS! If I knew I was watching real people stumble through the woods as creepy shit was going on, I probably would have found it scary. To make matters worse, the actors in Blair Witch aren't even that good so any grasp of reality is lost entirely. We follow four main individuals, one of whom is the younger brother of Heather (from the original). He decides to drag his friends to almost certain death (and they follow with no issues, WTF!!!??) to find her. James (the younger brother) felt bland and pointless and his performance by McCue just lacked any chutzpah. We've seen his character before and it's now reached a point where nothing's new. As for his second in command, it's down to Callie Hernandez to hyperventilate every second and complain about how they shouldn't be here. After all, with all horror movie groups, you need someone to doubt everything. The same is also said for Corbin Reid and her partnership with Brandon Scott with their sole purpose to die at some point. Scott provides some decent moments of levity and much needed humour even if it is laughing at someone who claims everyone will die. People forgave the crappy acting last time round but now that we know it's a film, talent should be better than this.

Formerly known as The Woods, I'd say that it was on my radar of films to watch. If anything, it was just because of the talented director of Adam Wingard. He isn't that well known but if you haven't seen The Guest or his entries into the V/H/S series, you'd understand how brilliant of a genre director Wingard is. The guy is brilliant at horror and building suspense. That's why, after finishing Blair Witch, I was so confused as to how this was as bad as it was. In places, this film is dreadful. There are some moments that save it but I was shocked at how uninventive and clichéd some 'scary' pieces are. How many times have you seen an object been flipped in the air behind a character? Or someone jump out from the dark to jokily scare the character we're sharing a point of view from? And yes, Blair Witch does have jumpscares. I don't like bad acting. I don't like poor stories. But the absolute thing I can't stand in any horror film is a bloody jumpscare. I've had various rants about this and of course, a blogger who voices his opinion on the internet is never going to be heard by Hollywood producers so whatever I say will fall on deaf ears. I could say that Meryl Streep is an overrated actress but nothing's going to come from it. I could say that I love the Transformers films but again, nothing's going to come from it? So there genuinely is no point in me ranting about them anymore. From now, I'll just mention that jumpscares appear and they don't work. There's no point wasting my voice. 

As far as the story of Blair Witch is concerned, it is about 95% beat for beat the same as the 1999 original. And before anyone starts typing saying "Wasn't Force Awakens the same as New Hope?" or "Wasn't Creed a copy of the first Rocky?" you're right but they still built off an already lengthy and precious universe. In Blair Witch, they flesh out the story of the witch a bit more but that's about it. It still involves students wandering around the woods in the dark with the camera facing sticks, leaves, branches, rocks and heaps of other things that just aren't scary. Here's where Blair Witch finds it's saving grace. Much like the ending of the original, it's fairly effective. I'd go so far to say that the ending of The Blair Witch Project really unsettled me because of how ambiguous it was. Whereas Blair Witch is very similar in an overall conclusion, a couple of new additions, especially a really claustrophobic tunnel sequence, actually made me tense but still not scared. I'm also a fan of how they used the found footage theme. Instead of just one character holding a giant HD camera, running around with it and never thinking to stop filming even if it might save their life, Blair Witch incorporates modern uses of technology, such as ear cameras and drones to bypass the explanation and actually have some good cinematic shots. But there's that word again. Cinematic. The illusion is gone now so we've just spent an hour and a half of people running in the dark. There's no story to it. If I wanted to see people running in the dark woods, I'd just say that there was a legendary Pokémon in the forest and then chase everyone with a paintball gun. I'm kidding by the way. It'd be two paintball guns.

Blair Witch had this gigantic potential to launch 2016 into becoming one of the best years for horror and really improve this series for me. Unfortunately, it seemed like a  lousy attempt to build off of a franchise that made everyone excited until it came out. Cheap scares, copied plot and poor performances make this an absolute bore.

My Verdict: 3.5/10

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