Blair Witch (2016)Disclaimer: I'm approaching this sequel/soft-reboot (sequeboot?) as an unabashed fan of the 1999 original.
The Blair Witch Project is, in fact, my favorite horror movie.
Any sequel to The Blair Witch Project faces a conundrum: it can't simultaneously "respect" the original while also trying to be "fresh." A sequel can not, in fact, show "nothing" as the original did, nor pretend it's "real" at all. At the same time, if you do go supernatural and effects-driven you're basically making the antithesis to what you're a sequel to. I don't envy Adam Wingard, but at the same time,
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 should have been an omen that franchising the Blair Witch is ill-advised at best.
I put my reverence for The Blair Witch Project to the side going in. They simply could not have made a movie in that same "tone" - it already pissed off half the audience, and that was when it was new! I knew from the trailers that this film would actually "show stuff," and I was fine with that.
In general, I enjoyed Blair Witch. It was tense and scary (albeit with too many fake-out jump scares) and I could tell it was trying to honor its namesake while at the same time deliberately missing the "point" of its forebear. Spoilers in the bullet points to follow.
Loved:
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- The entire idea of an "endless night" has always severely creeped me out (it was one of my first nightmares that I can remember.)
- In general I also love the idea, vaguely touched on in the original, of the woods existing out of time and space.
- The design of the titular witch was fairly well done, even though it was foreshadowed a little too hard.
- The voodoo stick figures were a fun idea.
- I loved the shot of the tent flying up in the air.
- The final 20 minutes were a little predictable but still tense as fuck and kept surprising me. Some pretty inventive stuff there.
Liked:
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- The ear-piece cameras were a fantastic idea. I really wish they had only used those, to be honest.
- Ramping things up earlier was a good decision, the pacing feels fairly well-done overall.
- It was great to see that my early suspicions of the cameras all producing the same footage was unfounded. White female's Canon had a noticeable bokeh effect and the local dude's camcorder was sufficiently grainy.
- Despite what I say below, I did like the familial connection to the original.
Disliked:
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- At the risk of sounding racist, the two black characters were completely unnecessary. They slowed the movie down too much and I was looking forward to them getting out of the movie so things could progress.
- The drone was pointless and seemed a little try-hardy to be "hip and with it."
- The characters were all stock. To be fair, the original trio were fairly stock-ish but they still felt like real people. There were also only three of them, and they all seemed to at least have a function in the plot (Josh is the one to go missing, Mike is there to comfort Heather after Josh's disappearance, and of course Heather is the protagonist who gets in over her head.)
- Why why WHY IN THE WORLD would the locals, who completely and utterly BELIEVE in the Blair Witch, WANT TO GO CAMPING WITH THE GROUP?? This baffled me so much. It was an easy opportunity to have the "creepy local warnings" trope and they botched it.
- The male local dude reminded me of the (potentially) mentally challenged guy Dee dated on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Was it the same actor?
- When one of your characters lampshades how many jump scares there are, you should realize that means you have 1500% more jump scares than necessary.
- The one thing they should have taken from the original was the "rawness" of the video and audio. I had to laugh when early on they're in their tents and they hear branches breaking and it's a thousand times clearer and louder than the sounds in the original.
- On that note, this is found footage, so leave the shitty "moody" score out of things.
- It's a little hard for my suspension of disbelief to stretch enough for Heather to have a brother over 15 years younger than her. They did it because a brother would be a stronger connection than a nephew or cousin, and they wanted to use modern camera equipment, so I get all that. But it's hard to take really seriously. In my ideal version, he'd be her brother, but this would have taken place in 1999 (five years after Heather disappeared.) The cameras would have been slightly better but still "raw" and grainy enough for my liking.
- I don't know about you but if my phone's alarm went off at 7am and it was still pitch black out, I'd be freaking out a hell of a lot more than protagonist chick did.
In all honesty this felt more like an extended version of a good V/H/S short (down to the unnecessary and fake-looking "video glitches.")
For all its faults, The Blair Witch Project trusted its audience - that they wouldn't need crystal clear audio or video, or a score, or a bunch of characters. Just three people losing their minds while being tormented by an unseen evil. The original intent was to have a "wraparound" documentary with sit-down interviews (exactly like
The Last Broadcast.) But the filmmakers took a risk and made the movie 100% "found footage." They trusted their audience (although looking back, perhaps that trust was misplaced.)
In comparison, Blair Witch is significantly dumbed down for a modern audience. It's still effective, and as a fan of the mythology this movie does push things forward there. I can't fault the film for its desire to "show stuff," since otherwise it could not exist. But I
can fault it for missing the mark in places where it should have copied the original more.
Since I'm so smart, here's how it would have ended in my version:
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Playing off the time and space stuff, it turns out that the light in the house at the end WAS Heather, and when her brother enters the place he's transported back to 1994 (and the ending of the original movie.) He gets to see what happens to his sister before he himself gets taken out.
Now this would have required a lot of camera trickery and effects to get right, but if Deep Space Nine can insert Warf and co. into The Original Series, then a big budget movie probably could manage.
Yes this pretty much rips off a scene in one of the Blair Witch PC games, but honestly, who played those anyways?
I'll probably post a bit more as my thoughts settle. Despite all the things I didn't like, I did enjoy it overall and I'm glad it exists. The worst part about it is I can see the potential for a much better and more effective horror movie right under the surface.
3 / 5
