Heather? Is That You?

Blair Witch

Does anyone remember when not half of the horror films that are released in any given year were not ‘found footage’ horror films? I don’t either. We can all thank The Blair Witch Project for this ‘blessing’. Love it or hate it, The Blair Witch Project gave a refreshing spin on how audiences around the world got their scares and went on to become one of the highest grossing films of 1999 and the one of the highest grossing indie films of all time. So why not have a sequel? Well in 2000, Artisan Entertainment fast tracked a sequel with the hopes of the Blair Witch money-train not stopping. Unfortunately for Artisan, the sequel was putrid, to say the least, and after time people began to forget about the Witch in the Maryland woods. That is until now, when director Adam Wingard (You’re Next) and screenwriting partner Simon Barrett decided to give the original film a proper sequel, simply titled Blair Witch.

The Story: Set 20 years after the events of the first film, Blair Witch follows James Donahue (James Allen McCune The Walking Dead) who is the brother of Heather, one of the victims of the first film. Spending most of his life searching for any evidence of his sister still being alive, James comes across a video on YouTube that, he believes, shows his sister. Along with a couple of friends, James gets in contact with the person that posted the video and asks him to take him to the spot in the Black Hills where they found the video. Of course things don’t go as planned and James, along with his friends, start to wish they never stepped foot in those woods.

The Good: I strongly believe that I am in the minority that actually liked the first film. Yes I got a little dizzy and yes I didn’t think that it was extremely scary, but I do believe that that the film was inventive and that The Blair Witch Project works better as a psychological thriller than a horror film. To be completely honest, I was waiting for this day to come. The first sequel was the worst film I think I have ever seen and I have seen a lot, so knowing how Hollywood works and the rash of remakes/reboots that have come in the last few years, this proper sequel/reboot was bound to come any day now. I can say that I did like that it directly follows the original film, albeit ‘20’ years later. I did commend Wingard for going back to the original look of the film with the ‘found footage’ aspect. I respected Wingard for introducing a little bit of modern technology so that it separates itself a little bit from the original.

The Bad: I know that was short, but there were things about this new film that had me scratching my head. That new tech that I mentioned is almost all but forgotten as soon as stuff hits the fan. The drone they use is taken out of commission about 20 minutes in the film and the Bluetooth cameras are lost when they really start running, so they resort back to the handheld DV camera that looks like the one they used in the original film. The other thing that bothered me is that this film seriously felt like Gus Van Sant’s remake of Psycho. In 1998 Van Sant remade Hitchcock’s classic SHOT FOR SHOT. Horrible idea and here Wingard and Barrett tell this story almost the same way. I felt like I was re-watching the original at points and remembering the sequence of events from the original has the same sequence was happening in this film. I admit that there are a few changes and obviously Blair Witch isn’t shot for shot with the original but the similarities are too big to ignore.

The Verdict: There were a few good scares in this film and there are points where I was on the edge of my seat, but I account that to Wingard and his ever blossoming talent with psychological scares. Barrett and Wingard add a little more to the mythos of the Blair Witch, which was nice.  However, like so many films this year, this was Wingard’s chance to do so much more with this film and make the Blair Witch relevant again. It is a nice compliment to the original film, but I wouldn’t base building a new franchise off of this sequel.

Watch on HBO.