Blair Witch follows James, whose sister Heather was among the young people who disappeared while camping out in the woods outside of Burkittsville. The footage that those young people took years ago have become the stuff of legend, and it's become an obsession for James. He and his friends decide to go out there themselves, looking for the house is the middle of the forest that his sister once saw. They enter the woods armed with all manner of recording equipment, and are soon faced with the very same horrors that James' sister confronted all those years ago.
The Blair Witch Project was a revolutionary film in certain ways. It seemed to come out of nowhere, its lo-fi horror style pretty much the complete opposite of the horror films of the decade, which were largely glossy affairs involving the young stars of the time facing off against slasher villains. The Blair Witch Project, with its unknown cast, limited scope, and tendency to suggest horror rather than showing it, felt radically different from everything else coming out during that time. In 2016, Blair Witch doesn't have the benefit of feeling different, and the cracks are kind of showing.
The movie is positioned as a sequel, but it may as well be considered a remake. It adds better cameras into the mix, as well as handsfree earpiece cameras and one mounted on a drone. But it hardly matters that this film takes place after the events of the first one. The characters are supposed to be armed with more knowledge about the threats of this forest, but it doesn't really come into play. In the end, these characters still run headlong into danger with no real plan for dealing with any of it in the end.
And so the film plays out pretty much like the first movie did. There are wrinkles here and there. There are more people, first of all, and the sharper imaging pretty much forces the film to occasionally show the audience something concretely horrific. But for the most part, the film is happy to recall the past, to replicate the creepy disorientation that the first film provided in spades. It isn't badly done, but it doesn't quite have the impact that it once did. In a filmmaking environmental flooded with found footage horror films, this doesn't really stand out anymore.
To be completely fair, this is still one of the better examples of the genre. The sound design doesn't really make a whole lot of sense given the technique, but it's really well done and adds a lot to the experience. The camera work is purposefully confusing, and not just a means of obscuring technical limitations. Director Adam Wingard is a formidable genre talent, and though this film doesn't seem to be the best showcase for what he can do, the skill is still on display. The acting is all right as well, the young cast able to convey the terror felt by the characters.
Blair Witch has better cameras, but it is essentially the same movie as the first one. This is not really bad thing, considering the merits of the 1999 film, and how well this sequel manages to replicate the technique. But it's hard to say that it's a good thing, too. While it is certainly a better example of the found footage horror movie than what we usually get nowadays, it doesn't really feel like it's doing anything that's radically different, or even anything that's particularly special. It is a solid genre exercise at best, but one that may rely a little too much on what's been done before.
My Rating:
