Review of Blair Witch (2016) by Miranda C — 02 Oct 2016

The new "Blair Witch Project" leaves viewers looking for literally anything else. Directed by Adam Wingard, this new version isn't up to par with the 1999 film directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez. With annoyingly underwhelming characters, overwritten plot, and scenes I would barely describe as frightening, it's painfully nothing like the first movie. It seems that Wingard took the original and diluted it to the comprehension level of a 9-year-old.

I wasn't expecting a stellar cast from a teenage horror movie, but these characters are especially bad. They introduce the two main-plain-jane characters, James and Lisa. James's sister, Heather, is the girl from the first Project. For some incredibly stupid reason, he thinks his sister is alive in the Black Woods after what took place over twenty years ago. Being the main character, he just has to be obnoxiously hopeful that anything good could come from a scary situation, i.e. camping in a gloomy forest for 3 days. His friend with benefits/almost girlfriend, Lisa, is the one filming all of this for a documentary project. She's the typical flannel-wearing film student, you know, the type that wears leather jeans and heeled boots CAMPING. In the spooky scenes, she has the shrillest and most deafening screech I have ever heard in my life. I wanted to scream, "Hey, shut up, idiot!!!" the whole time there was a scene involving her (which happened to be most of the movie). Peter and Ashley are the other couple that tag along for shits and giggles. Peter is the only NOT annoying character, the only smart one of the group, who, surprise, dies first. Ashley isn't bad either, aside from the fact that she's a brat. She's the first person to get hurt, resulting in her whining the whole time. She ends up doing some stupid shit, like climbing a tree to fetch their camera, and falling to her death. But other than that, she's alright. Then there's Lane and Talia, arguably the two most annoying in the movie. They're useless to the plot, other than being the kids who "found" the tape from Heather's project, leading the group to revisit the Blair Witch Project in the first place. Besides that, they're just two goth kids who need a reason to explore the spooky forest. All of the characters were too well-styled to be camping for multiple nights (skinny jeans and flannels don't count as sufficient camping gear). You'd think there'd be at least one redeeming quality of the characters, but you would be sorely mistaken.

After seeing the first movie, I was excited to see what they could do as far as a sequel. I thought they were onto something when they went the brother-searching-for-his-lost-sister-after-a-video-of-the-original-project-was-found route, but boy, was I wrong. Instead of going somewhere undiscovered, the plot mirrored the first movie. They start by meeting Lane and Talia, thinking the two found footage of the original project in the woods. The two bargain their way into a camping trip in the haunted woods by promising they'd show the group where they found the tape. Peter, the only logical one, pleads for the group to not let these freaks tag along. As dumb as they are, they let the creeps tag along in exchange for a tour of the forest and where they found the tape. Later, when things start getting concerning, they magically realize, *gasp*, Talia and Lane were lying the whole time! Wow, what a thrilling plot twist. Long story short, they kick the two out of the group. As things get scarier, it just gets hokier and hokier, and they have to add the vital-to-horror-movie romance between James and Lisa. "OMG I'm so scared, come sleep in my tent, *wink*." Every plot twist became more annoying than the last. At one point, tents started flying, someone's spine got broken out of nowhere, and it turned into a shit show. All of the "scary" scenes were jump-scares with no real contribution to the plot. They showed the "Blair Witch", who ended up just being a disappointingly creepy Groot. They tried too hard to make the damn thing scary. At the end of a horror movie, you feel a sense of relief because you can go back to not being horrified. This time, I felt that same sense of relief, but only because the god-awful attempt of a horror plot was over.

Compared to the 1999 "Blair Witch Project", the 2016 version is too developed and over-done. The first film left so much of the story to the imagination, making it much more horrifying than the new movie. In this recreation, they showed you way too much, and in doing so, couldn't get into your head. Trying to show the Witch almost completely ruined the second movie for me, seeing as the mystery of the Witch was one of the scariest parts about the original. The abandoned house in the first movie was just scary enough to make you wonder if all of the urban legends were true. In the second attempt, they tried to confirm every urban legend in too short of a scene. They crammed so much "scary" into that last abandoned house scene. It was like the scenes in the woods and the house scene were two entirely different movies. In the first movie, when one of the characters gets lost, you don't see him for a while. In this new movie, they follow each character for the duration of the movie, leaving little to no mystery of what could be happening to them when they get separated. They added in useless characters and scenes, making it too predictable and almost uninteresting. In the new movie, they explained way too much, leaving nothing to imagination and thus, making it less exciting and less of a psychological thriller than the first movie was.

If I didn't love horror movies as much as I do, I probably wouldn't have hated the new "Blair Witch Project". I went into this movie wanting a good re-write of the original, and left disappointed. With lame characters and a less-than-exciting plot, there's no comparison to the first movie. As much as I wanted to like this new version, it turned out to be exactly what I expected from a teenage horror movie, bad everything.