Review of Blair Witch (2016) by Thequietgamer — 17 Oct 2017

Did you watch The Blair Witch Project and wish there was a little more going on? If so then this might be the movie for you. Director Adam Wingard basically sets out to remake the original classic, only this time with more traditional thrills. It goes for more than just creepy sounds in the woods and watching the characters break under paranoia and fear. Not necessarily a bad idea, but this sequel misses the point entirely. It needed more of what makes the original so well-respected and perhaps some actual fear to go with it.

One thing that becomes immediately noticeable is how loud the film is. For whatever reason, Wingard seems obsessed in the opening chapter of the film to try and freak us out with noisy cutouts and entrances to the next shot. It makes it clear that Blair Witch is going for cheap theatrics right from the get go. Everything that follows is predictable. You have your standard jump scares that you can see coming from a mile away, as well as reshoots of those tense "what was that sound?" moments from the original that fall flat because of how overblown they are here. Every twig snapping sounds instead like a tree falling. Wingard seems to have missed out on how creepy the more quiet sounds were in the original, so he turns up the volume in every scene.

Not everything is bad in Blair Witch though. I have to give it some credit for trying to expand upon the lore and up the weirdness a bit. The real display of the witches power is pretty neat, if ultimately ineffective at instilling fear. Of course the setting is still great and the extended exploration of the creepy house from the end of the original is something I enjoyed. Particulary for those underground tunnel scenes. The characters are also well done. Great acting from the entire cast. The reasoning behind getting them to go to the woods is dumb, but at least it makes it clear that this is a sequel and not a remake/reboot. Speaking of dumb, the characters have a way of becoming total morons in the final act. Adam Wingard doesn't seem to get why The Blair Witch Project worked. Granted, I would have loved to see the excellent tension, concept, and atmosphere in that movie capatilized on with some big frights, the rather generic approach here causes things to fall short. The scary moments are so overly telegraphed that they lose any impact long before they finally arrive. The twists on moments from the original are disappointing and show a complete misunderstanding of the source material. As a result, none of the creepiness is captured here. It's efforts to expand on the strangeness of the character's situations is easily the best part. Blair Witch lays some groundwork for somebody else to come in and try to get the idea right. Because the first movie's ability to freak you out and this movie's big-scare mentality could come together to create something truly terrifying by capitalizing making up for the shortcomings both of them have. As it stands, Blair Witch is middling and a missed opportunity.

5.