Review of Blair Witch (2016) by Trevorsview — 09 Dec 2016

Yes! Finally! The one sequel that we all have been waiting for! I just knew that the story of the Blair Witch would be just the right type of story to continue as a franchise! This is exactly what the world needs!

Had you there for a minute, didn’t I? I’m pretty sure nobody was honestly expecting a sequel to The Blair Witch Project simply called Blair Witch to actually be good. No, just as you may have predicted, this third addition to the franchise is nothing more than a joyless copycat of the original as well as every other low-budget horror movie made these days.

The plot is just about as original as any Average Joe could come up with under ten seconds of watching the first movie. Blair Witch is about some guy who wants to find his sister who was lost while filming the Blair Witch Project. By sister, I mean Heather from the first movie.

Now, pop quiz: If the Blair Witch Project was claimed to have been filmed in October 1994, and this film here is claimed to have been filmed in May 2014, how old then would that make those original filmmakers be today? Is it… A) Early to mid-40s B) Early 20s like the characters in this movie C) I don’t care that much, let’s just get this screenplay finished.

The answer is… you guessed it! It’s option A! And she has a younger brother who’s like twenty or something! Unbelievable! Now that Heather’s younger brother is out on this quest to find his sister in the woods, he has two obvious sources of moral support. Now what might that support be? Is it… A) The moral guidance of higher authority professionals B) Uninteresting one-dimensional friends with no distinguishable characteristics C) An unreliable drone and a set of amateurish earpiece camera equipment D) B and C.

The answer is… D. Whew. I almost thought I would have a reason to care for a second. After these kids set out on Operation: Find Heather, they step into territory that says, “No entry after nightfall,” a sign we never saw for some odd reason in the first movie. Then their trek into the wilderness faces interruptions by nauseating editing that only shows details as insignificant as a tent zipper opening. Everything I see is everything they filmed over this period of time, and with all the eye-gauging motion the point-of-view technology makes, I wouldn’t be surprised if this movie caused drone and DSLR sales to plummet.

There are a tiny handful of thrills that work in what they successfully capture five percent of the time, like the buckets of puss that flood out of a girl’s injured leg, or the damage done on each of their terrified faces over time, or the relatively compelling performance of the purple-haired Valorie Curry (The Following, House of Lies), but anything beyond that is of small supply.

Speaking of small, do you remember in the original movie, when the townsfolk talk about how the Blair Witch supposedly took children away with her into the woods in the 1940s? Well, nothing about that to be found here in the sequel! Nope, instead of expanding upon what made the first movie a hit, this one overuses unnecessary jump scares to create tension in an already tensionless cash-in by wannabee filmmakers.

So now, one last question and then I’m done. Why was a nostalgic call back like Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens such a success? Was it… A) There were big special effects and loud noises B) People actually knew what Star Wars was C) It gave a hoot about the original D) It was a well-made movie E) The crew was actually passionate about the movie they were making.

I think you can figure out the answer from here. And even more so, it gives an answer as to why Blair Witch will not be the mass success that director Adam Wingard somehow thought this would become.