Review of Blair Witch (2016) by Miguel S — 17 Sep 2016

The first hour was a waste. We finally got a little bit of tension, intensity, and dread in the final minutes, but at the same time introduced this weird sort of assumptive mythology (some bumpkin says something is true so it becomes true in the film; sorry, films need to show, not tell).

Plus, there's no narrative structure here. There is no main character, no arc, and no real tension. By creating an antagonist who for all intents and purposes is an omnipotent being, you lose any sort of sense of risk or odds. These (unsympathetic) youths are going to die. Ok, so we're going to watch them get tortured for an hour and a half first? Yay.

Where the film got interesting for me is when you saw the witch's influence on lowly humans. In those moments you gave your characters (with the script given, you can't really call them "protagonists") something visceral to strive against, a real sense of tension and conflict and stakes. Sadly, that accounted for about 45 seconds of screentime at the end.

When you stream this, fast-forward to when they get to the house. If you've seen the first Blair Witch, you will not have missed anything.