‘BLAIR WITCH’ Review

When The Blair Witch Project came out in the Summer of 1999, I was working in a movie theater as a concessionist. I started in the summer after graduating high school as the theater was new plus they realized how understaffed they were when they opened with Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. I remember the year pretty damn distinctly. There was one film that I kept my eye on, being the horror fan that I was, I knew that a film that was being touted as “scary as hell” was coming out late summer. I expressed my interest of horror films to my co-workers upon meeting them so by the time the hype train for The Blair Witch Project started rolling into the station, people were asking me about it. All I could tell them was the information that I had read from Entertainment Weekly, message boards and IRC chats I frequented. By no means was it “insider” information but it was advanced for most of my co-workers and even some patrons. I even frequented the Blair Witch website and got familiar with the mythology. By the time, my mom and I saw the film opening night, I knew the whole backstory and was deeply invested. To this day, The Blair Witch Project is the only film that made my heart skip a beat. The ending made my internal temperature plummet to some sort of icy depth. I got immediate goosebumps when I saw Mike in the corner (Hell, even typing this is reminding me of this feeling). The camera dropped. The image turned sideways and the film got caught in the gate making the image “ghost” as it passed through. Cut to black. Then the omnious music/soundscape started by Antonio Cora started and the first credit came on the screen. I looked at my mother and she felt the same thing. We both exhaled deeply, thankful that the nightmare was over for us. As I exhaled, the he auditorium’s house lights came up and I realized I was no longer in the Black Forest Hills. I was no longer in the basement of the mystical house. I was safe. The sounds of the patrons faded from a muffled sound to clarity. That’s when I heard, from behind me in a southern drawl, “That movie sucked”. “That was stupid”, said a woman ahead of me. All around me, people begrudgingly exited the theater. I could feel the disappointment in the packed theater. I kept quiet and my mom and I walked out to the lobby where people were at Guest Services asking for their money back. I had never seen such a violent reaction before. My mother and I got out to the parking lot and I could still hear people complaining vehemently until we got in the car and I shut the door. My mother and I talked about the film and we both were of the same opinion, The Blair Witch Project was truly scary.

I believe we kept the film through September and into early October. During its run, I would see the film six times. Sometimes by myself, sometimes with some of the staff. It sparked going on amateur ghost hunts. As the years progressed, I went from being the minority with my co-workers and friends to meeting more people that found the film as scary as I did. It seems like the popular opinion at the time was to hate the film for being so low-budget, so shaky and unprofessionally shot to realizing that it was the start of something that still continues today. Some viewers thought it was real and while I didn’t buy into that and knew it was all fiction, there was definitely a line that was crossed. Reality seemed blurred. It could have been real.

After being initially disappointed with Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, I felt that The Blair Witch Project was done. There were talks about a prequel and even some sort of sequel by the original filmmakers but it didn’t seem like it would come to fruition. Earlier this year, a teaser trailer for a film that writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingard came out called The Woods. When I saw it, I automatically got the feeling that this might be Blair Witch-ian. I knew the original film was titled “The Woods Movie” and 2 weeks before San Diego Comic Con, I pretty much confirmed that this was a new Blair Witch entry by going frame by frame on the teaser trailer and possibly seeing a stickman figure. My excitement was heightened and then it was confirmed that this was actually a sequel to The Blair Witch Project.

Blair Witch dives right in and doesn’t take much time to set up too much background other than one of our main characters, James, believes that some uploaded footage, which the filmmakers/marketing team cleverly uploaded to YouTube and I’ll embed it below, might be the footage of his sister, Heather from The Blair Witch Project, that disappeared. Keep in mind that the filmmakers disappeared in 1994 and this new film happens in 2014, 20 years later. No ages are determined which doesn’t give audiences a lot of bearing or a timeline on James’ lineage. While we really don’t need it, nor is this film really concerned by it, for fans (like myself), it would’ve been useful.

Lisa, James’ friend, is making a documentary on James’ loss of his sister (if you want to dig deeper into this storyline, look at Lisa’s Kickstarter campaign) along with other subjects dealing with tragic losses. James has made contact with the guy who uploaded the footage and to gain closure, James, Lisa and some of their friends, decide to go meet the guy. Armed with a drone, batteries and camera equipment, they venture out to meet the uploader, known online as darknet666 (as evident by the above YouTube video), to find out where he found the DV tape that he uploaded. After meeting darknet666, whose real name is Lane, James allows Lane and his girlfriend, Talia, to join them on their excursion. They end up spending the night in the Black Hills Forest and, as I’m sure you guessed, they don’t make it out.

The setup is great and given current times, seems more relevant and relatable now than it would had this “sequel” come out closer to The Blair Witch Project‘s release. Hell, I’m a bit surprised that one of our main characters wasn’t a daily vlogger. All of the elements are there but sadly, this “sequel” isn’t really interested in adding more to mythology or continuing any narrative given from the original film (or the actual sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2), other than the idea of time loss. The truth of the matter is, this isn’t a “true sequel”. This is more of a re-imagining or a reboot disguised as a sequel. As the running time of the film progresses, it feels more and more familiar, generic and lazy. Simply put, this is the sequel that you would expect to be made to a successful and profitable film, whereas it just simply echoes the beats of its predecessor. Given the talent behind Blair Witch, it’s possible that this failed execution wounds this fan a bit harder than the general public.

The sound design to Blair Witch is one of the best things about the film and the last 15 minutes are pretty intense but by the time the credits roll, it is ultimately frustrating as so many things are introduced in the final sequence that it is difficult, if not impossible for some to figure out. For mainstream viewers, yes, you do see brief glimpses of the witch. Yes, the images shown of her are those that can fuel some nightmares. Unfortunately, by this point, you may be sitting in the theater saying “Hey, I could’ve just watched the original again” and yes, you’d be right.