Blair Witch

Over fifteen years have passed since the mysterious disappearance of Heather Donahue in the Black Hills Forest, but her brother James (James Allen McCune) still hasn't given up hope of finding her alive. When found video footage surfaces on YouTube showing what might be a fleeting glimpse of Heather, James leads a group of friends to Burkittsville, and into the woods supposedly inhabited by the Blair Witch.

Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 might not have been a very good sequel, but at least it tried to do something a little different to the first film. This reboot for the Blair Witch franchise smacks of laziness and greed, the makers simply rehashing the original movie for a new generation.

This film takes advantage of the advances in technology, with digital headsets and a drone used by the characters, but director Adam Wingard is, for the most part, content to regurgitate the same old, same old: strange noises outside the tents at night, stick men suspended from the trees, piles of rocks, the characters seemingly walking in circles, and a frantic finale in a creepy old house covered in children's hand-prints.

About the only part of the film that doesn't feel tired and predictable is a claustrophobic crawl through a cramped tunnel by final girl Lisa (Callie Hernandez); after all of these years, we deserved more.

...that kickstarted the "found footage" subgenre. A college film student (Callie Hernandez) decides to do her class documentary project on her friend (James Allen McCune), or rather her friend's sister, Heather, another documentary filmmaker who went missing back in the late 1990's investigating a local legend about a witch's ghost that haunted the nearby woods. Hernandez and McCune, along with his friends (Brandon Scott & Corbin Reid) and a local couple (Wes Robinson & Valorie Curry) who supposedly know the woods, all head into the forest to see if they can find the abandoned house where Heather went missing.

I was a fan of the original but not the superfluous 2000 meta-sequel, so I went in with lowered expectations. I was interested in what director Adam Wingard would do with the material, as I was a big fan of two of his previous movies, You're Next and The Guest. This doesn't rate with either of those, but I did enjoy it almost as much as the original. It still uses the "found footage" gimmick, with all scenes supposedly filmed by camcorders, or, since this is more tech savvy, small GoPro style cameras worn by the cast, as well as a remote control camera drone. While the movie relies way too much on loud soundtrack-sting jump scares, I liked the decision to be more demonstrative as regards the witch's ghost, and there are some good creepy moments here and there.

Shhh.... Did you hear that?... Peter?... Peter?!... Peter!... Peeeter!!... Ashley!...Ashley?... Ashley!....ASHLEY!... Aaaashleeey!!... Aaashleeey!....James?... Jaaames!...Lisa!... Liiisaaaa!... Peter?... Peter!!!.... Lane?... Laaane?.... Talia?... Talia!.... Ashley?... James???... Lisa? ... Liiisaaaa!... HEY! All of you just shut the f**k up! It's over! OK? Take it down a notch. It's finally done. What started in 1999 with a unique low-budget, cleverly executed and promoted, and genuinely creepy little indie film, finally ended in 2016 with a ridiculous corporate big-budget hackneyed piece of shhhh...did you hear that?... Ashley?... Ashley?.... ASHLEY!

So much for months of hype starting with The Woods trailer months ago which was eventually revealed to be this film.

You want scary? You won't find it here unless you've never seen one of the Insiduous/Paranormal Activity/Conjuring clones to come out in the past 5 years. It uses the exact same scare tactics that made those films so successful, bringing nothing but a completely derivative experience to the table.

This completely failed to capture anything that made the original such a disturbing experience. They replaced subtlety and dread with loud sound effects, jump scares, and video game glimpses of cliché figures.

Did you see VHS? Did you handle it well? Congrats, you'll have zero problems sitting through Blair Witch. The first segment of VHS and the religious cult segment of part 2 are both scarier than the entirety of this film.

The worst part is Wingard and his crew don't even attempt to bring any original story elements to the table. This is literally a rehash of the original story with more characters and a flying drone with updated cameras. And don't expect to have the experience enhanced by any of these.

It's funny that even with the new expanses in technology they still couldn't make this thing more interesting than something that was filmed with 1999 equipment.

This isn't a spiritual successor to The Blair Witch Project, it's a found footage jump scare film for millennials who loved VHS and Paranormal Activity. I'm stumped as to who this was even made for. Certainly not people who saw the original in 1999 like me. We're a little too old to fall for this shtick.

This rating feels really harsh as this was a genuinely good movie and an excellent homage to the original.However the issues here are two-fold:

1. If you've seen the original there's really no need to see this one. It's effectively a modern remake of the original film with some minor tweaks. As a result, there isn't really much need for its existence other than to make more money for the film studio.

2. Part of what made the original so genre-defining and so ruthlessly scary (at the time) was the fact that nothing had been seen like it before. Tie that in with all the paraphernalia that went with it – mockumentaries, interviews with relatives, the actors in hiding for months, and it meant people were genuinely terrified before they'd even set foot in the cinema. Without all that, and with people being so accustomed to 'hand-held horror films' now, this film doesn't really deliver anywhere near the terror or frights that its namesake did 17 years ago.

Despite the above however, Blair Witch does so much of what 'Project' did well. For a start, the characters make genuinely, believable choices (minus maybe the idea of going into the woods in the first place). When you find yourself thinking you'd definitely leave at that stage - the characters attempt to leave. When you think at that stage you'd set up camp for the night rather than wandering round in the dark – they set up camp for the night… So often in horror films we have to put up with idiotic characters making idiotic, wholly unrealistic decisions and suffering the consequences as a result. At least with the BW series, you can actually empathise with the characters as they act in a similar manner to that, any of us would in the same situation.

Then, somewhat in homage to the original, it brings in elements of new camera-work which add to the tension and genuinely seem to present some alternative ways of filming (GPS cameras connected to the ear, looking through the reverse screen of a video camera, drone cameras etc) and all are integrated into the story seamlessly rather than being thrown in for the sake of it.

Finally, although I personally found myself relatively unmoved by the whole thing, the cinema itself barely moved when the credits rolled. My partner and I watched the entirety of the credits and were still two of the first out. It was as if everyone was waiting for the lights to come on first, which would suggest maybe others were more unnerved. I've never seen anything like it! In summation, if you've seen the original, there's really no need to see 'Blair Witch'. It's not that you'll be disappointed as it does a lot well, but it does a lot well because it practically mirrors the first. Not a bad film by any stretch but doesn't offer enough new material to warrant its existence.