Do you know the feeling of wasting time? It’s called procrastination. It usually means doing nothing at the moment, although you know you should work on something important. Now imagine this feeling while watching a movie in a theatre. That would be the short review where watching Blair Witch is procrastination and the thing you should be working on is living your life.
Blair Witch is the sequel to the 17-year-old original The Blair Witch Project that no one expected and no one asked for. But we enjoy negativity don’t we? So buckle up and let me dissect this Frankenstein of the horror genre. In recent years it’s been very challenging to actually find a horror movie that doesn’t make you feel like you’ve seen it before. And looking down memory lane, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project is partly to blame. Starting as a small indie project turned blockbuster, the forefather of shaky homemade cameras and screaming groups of teenagers gave life to another branch of horror films, including Paranormal Activity, Quarantine, and its Spanish predecessor, Rec.
This new adventure to the Burkittsville forest feels like all the running-around-with-a-shaky-camera pieces of cinematography that came before it patched together. Story-wise, the recent Blair Witch doesn’t really bring anything refreshing. The main plot is about the younger brother of Heather (main character from original film), who, together with his three friends, go searching for his lost sister once more after watching questionable footage on YouTube. Initially they arrive at Blair to find out that the pair who discovered the footage in the woods won’t tell them where exactly (because that matters for some reason?) unless they can join the expedition. So, we have bunch of adolescents, again. They go into the haunted wilds, again. They camp, again. Hike randomly around the place, again. Get lost, again. (This time only once for budgetary purposes, obviously.) And we finish with the abandoned camera taping until it runs out of battery … again. Technically there was nothing wrong with the movie. It had everything an average horror movie should have: a terrifying legend about a witch, seedy motel rooms, on-screen text confirming that movie was shot according to real events, malfunctioning equipment, campfire storytelling, hysterical black chick, even more hysterical white chick, chaotic tapings of surroundings, wooden symbols, an abandoned, haunted building, the typical black-guy-gets-killed-first policy, underground tunnel crawling, and everyone hastily dies as a form of wrap-up.
It almost felt like director Adam Wingard followed some “How to make a horror movie” guide, but messed up completely. The thing that lifted The Blair Witch Project to its cult status is absent. You don’t believe the characters and for that matter, don’t care about what happens to them. James doesn’t seem like a brother who is devastated by the disappearance of his sister. The rest of the group don’t seem actually desperate, and overall, the viewer is given a very shallow atmosphere — kind of like a guy who tries too hard at the bar.
At the end, my advice is to do yourself a favour. Forget about this movie and go watch something worthwhile. Personal recommendations are REC, The Cabin in the Woods, The Conjuring, The Others, and the first Silent Hill. Or if you want something connected to the Blair Witch franchise, read Heather Donahue’s book Growgirl: How My Life After Blair Witch Went to Pot. It’s really good.
