It’s scary walking in the foot prints of a legend. It’s not an easy task to try to tackle a sequel to one of the most iconic horror films ever made. Scratch that – one of the most iconic films ever made, period. You will never be able to catch the magic of the original. It was a once in a lifetime thing. It was an event. It was one of the first films to fully utilize the strength and broad reach of the internet (still in its infancy) to create a buzz that we now associate as viral marketing. I remember seeing the poster in the lobby of the theater one night and immediately going on the computer the next day to search what happened to these kids. Reading about these kids that disappeared and how their footage was found a year later sparked a level of intrigue in me that I had never experienced from a film before. It was a feeling of uneasiness and danger – as if this was something that was not meant to be seen.
There’s an authenticity to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) that even now, knowing that it’s all made up, still feels like I’m watching three innocent people spiral into hell. Even seeing Joshua Leonard (one of the three actors in the film) pop up as character roles in films alongside Mark Duplass and others, I still wonder if the woods in Burkittsville, Maryland hold some sort of mysterious force; some malevolent cracking sounds heard in the distance; or an abandoned house that sits deep in the woods. As silly as some of these statements sound, this fascination with the myth led me to wander back into the woods to seek out the new BLAIR WITCH with excitement and trepidation.
It seems like the path through the trees left behind by directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick is still easy to follow, despite the 17 years of over growth that you would expect. So much so that director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett lead this new group down the exact same path. The same structure of kids with cameras spend the night, weird stuff begins to happen, they can’t find their way out, and then they find a house in the woods is implemented. Try as they may to inject some new ideas into the franchise – typing that word just seems bizarre to me – the duo seem to be held back by some unseeable evil power. You can almost picture the meeting between studio executives and two gifted up and coming voices in the horror genre. “It needs to feel like a remake but be a sequel. It has to be found footage but you need to update it with the new bells and whistles. It needs to stay true to the original film but definitely needs to have more action. Got it? Good.”
This time around though we are given more than just three unlucky travelers. The brother of Heather Donahue, the girl who went missing in 1994, sets out to find his missing sister after he sees a video online of a woman running through a house that he believes is her. James (James Allen McCune) is being documented every step of the way by Lisa (Callie Hernandez) who is filming a doc on her friend’s search for a class project. We’re also given James’ childhood friend Peter (Brandon Scott) and his girlfriend Ashley (Corbin Reid). Their search for who uploaded the video leads them to a couple outside the Black Hills (Wes Robinson and Valorie Curry). Under the guidance of these two strangers, the group heads into the woods to look for Heather.
Subtlety is thrown out the window almost immediately after they enter the woods. BLAIR WITCH becomes a fun house ride of sorts, for better or for worse. Footage from different cameras are constantly being cut back and forth, glitches from the recordings mix with loud sounds from the woods to become just deadening noise, and the sense of space is completely lost as the background is often an inky blackness (about half the film takes place at night). It’s effectively disorienting, which is entirely the point, but a bit overwhelming. Atmosphere is lost in order to cram in more scares. Thankfully, at least a few will make you jump.
As you would expect since the film takes place in 2014, there is some cool updates to the technology with the inclusion of different types of cameras including a drone. In addition, the sequel also expands the mythology of the woods themselves and the witch (which some will either like or dislike). There is a whole supernatural meaning behind things which takes the real world dread into another type of world entirely, however, they don’t do enough with it. The opportunity is there to do some unique things with the visuals and storytelling given this supernatural element, but instead they fall back on nods to the first film as a safety net, recycling the same beats and same imagery fans are expecting. What’s frustrating is that the potential is there for more, and I can’t help but wonder if Wingard and Barrett wanted to play around more in the woods as well.
Given the fact that they have previously made two amazing genre films (YOU’RE NEXT and THE GUEST) that creatively subverted the types of films they were riffing on, it’s puzzling that they went the route of directing a sequel/remake that feels like any number of gun-for-hire horror directors could have made. For the casual horror fan, there’s nothing really wrong with BLAIR WITCH: a few good scares, some funny lines, and characters you didn’t hate. But fans of the duo know that the film doesn’t bare their signature mark. Even more worrisome, if this does end up doing well, are fans of the original BLAIR WITCH PROJECT going to get treated to yet another trip through the woods to grandmother’s house? I typically recommend the sound advice of “safe travels,” but this venture seems to play it a little too safe.
Overall rating: 3 out of 5
BLAIR WITCH opens in theaters September 16, 2016
