Seeing the Witch causes instant death by fright, yet I am still breathing
Blair Witch
**/****
By Jason Wiese
As I walked out of my screening of Blair Witch, director Adam Wingard’s sequel to the 1999 cult horror classic The Blair Witch Project, I ran into a friend and fellow critic who told me that he liked the film. To support his opinion, he said that he felt that it was a much better written and more satisfying horror experience than the original because “at least they showed something this time.” I responded with a quiet laugh and said, “OK,” which, when translated to “Wiese language,” means, “Are you serious? That’s why this was ‘scarier’? Because they revealed the very secret that made the first film original, mysterious and deeply suspenseful? Well, then, I hope you are satisfied!”
Now, perhaps these thoughts come from the horror film preservationist in me that would have rather seen the mystery behind the legend of the Blair Witch kept in the dark. Sure, the original film, which is a landmark of the now overdone found footage genre, may not have pleased everyone, especially those who prefer pervasive carnage when they watch a horror film. Even I can respect that. However, if there had been more imagination put into this reveal, I might have walked out of Blair Witch a bit happier.
The film, written by Simon Barrett, whom Wingard has worked with on several occasions including the found footage horror anthology film V/H/S, is shot in the found footage style under the direction of film student Lisa (Callie Hernandez) who is making her documentary project about her friend James (James Allen McCune). We learn through Lisa’s off-screen narration that when James was a child, his sister Heather went into the woods of Burkittsville with two of her friends to make a film about the legend of the Blair Witch and was never seen again.
Now, before you say, “Oh, I get it. Well, that’s an interesting idea for a sequel: the brother of the protagonist of the original film sees the footage and then searches the woods himself to find out what happened,” I suggest you watch the 2012 sequel to found footage horror film Grave Encounters. I will just say that Wingard and Barrett probably saw that movie too.
However, if my previous assumption is correct, that would mean that the duo also understand that an authentic found footage horror film is a tricky dream to make into reality and they come very close to achieving that with Blair Witch… on a technical level, that is. The characters are equipped with miniature cameras worn as earpieces that create some interesting POV shots and camera angles that are unique to what is typically shown in found footage films. However, what Wingard and Barrett do not seem to understand is that you need more than clever cinematography to make a found footage horror film believable, or scary, for that matter.
For being a sequel to one of the most original and refreshingly suspenseful horror films of all time, Blair Witch is barely any different from any other film of its kind, not even counting the found footage style. It is just another story of one-dimensional young people put in a harrowing situation that only becomes more predictable as it continues. However, the most disappointing aspect of the film is that, for the budget it was given and its goal to be bigger (which does not always mean “better”), it is not even that scary. I would say go ahead and just watch the original, but now that the mystery of the first film has been revealed, I do not even know if I can return to the original and feel the same way. Maybe that is the true curse of the Blair Witch.
Published to Newstime and The Lincoln County Journal Friday, Sept. 16, 2016
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