Blair Witch

A thrill ride that’s as terrifying as it is no-nonsense.

Wingard and Barrett add a creepy body horror element to the mix early on, and thanks to the forceful sound design there’s a greater sense of some massive, physical thing in the forest than the first film ever had — but Blair Witch is at its best when it’s honoring what has come before.

Effectively scary and occasionally inventive, Blair Witch is a solid genre film both helped and hindered by its franchise’s place in cinematic history.

Falling into the trap that sinks most horror sequels, Blair Witch amps the jolts and shocks with more visceral frights (there’s some business involving an infected foot wound that is truly unnerving and also super gross) to diminishing results.

The acting and filmmaking are too crude to make you care about what happens to any of them, even though you know pretty much exactly what that will be.

There’s no methodical build-up to the suspense, no time to empathize with the characters, just unneeded bits of exposition the first film didn’t need to scare you to death.

A wheel-spinning homage gone terribly awry.

I loved the first movie, it was so innovative for its time but 2016 is scarier for different reasons. Good horror/suspense taps into the viewer's fear of the unknown and a variety of standard phobias i.e. claustrophopbia (you will be terrified in one part), darkness, noises. This film had them all. It does follow the first film's format quite closely but the the thrills are different. I didn't feel as close to the characters.

Conceptually I don’t think found footage films have aged well. It was charming back in the nineties as a different way of storytelling but not when everyone has an iPhone or whatever the concept of camcorders and finding the footage is badly dated. The shaky camera was especially nauseating to me in the first half. Story wise it’s a sequel but the formula is identical to the original, albeit greatly finessed. That’s not a bad thing as the production quality is greatly improved with a more refined pace, incredible sound design and more supernatural shenanigans. This is the best of the franchise but that is not saying much as they are all distinctly unremarkable. But that previous sentence is saying a lot about the excellent marketing of the first film without which I would never be writing this review. Credit to the film, it held my attention, had the best claustrophobia scene I’ve ever seen and at least it’s better than Slender Man (2018), well everything is better than that.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This film comes off as a poorly done money grab. I don't expect top notch effects or a top notch story from a found footage film, but for the most part this is nothing but a boring film with bad acting. I never felt an inkling of fear.

The original 1999 film was a masterclass in fear, suspense, improvisational acting and the power of subtlety. This belated cash grab, on the other hand, is a 90-minute showreel of every terrible found-footage cliché that has ever been used since the dawn of the millenium. It manages to extinguish every single one of its creepy moments - which are few and far-between - with deafening sound effects, weak acting and an everlasting number of pathetic jump-scares that are about as creative as a child running up behind you shouting "boo". Sitting through its running time was a thoroughly annoying experience, though its unintentionally hilarious ending had me in stitches.