Movie Reaction: Blair Witch

Formula: The Blair Witch Project + $5 million

There will never be another The Blair Witch Project. That was a sensation from an age before social media. The found footage style was uncommon enough that people legitimately wondered if the movie was real. I remember being 12 at the time and being confused about its authenticity. The scares in that movie are simple and effective. The "I'm so scared" moment is iconic and has been repeated about as much as anything in the last 17 years. Making a sequel to such a singular movie/pop-culture phenomenon was always going to be an uphill battle. Given all that, Blair Witch is a relative success.

The idea for the sequel is essentially the same as the original. Some students go to the Black Hills forest to investigate the Blair Witch. In this world, The Blair Witch Project was real. There was a search for those students and nothing was ever found. James (James Allen McCune) is the brother of Heather from the original film. He finds a YouTube video that gives him reason to believe that his sister is still alive. Conveniently, he has a friend, Callie (Callie Hernandez), who is in a documentary class and, apparently, rich enough to have all the best camera equipment. James, Callie, and their friends Peter (Brandon Scott) and Ashley (Corbin Reid) decided to go to the Black Hills forest to see if they can find her. The meet a couple creepy locals along the way (Wes Robinson and Valorie Curry). From there, it is relatively the same movie as the original except it looks a lot better.

The writer and director have worked together before on You're Next, V/H/S, and V/H/S 2, which is about the best credentials I could ask for in a horror movie. In fact, the writer even wrote the segment in V/H/S that was essentially a mini-Blair Witch. They were wise to stick with the found footage style, even if the amount of coverage filmed strains believability. Blair Witch is shot well. There's plenty of good scares in it and well paced escalation. The only draw back is similar to the Paranormal Activity movies: After the first one, people get used to the tricks and the beats. There's isn't much to differentiate it.

The cast is fine. James Allen McCune, who is apparently not Jake Lacy or even related to him, has a frustrating character. Brandon Scott, who is similarly not related to Kevin Carroll, gives the film so much needed comedic beats. The women didn't remind me of any other actresses and weren't otherwise memorable. They're all red shirts though, so it doesn't matter much.

There's some internal world building that doesn't quite follow. I used my One Big Leap accepting that this is a world in which the Blair Witch can be a real, malevolent force. Given that, I don't buy into the current state the Black Hills forest. According to the world of the film, it was a big deal when the students initially went missing in 1999. The four main characters do run into a couple locals who know of the Blair Witch story, but where's the signs that the internet has discovered this story? This all starts with a YouTube clip that James finds, but that's stopping short. Shouldn't there be more information that internet sleuths have put together or more landmarks around the forest that are known? It's that kind of detail that could've really enriched the film. There's also questions of simple logic. Given the potential danger of this, you'd think that when someone badly injurs their foot, the group would turn back and they don't. People split up way too much too. They don't appear to have warned anyone of where they are going either. It's a collection is little things that bother me.

I enjoyed Blair Witch. It's nothing special, but it has some effective scares, which is all I need sometimes. At the end of the day, all it's trying to do is be better that Blair Witch 2: The Book of Secrets, which it is, so, yay. The Blair Witch Project finally has a proper sequel.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend