Love it or hate it, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project was unique and unexpected at the time. Popularizing found footage horror and basically inventing viral marketing, it more than earned its popularity. Even its much maligned sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, seemed to take delight in defying audience expectations, and even included the little-known “Secret of Esrever” metagame throughout the entire film for eagle-eyed viewers. In order to continue this trend of unpredictability, 2016’s Blair Witch delivers the last thing anybody expected:
Exactly what they expected.
Taking place 20 years after the disappearance of the first film’s protagonists, the brother of the first film’s Heather character, James (James Allen McCune), discovers his sister’s footage posted on YouTube. Searching for closure, he and 3 friends decide to camp out in those very woods in Maryland that she went missing in. From there, if you’ve seen the original, you know what happens next.
In many ways, Blair Witch is almost startlingly unambitious. Our camping college students hear mysterious noises in their tents, they wake up in the morning and find piles of rocks arranged outside, stick figures made of twigs start appearing in places around them, and as they try to find their way out of the woods, they find themselves looping back around to where they started. It is, in many ways, a modern sequel - that is to say, a remake that doesn’t disregard the events of the original.
The one aspect of the original 1999 film that 2016’s Blair Witch does not attempt to copy is its sense of restraint. Where the original would occupy its runtime with scenes of miserable people walking through the forest, this film goes for more traditional spooks, with the supernatural elements being far more blatant. Truth be told, this is probably a good thing. The original’s famously slow pace worked because people would- and did- assume it was actual recovered footage. But this the third entry in the series- that’s just not going to cut it anymore.
Despite all that, however, the point of the found footage genre is to maintain an air of authenticity - something this film struggles to do. Digital glitching and interference are used to hide cuts between different takes, for example. Now, I don’t know how familiar everyone reading is with cameras, so I’ll make my point succinct: digital footage does not break like that. If a card or file is corrupted, the footage will be corrupted in more than just certain spots. VHS tapes break like that- not SD cards.
The sound mixing doesn’t help matters, either. Any sound added in post-production doesn’t feel like it’s part of the world we’re meant to believe it inhabits. Loud noises meant to be heard in the near distance instead sound as though they’re coming from the same location as the camera. This is definitely not the film you want to use to test a surround sound setup. Even basic sound effects are nonsensical. A loud, hard impact sound plays for even the smallest of collisions, just for the sake of jump scares. You see a character lightly slap another’s hand, but hear the sound of a violent punch to the face.
Our protagonists also utilize a multi-camera setup, in contrast to the first film’s single handheld camcorder. Four earpiece cameras, a handheld digital, a DSLR, a webcam, and a drone offer us different views on the action, and force an immersion-breaking question to crop up: “who is editing this footage?” What kinda sicko found the footage from these missing teens and decided to put their footage in sequence for emotional impact? Moreover, which sicko added the score?
Speaking of immersion-breaking questions, this film had the rare opportunity to evade that most dreaded to its genre: “why are they still filming?” They could just forget to turn off the earpiece cameras. Simple. But our protagonists give up on their documentarian efforts surprisingly early on into the film, and yet Lisa still points her DSLR at things. When a friend goes missing, our heroes tie a webcam to a tree for no good reason.
Out of the main four protagonists, three of them don’t have a memorable trait between them, and the last one, Peter (Brandon Scott), is just overly confrontational. The most interesting characters come in the form of Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry), the couple who found Heather’s footage and posted it online. They manage to be consistently interesting people to watch, despite the plot’s attempts to contradict their characters. For instance, a giant confederate flag greets our protagonists upon entering Lane’s home, starting off some implied racial tension between Peter and Lane. But there’s no payoff- Lane never does or says anything racist, and is more than polite with Peter at first. It’s a bizarre inclusion, mostly played for comedy. As a matter of fact, there was a surprising amount of laughter in my showing, because there was a surprising amount of actual comedy in the movie’s first act. It’s off-putting to see a horror film with more laughter than screams.
But enough beating around the bush- is the movie scary? To that I respond a resounding and confident “sort of.” There’s some creative shocks and effective jump scares (though you’ll get burned out of those due to the overuse of the “fakeout” variety), but there’s one especially effective scene involving Talia and a stickman that got my blood rushing, and the film has some cringe horror involving a particularly nasty splinter that I liked. But an important horror element of the original film- fearing what you can’t see- is somewhat tarnished now that you can see the Blair Witch.
Yes, indeed, in brief glimpses, shaking camera footage, and small teases, we get to see hints of the mysterious figure’s visage after 17 years of wondering, and finally realize that not seeing it was much more satisfying. Not just because the design is somewhat derivative of certain other popular forest-dwelling horror figures often featured in found footage movies, but because not seeing her was the scary part.
Ultimately Blair Witch is inoffensive, even enjoyable, and may perhaps be remembered as one of the high points of the Blair Witch franchise. But in the end, during a frantic climax where reality itself seems to bend, and the film finally embraces the fact that it’s its own movie, it takes it all back, and ends in a disappointingly familiar way. I find this to be emblematic of the experience as a whole- glimpses of potential, held back by its adherence to its lineage.
SCORE:
4.7/10
--Franklin Barnes
ADDENDUM:
Part way through my showing, a mother and her young daughter (couldn’t be older than 4) arrived late. The little girl sat next to me, and was a surprisingly respectful and quiet audience member- despite her terrified whispering of “the witch took him, the witch took him!”, and burying her head in her mother’s arms for many of the jump scares. I tell this story as a thanks to them both, for livening up my theatergoing experience.
