Blair Witch.

Review #1753: Blair Witch.

Cast: 

James Allen McCune (James Donahue), Callie Hernandez (Lisa Arlington), Brandon Scott (Peter), Corbin Reid (Ashley), Valorie Curry (Talia), and Wes Robinson (Lane) Directed by Adam Wingard (#1672 - Godzilla vs. Kong)

Review: 

I am sure you are familiar with The Blair Witch Project (1999). If not, I will simply just crib some lines from when I saw the film two years ago: "Maybe one is supposed to have Jaws in mind when it comes to a film that holds its monster in place for most of its run-time. This falls apart pretty quickly because I actually felt something for that film and its encompassing terror that lurked (and actually showed up), where with these three the strangest thing that happens to these theater folks is having the tent shaken by the director. Actually, I take that back, the stick figures are a bit spooky to look at." Sure, I can make fun of how silly the proceedings were, but that movie made handfuls of money; it was followed by Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000), a movie about people "fascinated" by the mythology that surrounded the original that was incidentally made by a filmmaker who mostly has made true crime documentaries. That movie was a mixed bag (making three times its budget), yet no work on another film bubbled up to the surface for over a decade. Director/writers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez would not be involved with this feature (as each have gone on to do their own features separate from each other), but Lionsgate decided to do their own venture, complete with secrecy (it was billed as "The Woods" until the promotional tours started) that extended to their choice in director in Adam Wingard and writer with Simon Barrett, who made slight modifications to the pitch with more characters.

So yes, instead of making a movie about stumbling folks that got lost in the woods, now we have a movie about stumbling folks that are getting chased in the woods while being lost in the woods. I think you know what I feel about this movie: It does not do anything particularly special that had been done seventeen years prior, as it instead manages to stumble in horror clichés that will not satisfy folks who were either fans of the original or not. Instead of attempts at "raw" scares, the scares seem equivalent to being refrigerated for a few days. The fact that the film was considered a disappointment for the studio despite what it managed to make back on a $5 million budget only makes me more amused that there won't be a direct sequel to such repetition. I am sure that it must have been really interesting to look at footage in 1999 and think, "woah, is this found footage real?" But you are reading words on the Internet from someone with cynicism to spare, and if you are really going to try to get me with sound design and the "idea" of something there, you better have interesting characters or scenarios to back it up.  There is none of that here with a movie that goes from "method filmmaking" to modern filmmaking that only wants the "greatest hits" without actually hitting anything, because seeing failure of folks to get out of a situation with more modern stuff is actually more irritating. McCune is too quiet to actually lead these folks to anything of interest, one who fills the "sibling" role to a T in bland matching bland (but again, that other movie had folks in method acting). Hernandez isn't much better, but at least having enough time to run from horror is more than "nondescript", since the other four bicker and say boring things before they get to picked apart like lambs (no, having a character have a Confederate flag in their house doesn't count as a character trait). Riddle me this: What is there to care about with these characters this time? What is there to think about in its title threat that is different than the last time? It actually makes me wonder if seeing the second film would actually be more interesting if only because it actually flipped things around from "what's that?". 89 minutes cannot solve my gripes with the original, no matter what kind of professional camera work you put into it, and for that I cannot in good conscience give it the same rating as I did with the orignal mediocrity. Sticks and stones may scare some bones, but spooky words will never scare me, you might say.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: A finalist from last year's Tribute to the Decades...

...Altered States (1980).