Blair Witch is a direct sequel to The Blair Witch Project and never acknowledges Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, which to be fair, is not necessarily a bad move. I don’t revise history so I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t completely into the original movie’s unconventional narrative take on a standard horror trope, which is probably a major reason that I love found footage movies and/or fake documentaries to this day. I even bought and repeatedly watched Curse of the Blair Witch, a SciFi Channel mockumentary, which is the only real spiritual sequel to the movie, and I definitely owned a book that tied into the movie. There were also websites used as an early viral campaign for the movie. It was completely absorbing and exciting. Adam Wingard, the same director of solid movies such as The Guest and You’re Next, directed this film so it couldn’t be automatically discarded as trash, but it should have been.
I’m not only a fan of horror, but sci fi, which means that I am entirely too familiar with all the permutations of movies involving protagonists encountering UFOs. I preferred Blair Witch when I originally saw it as Phoenix Forgotten, which was actually released subsequently, but has a very similar premise that it executed better than Wingard’s film. Both films have adult siblings trying to get closure about an older missing sibling by using the missing sibling’s found footage to solve the mystery. Both films also have subplots of a guy potentially getting the courage to connect with a girl that he likes if it wasn’t for the sensational events.
Blair Witch also seemed very similar to another found footage alien movie called Alien Abduction. Key characteristics of close encounters in films such as Alien Abduction are the following: not being able to rely on technology, particularly compasses or clocks; disorientation of individuals which can result in problems navigating, determining time, hallucinations or sudden aggression; mysterious lights and objects moving violently upwards; sudden disappearance of individuals.
I could be completely wrong, but I think that the twist in Blair Witch is that there is no witch, but aliens have been experimenting with people in that region for a long time, including the alleged witch who was blamed for the unusual phenomenon. This movie introduces issues of time and space that to the subjective human mind would be classified as supernatural, but for a moviegoer who enjoys watching horror and alien encounter films, seems like pretty humdrum alien shenanigans although the stick décor could be a human attempt to depict the inexplicable humanoid, elongated beings that they see.
Normally even thinking incorrectly that the plot twist is aliens would fill me with joy and delight, but with Blair Witch, it annoyed me. If you want to capitalize off a single movie’s success and make a franchise, then do it, but I would rather that someone make a movie completely unrelated instead of capitalizing on someone else’s hard work. Now because Blair Witch is an authorized sequel, it retroactively makes viewers question whether or not the alien story was always a crucial part of the original story that we missed or if the sequel creators are unwilling to stay within the confines of the original story and are trying to make a tepid mark by cannibalizing a better work and adding bells and whistles where none were needed. Either way it invites comparison, and the sequel will suffer by comparison. There are times when Blair Witch neither fits an alien storyline nor a witch storyline. If a witch had the power to control space, time and minds, I’m thinking that she would be too powerful to capture and torture. Devil’s Gate was a bad movie, but at least it had the integrity to stand on its own two feet in all its dismal lack of glory in an audacious mash up of horror and sci fi.
Blair Witch’s characters are not good. All the previous movies that I cited had at least a few characters that you would brunch with on a good day. I need a scene with a teacher looking horrified at yet another student’s proposal for a video project then meeting with the student to discourage her from exploring a subject that already got a ton of people killed because yes, the premise is another damn student project. Does anyone write papers anymore? The worst part is when there are dueling documentaries. Also if some mysterious force got one of my kids, and I had a surviving child, when that surviving child hints at even passing the location where one of my kids disappeared, I would either go with that child or be convicted of unlawful confinement after I chained that child to a location as far away as possible.
Blair Witch lost all suspension of disbelief when two black characters decided to accompany their friend on this obviously ill advised camping trip. Black people camp, but not in places where white women go missing, and serial killers once lived. No one looks for us when we go missing in the real world. The most intriguing part of this movie was what happens to the black woman after she is injured when crossing a body of water that features prominently in the original, but it is evocative and unclear so ultimately it fails to do more than add atmosphere instead of clarifying for the viewer what we’re witnessing overall. In the end, her fate is unrelated to her injury so it is just another unforgiveable tease in a movie that confuses disparate elements with a perfectly blended narrative development. Also I would have preferred to follow the suspicious locals instead of the outsiders because their story was more interesting. It was so aggravating that no one just talked to each other; however it was probably the most realistic aspect of the movie.
Visually Blair Witch felt more like a ripoff of the Rec franchise, especially at the end, but less intriguing. The end was reminiscent of Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves. It was never scary. The jump scares and audio felt tedious, not tense. Jump scares are a weak filmmaker’s security blanket and is frankly beneath Wingard who can not only do better, but has actually done better. He isn’t a hack. He is talented. So what happened? If Wingard ever stops being coy and just flat out explains what he was trying to do with this sequel, please let me know because I’m not ready to cross him off my list of potentially interesting directors, but he definitely has a huge negative mark against him after this sequel. I’m so glad that I saw this film at home because I only lost a little time.
Dear Hollywood, everything does not have to be a franchise, but if you really must treat your best work like an ATM, check in with the people who made the original at least as consultants because a franchise ultimately has to be one coherent story. To be a successful franchise, each movie has to build on its legacy and add to it in a way that leaves a door open to the next movie, not wear out the patience and good will of your carryover audience, pleases your original viewers and attracts new ones. Blair Witch does none of those things. It does not work as a sequel or as a standalone movie. It is a complete waste.