Note to the franchise that gave us the found footage genre: can you take it back? Now? Please? Seventeen years ago, a cheap-ass indie horror film entitled The Blair Witch Project so rattled our collective psyches, it pioneered a whole new vein of scary cinema. This vein, the found footage horror (thus implying we only know what happened by video records left behind), has been the worst cinematic innovation this century. And I say such fully aware that “teen paranormal romance” is a thing.
The story arc of this genre is pretty standard: somebody likes to take home movies; he/she does so until the audience is completely bored. Then some minor piece of inexplicable tomfoolery gets caught on film. Then we get 15 minutes of reactions until the hijinks accelerate to the point where there’s a body count and the camera work goes from “amateur” to “feeble.” By the time the frenetic cinematography feels as if it has been shot by an ADHD toddler on crack, the movie is about to end, which is your signal to go to Wikipedia to figure out what actually happened. For Blair Witch, I went to Wikipedia when I walked out ten minutes shy of “completion.” I regret nothing.
I’ll give Blair Witch this much – I cannot off the top of my head list a sequel with a shorter title than the original. Can you? Hannibal, I guess. I suppose there are more, but it’s rare. Bottom line, is, however, that you can call Fifty Shades Darker just plain “Shades,” but I don’t think that’s gonna improve it, do you?
Now I’m gonna list the entire cast here because this is the first and last time ever I will be printing these names: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry. Enjoy your fifteen minutes, folks. When this film leaves theaters, your minor notoriety is done forever.
The under-written premise to this dreck is that James lost an older sister to the original Blair Witch. It would stand to reason that he’s seen The Blair Witch Project and treated it as biography (after all, it was “found footage, right?”), but this genre prides itself on people who don’t know anything about anything. So James and crew arrive in Burkittsville, collect the redneck couple who had clues as to his sister’s disappearance years ago and all six idiots go marching into the wilds of Maryland, which are apparently the size of Wyoming. Seriously, how do you get lost in four acres of forest? I digress; I’m sure the wilds of Maryland are extensive, undocumented and undeveloped. Sure. That makes sense.
Before long, there’s false evidence of Blair Witchery – faux stick figures – followed by genuine evidence of Blair Witchery: “how did we sleep until 2 p.m.?” These scenes both required some quality acting. The cast wasn’t up for it, so the director decided to go with bad cinematography and screaming for pretty much the rest of the film (although, obviously, I cannot vouch for the final ten minutes). I know, I know, I know, every director and producer of a sequel must ask him or herself, “how do we improve upon the original?” The powers that made Blair Witch decided on a three fold answer – more stick figures, more dark, and more pointless chaotic random yelling and fleeing into the darkness. Whoever
storyboarded this film should be fired on the spot.
Blair Witch is one of those films in which the cast cannot die off fast enough. I found myself thankful that the start total was a mere six pre-corpses. This is the kind of film in which I hope against desperate hope that the film is rated R because of something fun, like nudity or sex. No such luck … although, again, I cannot vouch for the final ten minutes.
In seventeen years, we still haven’t defined the powers of the Blair Witch; these seem to have gotten more outrageous, not less. The witch apparently has the ability to screw with solar position, electronic equipment, and geography. One wonders why such an all-powerful being would live in a run-down shack in the woods getting her little witch jollies by frightening moronic twentysomethings; maybe that’s just me. Maybe when you get all powerful, you live in what appears to others to be an abandoned backwoods crack house. I don’t really care about any of this stuff; I just ask that the next time somebody finds footage, could they promptly lose it again?
♪Well, I don’t know why I came to this site
Was it prank or maybe some kind of rite
I’m so scared by everything in between
That I almost stopped filming the scene
Blur to the left of me
Blur to the right
Here I am
Stuck on the button marked “zoom.” ♫
Rated R, 89 Minutes
D: Adam Wingard
W: Simon Barrett
Genre: Blurry screaming
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: The Blair Witch
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Me
♪ Parody inspired by “Stuck in the Middle with You”
