MOVIE REVIEW: BLAIR WITCH

Director:
Adam Wingard

Cast:
James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott

And next up in the current phase of reboots and sequels comes “Blair Witch” a sequel to 1999’s “Blair Witch Project”. I believe it was one of the first “found footage” movies released in theaters, about 3 young people who go into the forest to make a documentary while investigating the haunted woods in a town in Maryland. They disappear, and all that is found is the footage that they captured.

This sequel picks up in present day with a sibling of one of those original lost filmmakers seeing a clip online and believing that he has go into those woods, because he may find some answers about their disappearance. What entails after that is a journey into madness that borrows a lot from the original movie.

The budget for this sequel is clearly bigger, the equipment these new kids are using for documenting is a lot fancier than the original handheld VHS camcorder (although, somehow that older technology makes an appearance here. Where does one find blank s-vhs tapes anymore? )

The characters here aren’t really all that memorable, with the exception of Brandon Scott as Peter, he has some good lines and reactions. Once they start to realize that this “Blair Witch” thing maybe playing tricks on their minds, the suspense in the story really starts to ratchet up. The third act will definitely get the heart pounding, especially since during all the POV sequences, this film practices the fine art of letting your imagination fill in all the gaps. This movie wants to be a new “Blair Witch Project” for this generation, and it mostly succeeds, if only it didn’t rely too much on that formula from the original story line years ago. With all the newest technology in digital cameras, including one’s attached to drones, I think there could have been some interesting avenues to go down with this story.
A couple of weak jump scares, but it does have a really tense third act.

Grade: 3 out of 5

-Markellus