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    Blair Witch

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

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    The good news is that compared to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, this new film is a masterpiece. Unfortunately, that’s no high praise and despite having a lot of good moments, Blair Witch is not in the same league as the original Blair Witch Project. I suspect that how much you enjoy this film depends entirely on what you thought of the 1999 found-footage fright fest. If you liked it just ok, you'll like this one better. I like the original a lot and found "Blair Witch" to be just ok.

    James Donahue (James Allen McCune) and his friends Lisa (Callie Hernandez), Peter (Brandon Scott) and Ashley (Corbin Reid) are investigating an enigmatic video posted online by two residents of Burkittsville: Lane (Wes Robinson) and his girlfriend Talia (Valorie Curry) James is convinced that the fragmented clips show his sister Heather, who disappeared in 16 years ago (the film is set in 2014) while filming the film we know as The Blair Witch Project. Venturing into the same woods looking for the lost woman, the group learns that the legends are true.

    What I like about this picture is that like the original, it keeps its cards very close to its chest. We get some information on the Blair Witch - or whatever it is that terrorized the victims from the first film - but there are no scenes where everything is flat-out explained. That would’ve been a big mistake. Like in the original, Blair Witch shows the action from a first person POV, with each of the four friends given a headpiece that serves as a GPS and a camera. This picture is fully aware that to build true cinematic terror, atmosphere, shadows, the unknown and creaky noises in the distance are much more effective than having a monster jump on-screen. It makes the abundant, cheap jump scares that populate the first half of the movie puzzling. For every instance where I was genuinely anxious and sweating, hoping that whatever was making those noises, lurking in the shadows, and making those creepy wooden figurines would simply go away, I found myself frustrated. I wish this film was confident enough to eliminate the loud POP! That comes from whenever the film switches from one camera to another and cut out the cheap jump "scares" that are actually nothing but startling.

    I’m at odds here. When these characters spot something that’s off, the kind of thing that would alarm you in real-life that it’s time to get out of there, they react like real people would. I appreciate that. I also found that some of the additions to the series were very inventive. With nearly 20 years having passed, these people come in with cell phones, GPS and a drone to scout locations. How these are integrated into the story are very clever and add to the scare-factor. On the other hand, I found the motivations for this plot very shaky. I know she’s your sister, but you expect to find her in some rickety cabin in the woods 16 years later? I don’t care if Aubrey Plaza and Bérénice Bejo are in there having a pillow fight in their underwear, it’s not worth it! I also have mixed feelings about the fact that with this footage, it’s crystal clear that what is happening to these people is supernatural. You could dismiss the event of The Blair Witch Project as simple paranoia or hysteria, a hoax or an unfortunate encounter with an unseen deranged hermit in the woods that took it upon himself to terrorize three film students. In this picture’s universe, the recovered footage that composes “Blair Witch” would be enough to convince everyone in the world that the Black Hills forest are under a curse. The woods would be razed and the land salted so that no trees should ever grow there again.

    I wouldn’t mind seeing more in this series, but I say take more chances. Don’t just have people lost in the woods AGAIN, make this an anthology series, the kind of thing that the Halloween wanted to be. Blair Witch is well made, has goose-pimple-generating atmosphere, some genuinely creepy elements to it and remains true to the franchise. But I’m not fully onboard. It simply does not re-create the energy, that visceral terror that made The Blair Witch Project so special. If you didn’t like the original film, or you did like it but don’t consider it a 5-star movie like I do, then yes I think you will be mostly pleased by the picture. For me, there’s still only The Blair Witch Project. It’s an ok movie. Blair Witch would’ve been worse if it had tried to incorporate some of that Book of Shadows” nonsense, but it could have been so much more than what we got. (Theatrical version on the big screen, September 21, 2016)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  25.9.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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