Stupid Kids
Unbelievably it has been 18 years since a little independent horror film by the name of the Blair Witch Project hit cinema screens and took the world by storm. It cost just $60,000 to make but amassed a global box office take of almost $250,000,000 which makes it one of the most profitable movies of all time.
What the film did so well was tap into the idea of viral marketing, using the internet to promote the film like nobody had done before and very few have done as successfully since. In fact it was so well done that early audiences were left traumatised by what they had seen as they believed it to be actual footage that had been found depicting real life events.
By the time the movie hit the UK the cat was out of the bag and we all knew that it was nothing more than a story created by and brought to the silver screen by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, although the tribulations they put their cast through have become the stuff of legend and a lot of the reactions seen on screen are 100% genuine.
Despite this however UK fans still got freaked out by what they saw. I remember going to watch it with my girlfriend of the time and she spent most of the film cowering behind me. She was particularly terrified on the drive home as the lights were out on the motorway and there was no other traffic on the road for long periods of our journey, thats how powerful the effect of the Blair Witch was.
One year later Myrick and Sanchez wrote a sequel by the title of The Book of Shadows although they handed over directing duties to Joe Berlinger who is probably best know for his Metallica documentary Some Kind of Monster. Shadows was a flop as it dropped the first person handheld perspective that had made the original movie so successful in favour of a more traditional style. It cost $15,000,000 to make and took less than $50,000,000 at the box office.
Shadows lacked any of the creativity or storytelling that had marked the first Blair Witch out as something special and so we all figured that the franchise was done.
In fact it was done until 2016 when director Adam Wingard (director of the VHS movies) was tasked with revisiting Maryland and bringing the franchise back from the dead.
The plot of the film for what its worth centres around James who just so happens to be the brother of Heather from the first Blair Witch. He is obsessed with finding his sister and so heads off into the woods to find out what happened with a group of his friends and a couple of locals. What follows is a lot more of the same shenanighans that we first encountered in 1999. Plenty of shaky camera work, stick figures and mysterious noises in the dark.
I wont go into the mythology of the Blair Witch as if you haven't seen the original movie or read up on the story then I recommend you do but needless to say this new film adds nothing new.
In fact the only thing it really does differently is actually visualising the spirit that haunts the wood and showing us in flashes what the witch looks like which for me is a mistake as the sense of foreboading that the original gave us by not showing what was haunting the crew was one of the things that made that film stand out. By showing us everything it leaves nothing to the imagination and becomes nothing more than a by the numbers horror flick with the Blair Witch name tacked on. This is especially true in this day and age as since The Blair Witch Project the whole handheld lost camera footage style of filming has become passe with the sheer number of movies that use that particular trope.
Speaking of copying what has gone before it would be remiss of me to not mention the fact that the original Blair Witch was not as original as its makers would have you the viewer believe. In fact one year earlier a small movie by the name of The Last Broadcast was released to little fanfare. Indeed it so unknown that it was only ever released theatrically in the US and took just $12,000 at the box office which is a shame because it is a great little film and I would go so far as to say that I prefer it to The Blair Witch and for my money it sits better with multiple viewings than its successor which in my opinion has not aged all that well.
All of that aside this most recent Blair Witch film just leaves you wondering why they actually bothered as it offers nothing that justifies its existence. In truth it probably isn't even as good as Book of Shadows in so much as at least Shadows offered something different rather than just a tired old retread of what had gone before, the same cannot be said for this new Blair Witch.
With that it mind I'm going to give The Blair Witch a score of 5 out of 10. If you're a fan of the original then you may find something to like here but only if you're happy to sit through more of the same old same old. If you have never watched the original then this film will keep you entertained but my recommendation would be to search out The Last Broadcast which is a far superior film.
