Blair Witch tries too hard to be good

Blair Witch is a sequel to the 1999 independent horror film The Blair Witch Project, one of the most successful independent films of all time.

James Donahue is the brother of Heather Donahue who has been missing ever since she ventured into the woods to film a documentary investigating the Blair Witch, a local ghost legend. A YouTube video of footage apparently discovered in the same woods causes James to believe that his sister may still be alive. Considering that his sister has been lost for 20 years (the original movie takes place in 1994, while Blair Witch occurs in 2014) this is downright delusional, yet somehow James manages to convince three friends to help track her down. The friends include Lisa, a film student who somehow inexplicably supplies them with a mass of advanced film equipment including a drone and enough handsfree POV ear clip video cameras and handheld digital cameras for everyone involved and at least one extra camera used to monitor their camp while they sleep.

While this allows the film to look really good and explore how modern technology is nothing against the paranormal powers of the Blair Witch, the whole setup is way too convenient to suspend disbelief. This is in stark contrast to the original, whose famous marketing campaign involved keeping the authenticity of the footage a mystery. Of course, now that it is common knowledge that the film was a work of fiction, a new approach had to be taken. Unfortunately, leaving all believability behind turns out to be a not so successful strategy.

I didn't find the actors who played James and Peter to be believable; I could see them acting. The rest of the cast was good though; I found the actors who played Lisa and Lane (a local who discovered and uploaded the video that instigated James' search for his sister) to be particularly believable and compelling. The cast was generally too attractive to feel realistic, though this is to be expected with any big budget production.

A major part of the believability of The Blair Witch Project cast was the fact that they improvised and developed their characters as the production went along. In contrast, the scripted characters of Blair Witch are boring. They seem designed to be as relatable as possible, with establishing footage of them hanging out, having a night at a bar, joking about and discussing safe, generic young person subject matter that reveals nothing about the taste or personality of any of the characters.

The whole movie felt like the original Blair Witch re-formatted to include all of the clichés of modern horror, making it the complete opposite of the ultra-organic original.

The original Blair Witch Project was novel because it was created by filmmakers using limitations to their advantage, limitations that included a lack of a budget or special effects.

I lost count of how many jump cuts there were in Blair Witch. The scariness of the original was generated through mystery and suspense. The idea of a big budget sequel is antithetical to everything that made the original successful. Blair Witch does the best it possibly can with this challenge, but ultimately it just feels like an unnecessary money grab.

Blair Witch is also more stressful than scary; a tedious fever dream rather than an adrenaline charged nightmare. Characters are bombarded with obstacle after obstacle; eventually everyone's perception of time is warped and it is perpetually night. I thought this was a good, creative new way to explore the powers of the Blair Witch, but the viewing experience is more taxing than scary.

The editing and video production in this film is great, but the audio production and sound design could have been better. There are various scenes involving creepy unidentifiable sounds from the distance or outside the tents at night. They are so crystal clear in the mix that it's impossible to believe a camera could have naturally picked them up that way and other sounds remind me a lot of a cheap Halloween sound effects CD I had as a kid.

With all this said, Blair Witch entertained me. It's a great looking movie that can be really satisfying on some level. In context to the movie it is a sequel to, it is deeply and fundamentally flawed. If you have any expectations about this film doing the original justice, you will likely be disappointed. If you're just looking for a fun horror movie, or an interesting visual experience, Blair Witch will probably satisfy you.