Film Review: Blair Witch

"There's Something Out There..."

Although way too young to realise the impact of The Blair Witch Project when it was released back in 1999, the found footage masterpiece is one of the most traumatising horror movies I had ever seen when I finally got around to watching it in my late teens. Even days after witnessing the events that took place within the movie, the sheer terror of the film still shook me like no other horror movie I had seen previously, with its' complete lack of jump scares and a pinpoint and effectively measured sense of realism resulting in a movie which left everything to the imagination without any sense of closure or answers to the many questions directors Sanchez and Myrick brought up. Now in 2016, we have Blair Witch, a true successor to the 1999 original (We will forget about Book of Shadows), directed by Adam Wingard, of whom I am a fan of after making effective horrors in the past with You're Next and segments for the V/H/S franchise. Of course, there was simply no chance that Wingard's take on the legend of the Black Hills Forest was set to surpass the original yet even so, Blair Witch is a terrifying enough experience to warrant its' existence, if feeling ever so much like the original in ways both bad and good. 

After treading upon a recently uploaded video supposedly containing his long lost sister Heather, James ventures into the Black Hills Forest with his camera-obsessed friends in order to find closure regarding his sisters' disappearance; events which took place within The Blair Witch Project. After meeting with the young locals who uploaded the video, the group venture into the forest and soon succumb to the curse of the Blair Witch with the group, and particularly James, understanding what his sister may have experienced herself over a decade previously. Although Blair Witch is weakened by its' fundamental similarities to the original, with the setup and plot twists being pretty much a full-on retread of what fans already know when it comes to the Black Hills Forest, Wingard's take on the story does boast some effective tense-ridden scenes, particularly in the latter act of the movie when we once again venture into the supposed residence of the titular entity through complete and utter darkness. The cast too are loving every minute and chewing the scenery as they go from one spooky location to the next, yet the film does suffer from not entirely having the organic and strange feel of the original, and although the myth of the Blair Witch herself is slightly scuppered by brief images of a potential reveal, Wingard's Blair Witch is terrifying enough in sections to warrant a thumbs up. As a fan of the original, Blair Witch is actually a solid, spooky horror which pays a sense of justice to the original, if only too much at times. 

Overall Score: 7/10