I confess that I was unimpressed with the idea of remaking The Blair Witch Project because I felt and still feel that it is unnecessary. The original was ground breaking and was entertaining enough on its own. It offered a different take on more traditional horror that hadn't been seen before so how could a reboot possibly improve on it?
In this Blair Witch movie, we meet James (played by James Allen McCune), his girlfriend(?) Lisa (played by Callie Hernandez), his friend Peter (played by Brandon Scott), and Peter's girlfriend Ashley (played by Corbin Reid). James is the much younger brother of Heather from The Blair Witch Project and he has apparently been haunted by what happened to her. He is naturally fixated on the idea that Heather might still be alive. Lisa (who may or may not be his girlfriend, the movie didn't do a good job of conveying whether she is or isn't his girlfriend) has a documentary project due and Peter asks his quest to find his sister to be the subject of the documentary. Ashley is working on the project with Lisa and Peter is best friends with James so obviously this means that the other couple must accompany them into the woods.
James is very insistent on tracking down the source of a video recently posted online. The video appears to show someone running from something in what looks like a creepy house and James immediately goes "That's my sister in the video!". Mind you, no one can see who is being chased because the view point is first person pov.
James manages to find that the video was posted from a tape that was found in the woods by a young local couple Lane (played by Wes Robinson) and his girlfriend Talia (played by Valorie Curry). Lane and Talia first ask to go with the other group then demand to go with the other group in exchange for leading James and his group to the location where the tape was found. With reluctance, James and the other agree to let Lane and Talia come with and off they all go.
From the beginning things start out wonky. First Ashley gets a large cut on her foot while the group is crossing a stream (presumably the famous stream featured in the first movie). Instead of doing the sensible thing of turning back considering the severity of the injury, the group presses on after James puts a butterfly on her foot and wraps the foot. While the group is camping for the night, they all hear mysterious sounds and Lane goes missing. After finding Lane seemingly wandering in the woods looking for the source of the sounds, the search group returns back to camp. The strange events continue when the group wakes up the following day at 2pm with no memory of anything happening from the time they fell asleep until waking up and then discovering stick figures arranged around the camp area. As the group is attempting to leave the woods, Lisa figures out that Lane and Talia are the culprits behind the stick figures being arranged around the tent. James and his group angrily order Lane and Talia to go away while deciding to remain in the woods or return. They decide to remain in the woods of course.
Lots of predictable jump scares ensue. Eventually James finds out "the horror" of what happened to his sister. The End.
I was especially disappointed with this film because it looked and felt like the filmmakers of this film just decided to redo many shots of the original movie pretty much shot for shot. The only reason that I noticed this was because I watched The Blair Witch Project just prior to watching Blair Witch.
The biggest difference that I noted between this one and the original was that they didn't set the stage. They didn't "lull the audience into a false sense of security" both with proper introductions of the characters and having nothing "frightening" (or rather strange because honestly this movie just wasn't scary in comparison to the first time that I saw the original) happening. They didn't make any of the characters likeable. I could care less who was who and what was happening to any of the characters. I frankly was rooting for the witch to get rid of Peter already because he was by far the most obnoxious of all of the characters. I couldn't help but laugh at Talia's ridiculous death. The lights flashing outside of the house made me wonder even when I first saw the preview if the filmmakers were trying to imply that the witch was an alien because the flashing lights were very X-Files-ish.
Yay we finally get to see the "witch". Damn it's painfully obvious that it's a person wearing stilts and some weird arm extensions. I particularly "enjoyed" (note the irony in my tone) that the filmmakers tacked on this stupid tid bit about how "the witch was tied high in the tree and had stones attached to her legs and arms". While this seems to be an explanation given for the "witch's "appearance apparently the "person" seen in this film isn't the witch at all (this from the writer of this crap no less). The "witch" is supposed to be a victim of the witch. Way to go filmmakers for making that clear! (Again note the irony in my exclamation.)
Also great job filmmakers (more irony) ripping off the much better, actually frightening film The Ruins with the tree growing out of Ashley thing. Unfortunately it felt tacked on like the story about the witch being tied to the tree with weights on. We only observe the tree growing out of Ashley twice and the filmmakers did nothing other than include it.
I suppose that the filmmakers were "brave" for trying to remake a classic, ground-breaking film. It just fell so flat and was so disappointing. The filmmakers would have done better to spend their energies actually making a great or at least good film because it sounds like they have a good reputation that implies that they have great potential for great films.
If you enjoyed this film, kudos to you. If you're like me, I'm sorry that you wasted time watching this tripe.
I would skip this one if I were you.
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