It's been sixteen years since the second Blair Witch film hit theaters...so one has to wonder, why is the third film coming out now? Obviously, this film isn't really for me, the grizzled veteran that saw and loved the original back in college. This film is one of those new, fresh, hip re-makes for "the kids." The studio covertly named the film The Woods until Comic-Con in July when they revealed that it's in fact a new Blair Witch film. I guess this coverage worked, as even The New York Times published an article in the front page news section about this bait-and-switch. The free, three-week early screening I attended was filled with mostly younger college kids and I was already emailed the chance to see it again at another free screening. On the 7 train in Queens on my way out to the U.S. Open I spotted a big poster at one of the stations for it. This means they're probably spending a lot of money to market this and create buzz. Will any of this matter? If you remember, the original went on to be the highest grossing independent film at the time with no stars and little marketing (I remember having to drive out of my way to see it because it wasn't playing at the local theater). It also spawned the hand held camera point of view horror film. But the sequel, Book of Shadows, was a bomb with critics and at the box office and it took sixteen years for this new third film to come out. I suspect that director Adam Wingard, who made the fun/scary You're Next, was such a fan that he jumped at making this. It's kind of sad to disappoint that, realistically, this new film, simply titled Blair Witch, is basically a re-make that seems fairly pointless in the end.
Back in June when I heard that Wingard had a new film coming out I watched the trailer. It featured kids running and screaming in the woods and it was called The Woods and it looked intriguing. I'm a fan of Wingard, as You're Next was one of the better slasher pictures to come out in the last few years and The Guest was entertaining. When I learned that this new film was actually a Blair Witch sequel I was even more interested. After all, if anyone could make a good Blair Witch film it'd be Wingard. And I also have a soft spot for The Blair Witch Project. Besides making a spoof film with my brother titled The Darien Witch Project (Darien is the brat daughter from The Last Boy Scout, as if you didn't know), I also gave the original film four stars and named it the best film of 1999. And it was genuinely the last film that scared me.
But what was this sequel going to be like? The original had three people and a camera and it showed nothing. You didn't see the witch. The scariest thing was one of the characters standing up facing a basement wall. The sequel went a little bit further in the gratuitous nudity/blood vein...but it still never showed the witch. Would this new one have an actress in creepy, old-woman make-up running around? Would limbs and heads be flying through the air?
The new film is basically a re-make in that's it a group of twenty year-old's filming themselves as they go camping in the haunted Maryland woods. The one caveat to make it part three and a continuation is that the one character is the brother of the girl, Heather, that went missing in the first film. This new crew has state-of-the-art tech, too. Ear-piece cameras, night vision cameras, and a useless drone. What they also have are two local hicks that go with them to help them find Heather. If I haven't mentioned the new character's names, well, there's a reason. The set-up characterization is atrocious. Do I care about any of these people? No, but I should if it wanted to be a compelling film. The two local hicks are so over-the-top ridiculous and silly they belong more in an SNL skit than a scary movie. And the biggest problem is that everything set-up never gets paid off. The one girl cuts her foot and it becomes infected. Okay, so there's going to be a great scene of them having to cut her leg off? Or, no, her whole body gets infected and she becomes possessed? No, the pay off could have been a lot better. And the hikers have a drone. That's cool. When it lifts up in the air maybe it catches sight of a house or a person in the woods or chimney smoke or...should I be the bearer of bad news that the drone is fucking pointless? The other problem is the actual witch. The woods are haunted but you can't show the witch, that's been established in the first two films. So what do you do? They have mysterious sounds in the woods in this new film. Trees falling. Loud footsteps. But why do the footsteps sound like a giant or Bigfoot? Alas, it's never revealed. There's also flashing lights which are, what? UFO's? They do go with the less-is-more approach, but they do show some glimpses of strange things in the corner of the screen and behind a tree in the dark. The only good part of the film is the climax, which, when it finally occurs, is welcomed with open arms. I will say that the filmmakers did a good job at ratcheting up the tension at the end. The final flurry is fairly scary, albeit a little bit too little too late. And by this point, three films in, shouldn't we be sick of seeing characters suddenly knocked down while filming and yet never learning what knocked them over or grabbed them? I guess what I'm saying is that the original film did the don't-show-anything so well that there's no point in trying to recapture that magic. It's time for a gore-fest with a scary witch actually on screen. That wouldn't be The Blair Witch Project of course, but it'd be something wild and new. Maybe get Rob Zombie to direct it and we'll all be happy. ** (out of ****)
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