Blair Witch 2016 Spoiler Free Movie Review

Set 20 years after the events of the first film, Lisa; a film maker, is making a documentary on ambiguous loss where one of her subjects is James whos older sister Heather went missing along with two of her friends while camping in the woods. James comes across some footage on YouTube that has been recently found in the woods which he believes shows his sister. Lisa and James along with two other friends go into the woods hoping to find more clues related to what happened to Heather...

The announcement of Blair Witch came as a shock to many horror fans, especially the ones who had been following the developments of Adam Wingard's new film The Woods which was revealed as Blair Witch at it's first screening at Comic Con. This is a direct sequel to the first movie and rightfully ignores The Book of Shadows.
I got to see this as a mystery movie at the cinema. I was so happy when I saw the title as you may know I loved the first film and been looking forward to seeing this since it's announcement. I have to say I wasn't disappointed with this sequel however I wasn't blown away either.

The movie has some faults and the biggest problem I had was with the acting at the beginning of the movie. It felt like the actors was acting and not giving a natural improvised performance which was done so well in the first movie. I will point out that the acting got better as the film went on but I would have liked the characters to be believable from the start.
My other problem was that there was also a large amount of unnecessary jump scares. I'm a sucker for jump scares, they get me every time and I don't mind them but this movie had many of times when it was just the main characters coming out of a bush or just standing there when a swinging camera locks on to them.

There are many positives about the film which I won't go into to keep it spoiler free but I will say where this film succeeds and will be remembered for is the final 30 minutes. You will witness one of the most intense sequences that lasts for half an hour without a break for a breather. You will be begging for the movie to end just to get your heart rate down to an acceptable rhythm again.

If you are a fan of the first movie then you should enjoy this. It goes over territory which you will be familiar with from the first film and expands on the myths. If you didn't like the first film and I appreciate The Blair Witch Project is the Marmite of horror movies then there is nothing here for you.

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The Blair Witch Project 1999 Revisited

It’s been 17 years since The Blair Witch Project graced our screens and with the upcoming sequel I thought now's a good time to revisit the granddaddy of found footage movies.

Sure there were found footage movies before The Blair Witch Project but none of them kick started the sub-genre the way The Blair Witch Project did. Cannibal Holocaust incorporated found footage in the movie and was very and still is very controversial but it never opened the floodgates for the influx of found footage movies that followed The Blair Witch Project.

The main reason there are so many found footage movies now is down to the success of The Blair Witch Project. Made with a budget of only $60,000 Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick managed to make a whopping £248.6 million worldwide.

Now I can’t talk about The Blair Witch Project and not mention the brilliant and never duplicated marketing campaign. The movie was advertised as the actual found footage of three film student Heather, Joshua and Michael who went missing while filming a documentary on the Blair Witch. They created a whole folklore surrounding the Blair Witch which was turned into a TV documentary which broadcasted just before the film’s release. The TV documentary had interviews with relatives of the missing students, local residents, investigators and even historians. So I don’t mind saying I went into that movie as a 14 year old thinking it was actual found footage and that the Blair Witch had a real place in history.

What also contributed to my naivety was the book by D. A. Stern called The Blair Witch Project A Dossier. The book includes The legends, myths and facts surrounding the Blair Witch, links to Rustin Parr, interviews with the victims' friends and families and Heather's journals which was supposedly found with the footage.

Having absorbed all the background information I could find on the Blair Witch (and missing the crucial fact it was all made up) I was ready for the movie and I remeber loving it. It scared the shit out of me. It was different to anything I had ever seen and any horror that was released at the time. The way it told the story being part documentary part first person horror without any music score was a work of genius.

It was a bout a week later when I found out the whole story was made up and I was still impressed. Even though I had been had big time I was still able to part take in the whole Blair Witch experience the way the makers wanted it to be experienced and I can't see a movie giving me that overall experience again.

The question now is does it stand the test of time? With only having it on DVD I gave it a recent watch and even though I've seen the movie many times over the years I am still impressed with it. The picture quality makes it a product of its time, I haven't seen a Blu-Ray version so don't know if the picture has had an upgrade but it looks like it was made in the 90's by film students which is exactly the way it should look. They didn't have IPhones with HD cameras back then so I would be disappointed if they enhance the footage. The acting and script can't be faulted apart from the whole kicking the map in the lake situation but I did enjoy the fallout that followed. There's also little moments I have only just picked up on that impressed me like the part Heather is discussing editing suggestions on footage they shot that day.

The scares still have the same impact, who isn't going to shit themselves if while camping in the middle of nowhere you hear children playing during the middle of the night? I still love the end scene in the house with the handprints on the wall and the cameras just being knocked out of their hands and not showing the witch just adds to the mystery.

I can easily say that The Blair Witch Project is one of my best horror movies, not for the film itself but the whole experience it created at that moment in time. I look forward to when my children are old enough to watch it and I'll try and sell it to them as a true story, I'll dig out the book and watch the documentary to try and create the same experience I went through before they watch the actual movie.