Blair Witch - directed by Adam Wingard
I have often stated that the reason I love movies is because I first loved horror movies.
Being denied them as a child by (rightfully) cautious parents lead to me soaking up every gruesome, moody, scary, bizarre delight that I could as soon as I was old enough to independently select movies without age restrictions.
That lead to thrillers and action flicks and pretty much everything else as I realised that it wasn't just one genre that I had loved all of this time anyway.
For me though Horror is still a genre that more than any other is about pure technique.
Regardless of whether the violence and gore is full on or the film is going for a restrained leave-it-to-the-imagination style the best ones are the work of directors with skill and vision.
Even the less successful ones require a mastery of effects, shot selection, sound and performance if they are to end up even slightly decent.
And then there is the 'found footage' sub-genre.
A lot of people will tell you that 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" was the first but you'd have to go back to the 1980 Italian shocker "Cannibal Holocaust" for the true trailblazer.
Credit where it is due though- Blair Witch may not have been first but it did cause a resurgence in found footage movies with the likes of the Paranormal Activity movies, "Chronicle", "Cloverfield", "Quarantine", "REC", Troll Hunter" and many more springing forth from its success.
For me though as much as I respect what "The Blair Witch Project" did on a tiny budget I felt let down by it.
It was all build up and suggestion (which is fine) with no pay off (which is not) and as it ended I had the biggest case of 'Is that it?' that I have ever had in a cinema.
The ingenious largely internet based marketing was a lot of the reason.
It was hyped something terrible before release..... 'Scarier than The Exorcist!' they said.
It went on to make $248,000,000 but I don't know many people who really liked it or rated it as a horror film.
There was a sequel but it disappeared quickly and it looked like the franchise was over.
Not so though....
This years Blair Witch flick crept up very stealthily indeed.
It was shot under the name "The Woods" and only revealed as a Blair Witch sequel a short time before it premiered.
And a sequel this is - it concerns James the brother of Heather from the first film who is haunted by her disappearance all of those years ago and is determined to find her.
Heather went missing in the Black Hills in Burkittsville, Maryland in the first film never to be seen again.
So James and three friends equip themselves with the finest tech that young folk can buy and picking up two weird locals along the way who claim to know where to look they stride out into the woods.
Of course it isn't long before weirdness ensues.
Part of the problem with the found footage style of filmmaking for me is that it takes away from a director as much as it gives.
Narrative is restricted - it must be linear and cutaways while totally possible are also tricky.
If you overuse them the illusion that the footage is rough and as-it-was-found is destroyed.
On the other hand it comes automatically with cinema verite pre-fitted.
That may be too kind a label here as it amounts really to shaky cameras, poor focus and bad lighting.
By design of course - the footage is shot by the characters after all.
However that is not to say that there isn't skill in the method and Adam Wingard is a skilled director for sure.
His "The Guest" is an utter delight (with a gonzo, charismatic performance from Dan Stevens) and I like "You're Next" quite a lot too.
There is no doubt that "Blair Witch" is a far better directed flick than "The Blair Witch Project"
The realism is there and the acting, lighting, editing and overall look definitely superior but not at the expense of exposing the hand of a director and blowing the illusion.
Of course this being set in the here and now the cameras are digital hi-def and with better lights so everything is clearer (everything that Wingard wants to be at least)
Cleverly the characters are shown fitting on-ear cameras with mounted lights and convenient GPS built in so the fact that they film stuff that normal people would have long ago dropped cameras in order to run faster seems pretty reasonable.
The cast are also far more Hollywood than the first films real-people actors but again - not so much that it destroys the deception.
Fans of the excellent (and scary) game "The Last Of Us" should note that Brandon Scott who played Henry plays Peter in this film.
The cast are very good and co-lead Callie Hernandez will undoubtedly go on to bigger and better things - she has star quality in bucketloads.
What does put a very serious dent in this film for me though is a distinct and almost complete lack of scares.
The original film was at least creepy as hell and while I admit that I seem to have lost the ability to be scared by horror flicks recently (everyone I know except for me thought that the recent "The Conjuring 2", "Lights Out" and "The Witch" were very scary for example) I found this pretty boring.
Worst of all I felt like a sucker all over again.
Yep- that sense of 'is that it?' came back and this time not only did it have a 'not again!?' added but I found that not a thing that happened for the entire 90 minutes was at all surprising.
I knew how it was going to start and when things would start going wrong and how and even exactly where the ending would take place and what would happen.
I wasn't surprised by anything - not even the jump scares and there is an abundance of them. Often these are noises where footage has been edited together and several times Wingard goes for a scare by joining a quiet piece of footage to a piece that begins with a loud noise.
Also there is a reliance on people spinning around to find that another person is standing right there for the bulk of its scares before the finale.
When it isn't doing that it is utilising yet more loud noises.
Now, sometimes this works pretty well in building suspense early on when nothing too definitively weird has happened yet but it doesn't work once the presence of things undeniably freaky is there.
While a lot didn't work for me I did enjoy a very claustrophobic sequence very near the end but I felt that it wasn't milked enough for the scares that it potentially had.
I would love to see someone make a Blair Witch film as a standard narrative.
Free of the restrictions of having the footage all shot by the players themselves (or at least the need to make it appear that way) there is a creepy film lurking in this material.
One of my favourite horror films of recent year is in fact the original "The Conjuring" and that style of film employed to tell the same story of "Blair Witch" could result in an uber-scary movie.
There isn't anything like the experience of watching a movie with a nervous audience shifting in their seats, biting their nails, grabbing an arm next to them for comfort and using laughter as a release valve for the tension that they feel building within them.
I sensed none of this at the screening tonight and I missed it.
There are a couple of laughs in "Blair Witch" but they seem almost out of place.
Not because humour is the opposite of terror but because it exists here in place of it.
I found myself concentrating too much on the filmmaking with this film and not enough on the characters and I was just bored.
Maybe I've seen too many horror films to be easily scared by them.
Maybe yet again friends will tell me that this film is scary and I am wrong.
But I don't think so.
RATING: 65 / 100
CONCLUSION: It's hard not to feel foolish for being suckered twice- such are the similarities between this and the 1999 movie. Technically solid but just too predictable and too reliant on jump scares, fakeouts and loud noises.
Starring: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valorie Curry
Screenplay: Simon Barrett
Music Score by: Adam Wingard
Cinematography: Robby Baumgarter
Cinematography: Robby Baumgarter
Edited by: Louis Cioffi
Running Time: 89 minutes
Language: English
Rated: R13 - Violence
Running Time: 89 minutes
Language: English
Rated: R13 - Violence
I have often stated that the reason I love movies is because I first loved horror movies.
Being denied them as a child by (rightfully) cautious parents lead to me soaking up every gruesome, moody, scary, bizarre delight that I could as soon as I was old enough to independently select movies without age restrictions.
That lead to thrillers and action flicks and pretty much everything else as I realised that it wasn't just one genre that I had loved all of this time anyway.
For me though Horror is still a genre that more than any other is about pure technique.
Regardless of whether the violence and gore is full on or the film is going for a restrained leave-it-to-the-imagination style the best ones are the work of directors with skill and vision.
Even the less successful ones require a mastery of effects, shot selection, sound and performance if they are to end up even slightly decent.
And then there is the 'found footage' sub-genre.
A lot of people will tell you that 1999's "The Blair Witch Project" was the first but you'd have to go back to the 1980 Italian shocker "Cannibal Holocaust" for the true trailblazer.
Credit where it is due though- Blair Witch may not have been first but it did cause a resurgence in found footage movies with the likes of the Paranormal Activity movies, "Chronicle", "Cloverfield", "Quarantine", "REC", Troll Hunter" and many more springing forth from its success.
For me though as much as I respect what "The Blair Witch Project" did on a tiny budget I felt let down by it.
It was all build up and suggestion (which is fine) with no pay off (which is not) and as it ended I had the biggest case of 'Is that it?' that I have ever had in a cinema.
The ingenious largely internet based marketing was a lot of the reason.
It was hyped something terrible before release..... 'Scarier than The Exorcist!' they said.
It went on to make $248,000,000 but I don't know many people who really liked it or rated it as a horror film.
There was a sequel but it disappeared quickly and it looked like the franchise was over.
Not so though....
This years Blair Witch flick crept up very stealthily indeed.
It was shot under the name "The Woods" and only revealed as a Blair Witch sequel a short time before it premiered.
And a sequel this is - it concerns James the brother of Heather from the first film who is haunted by her disappearance all of those years ago and is determined to find her.
Heather went missing in the Black Hills in Burkittsville, Maryland in the first film never to be seen again.
So James and three friends equip themselves with the finest tech that young folk can buy and picking up two weird locals along the way who claim to know where to look they stride out into the woods.
Of course it isn't long before weirdness ensues.
 |
| It's Blair Witch so there'll be warnings, walking in woods, twigs and screaming |
Narrative is restricted - it must be linear and cutaways while totally possible are also tricky.
If you overuse them the illusion that the footage is rough and as-it-was-found is destroyed.
On the other hand it comes automatically with cinema verite pre-fitted.
That may be too kind a label here as it amounts really to shaky cameras, poor focus and bad lighting.
By design of course - the footage is shot by the characters after all.
However that is not to say that there isn't skill in the method and Adam Wingard is a skilled director for sure.
His "The Guest" is an utter delight (with a gonzo, charismatic performance from Dan Stevens) and I like "You're Next" quite a lot too.
There is no doubt that "Blair Witch" is a far better directed flick than "The Blair Witch Project"
The realism is there and the acting, lighting, editing and overall look definitely superior but not at the expense of exposing the hand of a director and blowing the illusion.
Of course this being set in the here and now the cameras are digital hi-def and with better lights so everything is clearer (everything that Wingard wants to be at least)
Cleverly the characters are shown fitting on-ear cameras with mounted lights and convenient GPS built in so the fact that they film stuff that normal people would have long ago dropped cameras in order to run faster seems pretty reasonable.
The cast are also far more Hollywood than the first films real-people actors but again - not so much that it destroys the deception.
Fans of the excellent (and scary) game "The Last Of Us" should note that Brandon Scott who played Henry plays Peter in this film.
The cast are very good and co-lead Callie Hernandez will undoubtedly go on to bigger and better things - she has star quality in bucketloads.
 |
| The cast is good with Callie Hernandez (left) the standout. |
The original film was at least creepy as hell and while I admit that I seem to have lost the ability to be scared by horror flicks recently (everyone I know except for me thought that the recent "The Conjuring 2", "Lights Out" and "The Witch" were very scary for example) I found this pretty boring.
Worst of all I felt like a sucker all over again.
Yep- that sense of 'is that it?' came back and this time not only did it have a 'not again!?' added but I found that not a thing that happened for the entire 90 minutes was at all surprising.
I knew how it was going to start and when things would start going wrong and how and even exactly where the ending would take place and what would happen.
I wasn't surprised by anything - not even the jump scares and there is an abundance of them. Often these are noises where footage has been edited together and several times Wingard goes for a scare by joining a quiet piece of footage to a piece that begins with a loud noise.
Also there is a reliance on people spinning around to find that another person is standing right there for the bulk of its scares before the finale.
When it isn't doing that it is utilising yet more loud noises.
Now, sometimes this works pretty well in building suspense early on when nothing too definitively weird has happened yet but it doesn't work once the presence of things undeniably freaky is there.
While a lot didn't work for me I did enjoy a very claustrophobic sequence very near the end but I felt that it wasn't milked enough for the scares that it potentially had.
I would love to see someone make a Blair Witch film as a standard narrative.
Free of the restrictions of having the footage all shot by the players themselves (or at least the need to make it appear that way) there is a creepy film lurking in this material.
One of my favourite horror films of recent year is in fact the original "The Conjuring" and that style of film employed to tell the same story of "Blair Witch" could result in an uber-scary movie.
There isn't anything like the experience of watching a movie with a nervous audience shifting in their seats, biting their nails, grabbing an arm next to them for comfort and using laughter as a release valve for the tension that they feel building within them.
I sensed none of this at the screening tonight and I missed it.
There are a couple of laughs in "Blair Witch" but they seem almost out of place.
Not because humour is the opposite of terror but because it exists here in place of it.
I found myself concentrating too much on the filmmaking with this film and not enough on the characters and I was just bored.
Maybe I've seen too many horror films to be easily scared by them.
Maybe yet again friends will tell me that this film is scary and I am wrong.
But I don't think so.
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