"Dude, what's my name?" "Don't worry, Brah, I'll be screaming it again and again later."
Friends, if you've ever watched the original 1999 found-footage horror classic The Blair Witch Project and thought to yourself, "wow, this could really benefit from the addition of a $400 drone from BJ's," then Blair Witch is the movie for you. Not me, though, it was awful. In fact, throughout the entire film I kept marveling that they still make horror movies that are this bad. The director, Adam Wingard, has been at the helm of the roundly admired You're Next and V/H/S which adds a real layer of WTF here.
"Ugh, Dad, this bed and breakfast looks like shit."
,The tape is what sets up Blair Witch- not a sequel, that would be 2000's flaccid Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, which, incidentally, looks like fucking Citizen Kane when compared with Blair Witch- a mostly taped, somewhat not taped account of Heather's brother, James, who was four at the time of her disappearance, and three of his friends gearing up to search the same woods where his sister went missing. The idea here is that James, and his lifelong bestie Peter, remember Heather and her disappearance so vividly, which is.....ok, I have a four year old. He can't remember if he peed within the last fifteen minutes. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The first 20 minutes of Blair Witch is James and his friends inexplicably showing off their newfangled drones and GPS's, and then meeting up with a couple of weirdos who agree to show them where the original tapes were found.
OK, then it gets dark and the rest of the film is just the campers screaming one another's names. Spoiler alert: James! Lisa! Peter! Lane! Thalia! Ashley! Heather! There are some brief asides with a gross infected foot and a giant Stick Man you can barely see who kind of looks like Groot's deadbeat dad from a distance. The Parr House is found, and, man, someone would really make a fortune flipping this place. A little water damage, yes, but lots of dungeon space, spacious attic, etc. The witch may or may not be there. It may or may not be Heather. James may or may not become the witch/Rustin Parr. Who knows.
OK, then it gets dark and the rest of the film is just the campers screaming one another's names. Spoiler alert: James! Lisa! Peter! Lane! Thalia! Ashley! Heather! There are some brief asides with a gross infected foot and a giant Stick Man you can barely see who kind of looks like Groot's deadbeat dad from a distance. The Parr House is found, and, man, someone would really make a fortune flipping this place. A little water damage, yes, but lots of dungeon space, spacious attic, etc. The witch may or may not be there. It may or may not be Heather. James may or may not become the witch/Rustin Parr. Who knows.
"Lady, hey, you dropped ur purse."
Look, I'm old enough to remember the Blair Witch Project opening. It was the beginning of found footage horror, a real hit or miss medium, which was a hit because it was different than anything else at the time. We didn't know what we were seeing-- are those kids dead? Is this real? I mean, then, ofc, Heather, Josh and Mike were mugging on the cover of Time and it was like, oh, I guess they're alive, cool. The original film doesn't stand up for continued showings, but that's fine, it is iconic, it changed the landscape of horror. Blair Witch adds almost nothing to the cannon. You can't see anything, you don't know what the hell is going on, and by the end you're just pissed off. Still, I mean, look, a great way to fake your own death would be to tape some shit, scream, and let the camera fall on its side. Then just run away. You're welcome.
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