Blair Witch (2016)

I was surprised when the mysterious woods movie turned out to be a direct Blair Witch Project sequel and this excited me. After literally starting a genre with the original on no budget I figured they'd perform miracles with 5 million dollars! Trouble is, they really didn't. In fact I'd say they really really really REALLY didn't. Blair Witch follows the same formula as the original, in that the movie is 90 minutes of found footage, poor character development, thinly veiled storyline, shaky camera fleeing and lots and lots of screaming.

If you are expecting further additions to the Blair Witch mythology you will be sorely let down as this is essentially more like a higher budget remake of the original than a sequel and damn near nothing happens yet again.

I figured that regardless this could never be as bad as Blair Witch 2: Book Of Shadows but incredibly I was wrong as this is truly unconditionally dire.

Fmovies: I fully understand the reasonable popular criticisms of "Blair Witch" (2016). But I'd be lying if I said I didn't really enjoy it — I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

Yes, it's largely a retread of the first film in 1999. This putative sequel is effectively a remake, given how closely it parallels the original. (And there are a lot of people who hated that movie to start with.)

There are other problems too. A subplot's non sequitur segue into body horror is entirely out of place, for example, and we have at least two characters who are so irritating that we can't care much about their fate. And then there are some missed opportunities involving technology. (Much attention is paid to a drone that the ill-fated protagonists bring along in their trek into the woods, but it is underused later in the story.)

Still Â… this still worked for me. I have always really liked found- footage horror movies, and I also like stories featuring local legends. (They're just more engaging to me than yet another slasher film or third-rate, no-budget zombie movie.) And there are a couple of moments of brilliance. The scariest has already been spoiled by the film's trailer (seriously, f*** you, Lionsgate marketing department). But there are other nice touches Â… one is the dread- inducing, reality-bending story arc of the two locals who accompany the main protagonists. (And weren't these two supporting characters the most fun and interesting, anyway?)

And we indeed finally get glimpses of the titular Blair Witch! They are brief and few, but they're a damned effective, scary payoff.

All in all, this is still an offbeat horror outing in the same vein as the original, and I think the better parts made it a decent viewing.

What were people expecting? The same movie as the original, or something extremely different? As for me, I thought Blair Witch was a pretty good modern take on the series. Is it perfect? No. Is it the same as the original? Well, they become quite tonally different halfway. In the second half, the new one tries something different at the cost of people moaning about it revealing too much now.

I personally am glad the new Blair Witch is not exactly the same. I thought it was logical for the sequel to build up from its simplicity to something more intense. The last 20 minutes in particular was quite nerve-wracking, and the ending is no worse than what the original Blair Witch Project did. I think the problem is that when The Blair Witch Project came out, it was a groundbreaking low budget film that made its scariness effective though simplicity.

The new Blair Witch didn't want to retread the "exact" same ground the entire time, so they tried to make the second half different to try and appease the people who found the first film boring as hell. The result is mixed on people saying it's too different from the original, or too similar to other found footage films. I think they got the balance just right here, and the characters for the majority of the time made reasonable decisions and had good equipment with them to justify all of the recording and situations they were in.

If there's a significant flaw I can point out with it, then the "jump scares" were maybe done too much to the point where a character says to stop doing that. However, make no mistake, this movie is pretty terrifying. I still prefer the original though, but of all the found footage movies I've seen, Blair Witch has quite a significant amount of effort put into it.

7.5/10

Blair Witch fmovies. It's 16 years too late for most people, but this was EXACTLY what I wanted from a Blair Witch sequel.

I found it very effective and I loved the story. With the exception of the unethical marketing campaign, it has everything that made the first movie effective and then some. (Yes, I know the marketing is MOSTLY what people found effective about the first film, but that magic can never be captured again, so let it go.)

My only complaint is that there were too many false jump scares.

If you're not burnt out on found footage and you're open to the idea of a Blair Witch sequel, give it a shot.

There's not much else to say without spoilers. I just wanted to stop by and offset some of the hate.

A lot of hate for this movie, its not really that bad. Yeah most people are right, there are a lot of jump scares which are annoying, and a lot of the suspense of the first movie has been replaced by loud banging noises, but still, I found it fairly enjoyable. Plenty of suspense, and plenty of scenes where I was shaking my head, thinking "dont go in there" or "dont do that" with uncomfortable laughs followed. All up, if you liked The Blair Witch then you will like this one as well, if you hated the Blair Witch, then there is no point seeing this movie.(which baffled me in a lot of reviews, people saying they hated the first one and then hated this one???? Why would you bother, of course you wont like this one)

So much for months of hype starting with The Woods trailer months ago which was eventually revealed to be this film.

You want scary? You won't find it here unless you've never seen one of the Insiduous/Paranormal Activity/Conjuring clones to come out in the past 5 years. It uses the exact same scare tactics that made those films so successful, bringing nothing but a completely derivative experience to the table.

This completely failed to capture anything that made the original such a disturbing experience. They replaced subtlety and dread with loud sound effects, jump scares, and video game glimpses of cliché figures.

Did you see VHS? Did you handle it well? Congrats, you'll have zero problems sitting through Blair Witch. The first segment of VHS and the religious cult segment of part 2 are both scarier than the entirety of this film.

The worst part is Wingard and his crew don't even attempt to bring any original story elements to the table. This is literally a rehash of the original story with more characters and a flying drone with updated cameras. And don't expect to have the experience enhanced by any of these.

It's funny that even with the new expanses in technology they still couldn't make this thing more interesting than something that was filmed with 1999 equipment.

This isn't a spiritual successor to The Blair Witch Project, it's a found footage jump scare film for millennials who loved VHS and Paranormal Activity. I'm stumped as to who this was even made for. Certainly not people who saw the original in 1999 like me. We're a little too old to fall for this shtick.