Blair Witch

Watching Blair Witch, the 2016 sequel to The Blair Witch Project, is like hearing a band cover another song. You think, "That's better than the original," but then you realize it may be better but it lacks the one thing the original will always have--originality. Blair Witch is almost a beat-for-beat remake of the first film, and it delivers more scares and has higher production values, but it lacks the novelty of the The Blair Witch Project.

The premise is that a younger brother of one of the missing of the first film is searching for what happened to his sister (she was played by Heather Donohue). He takes along a woman who is making a documentary about his search (not sure if she's his girlfriend or not), and a friend and his maybe girlfriend. Two locals tag along. There is instantly friction because two of the characters are black and the local has a giant Confederate flag on his wall (perhaps this will be the new movie code for a disreputable character).

So we've got double the characters, and they've got all the modern stuff, such as cameras in their ears with GPS, a drone with a camera for taking a look above the treetops, and a lot of information. But, of course, after one night in the woods they all become hopelessly lost, tempers flare, and one by one they disappear, until the climax at the spooky house where the first film ended.

Directed by Adam Wingard, I liked Blair Witch and found myself genuinely frightened by it, which doesn't happen often. First of all, I think the idea of shooting a flashlight out into a darkened wood is scary, because you never what you're going to see. The house, which is much more fully explored this time, is very well done, and there are tunnels underneath where someone gets momentarily stuck--a nightmare for claustrophobes. There are also glimpses of the witch herself--maybe.

The script, by Simon Barrett, also introduces time paradoxes. Does the witch have the power to alter time? It seems so, when the local hillbillies get separated and then are found again by the heroes. They are told they last met earlier in the afternoon, while the hillbilly says it's been five or six days.

Blair Witch is a solid effort for horror fans, and delivers on what the detractors of The Blair Witch Project said was missing. If there are any further films in the series, though, it might behoove them to try something a little different. Maybe a prequel about Rustin Parr.