THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT is a difficult film for many younger viewers to really grasp what it was like when it came out. It’s influence birthed the Found Footage genre in a way that just could not easily be measured. Debuting at Sundance and being first reviewed on AICN by Junior Mintz, who returned to her cabin in the frozen north shivering from fear. I still remember how scared she was as she communicated her story word for word over the phone as I typed. Different days indeed.
Currently we live in a culture deeply affected by the film, its marketing and as quickly as the film became a phenomenon… the franchise died with a criminally underappreciated sequel by the great Joe Berlinger called BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2. It was… a completely different animal – and the audience and many critics refused to ever meet the film for what it was attempting and succeeding at. Thus… The Blair Witch went the way of the cultural DoDo. A curiousity that folks would watch and wonder what the fucking big deal was.
The folks behind PARANORMAL ACTIVITY though – they get it. Very similar packaging, going for a found footage feel. The whole time, echoes of BLAIR WITCH play in my head. You know the genre of horror. There’s throngs of these things made out there. Trying to cash in on those that love the genre – if I may… one of the finest of this type of thing is FIVE ACROSS THE EYES about a group of girls getting in a van – and it gets… INTENSE. I’m actually married to a woman, who her friends call the QUEEN OF FOUND FOOTAGE, because Yoko does indeed love the format. It’s the format that all those GHOST HUNTING Tv Shows play with poorly.
Now… Lionsgate was being all sneaky and shit with their latest Adam Wingard movie – but when it got unleashed at COMIC CON this year, it became known… Adam Wingard of YOU’RE NEXT infamy – had made the real sequel to THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT entitled BLAIR WITCH.
Now, I loved THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT… hell, still hanging in my old bedroom at Dad’s house is the Stick Figure that came with my VHS copy that didn’t have credits or opening titles. Nothing to say it was a film. I knew what it was, thanks to Junior Mintz, but I have to say – that VHS is probably my fave I’ve ever had. I got so much mileage from terrifying unsuspecting movie geeks like Quint, Moriarty, Harry Lime, Henchman Mongo, Tom Joad, Annette Kellerman, John Robie and so many more.
My review for that film had my phone ringing with teenagers connected through the internet scared by just my review for the film. Ahhhh, the internet was such a magical place then. It still is, if you know where the magic is.
I’ve been greatly looking forward to this new addition to the BLAIR WITCH phenomenon. So I’m happy to report, this is actually the sequel that fans wanted from BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2. Sure the film looks better physically than the original, but that’s because in Adam Wingard’s film, the pretense is that the distance from the events of the original are the same for the characters as they are for us, the viewers of the original film. Which means, ear cameras with GPS so you can’t get lost. Drone Cam so you can send something up high for a look around. They’d like to think they’re prepared. But…
THE BLAIR WITCH says Fuck Your GPS and Your HighTech. She will fucking make the sun disappear, she’ll warp time and space. You can head back in the direction you came from, but you’re now in a small ass world that this centuries old tormented witch from hell is set upon fucking you proper and leaving your media as lures for the future.
I LOVE IT.
I LOVE IT.
I feel Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett have pulled a rabbit out of their hat that should and deserves to kickstart this Witch into high gear. In particular, the legend of the Blair Witch that Wes Robinson’s LANE character tells at a campfire… well, that movie. That’s what I want.
Give me a Blair Witch CRUCIBLE-esque tale. The accused witch tortured and tormented in the first 30 minutes – and then an hour and ten of settler supernatural torment and destruction. I love THE WITCH, but when you see the Blair Witch in this… you’re gonna want a whole lot more. A whole lot.
To me, a great big part of these films is how much they inspire you to dream about what you saw, that amount they inspire conspiratorial what if scenarios, as well as arguments about what you perceived at the screening.
THE BLAIR WITCH continues the original’s Ink Blot Cinema – where if you’re like me at all, much of the film is about Pattern Recognition. What do YOU see in the woods? Those oh so brief glimpses at the BLAIR WITCH which you may or may not see depending on how interested you are in the popcorn bucket… well, I’m betting what I saw could be different from you, just because the more I think, the more I think I saw… and that helps freak me out.
I’m not going into spoilers here –because that’s not the point. But I was watching the film – and there’s a sequence where a character has one option left to her, it’s a tight squeeze that only gets tighter… It was making me uncomfortable, but FatherGeek is claustrophobic, and when I looked over to see how he was handling this sequence… he had his eyes shut and head bowed. Instantly – I was delighted. There’s nothing I love more than seeing my dad, too scared to watch the screen. So, I put a comforting hand on his shoulder, he looked at me, I looked at the screen, poor girl was in quite the sticky situation, he looks at the screen, shakes his head no, and back to closed eyes – and boy did I have a mental giggle or two over that.
The film plays with Time Warps and Spatial Wonkiness. There’s shit man was not meant to understand at play here. At times, you could wonder why these silly people are running for their lives… I swear I see trees coming to life and ripping their world asunder, but it’s all in blinks and flashes of the eyes. It’s what I want to see and there’s just enough there to make it fly.
Adam Wingard’s THE BLAIR WITCH is a more accomplished work of filmmaking than the original, adding and deepening the bag of tricks this witch uses. See this with your most nervous friends.
Now to address… VOMIT CAM. I’m the wrong critic to ask. As I said, I’m too busy pattern recognizing and looking out for things what will grab me and put me in their otherworldly collection of sad sacks what had the nerve to enter those cursed woods and spend the night. OBVIOUSLY – the only people on planet Earth that can solve this mystery drive a van and have a dog named Scooby!
Have fun!
Keep it cool,
Harry
