The 1999 horror film The Blair Witch Project is an extremely well-known film, not just in the world of horror but of cinema in general. It was a unique film, credited with both popularizing the found footage genre as well as being one of the first movies to go viral. Because of its intense success, of course, there had to be sequels. It spawned two of them and, likely not to anyone's surprise, both were destroyed by critics and audiences.
The Blair Witch Project's first sequel, Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 deserves most of the hate it gets. It's maybe not quite as horrendous as people make it seem, it is entertaining, but by no means is it a good movie. The intentions feel very muddy, and it just comes off as rushed and inauthentic. After the failure of Book of Shadows, it took 16 years for the franchise to be touched in movie form again, and was done so in Adam Wingard's 2016 filmBlair Witch.
Blair Witch was, much like Book of Shadows, generally not well received at all. It was criticized for bad writing, and for rehashing the original film but doing it in a worse way. Currently, it only holds a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes. However, there is a smaller, more quiet, crowd singing the praises of Blair Witch. Some people, though the minority, actually really liked it. When a film is divisive like this one is, with some calling it the worst of the year and others saying it's one of the best, it's begging for a second look. Despite what many of the reviews say, Blair Witch is actually a pretty solid take on the franchise's original idea.
Before Halloween and Candyman retconned their franchises with direct sequels to the first film set many years later, Blair Witch did it. For some reason, many call this film a remake, but it's very clearly a sequel set in the same universe as The Blair Witch Project. The premise of the film revolves around James, who is the sister of Heather from The Blair Witch Project. Obviously, she has been missing since she went looking for the Blair Witch in 1994. He sees a video with an image of what appears to be her and decides to go to the same woods she disappeared in and search for her. With him, he brings some friends who want to make a documentary of his journey as well as the Burkittsville locals who posted the video he saw. Most will be able to guess, that the search for Heather is far from smooth sailing.
Just like the original film, Blair Witch is a found-footage horror film. Instead of just a simple and dated camcorder though, this group has up-to-date technology. This is one aspect of the film that's actually kind of cool. The film does the same things as the original, but it's updated so it still feels current. And the way it pays homage to and honors the original is generally well done.
The group lost in the woods in Blair Witch is using phones and high-tech sports cameras and drones to film their work, which feels incredibly accurate to 2016.
The plot progression here also feels like an updated version of the 1999 film. While it generally follows the same pattern as the original, it's a lot less subtle. Some have criticized that aspect for being unoriginal, and it does make sense as to why, but in a lot of ways, it feels like it makes sense. Being overly mysterious when it's not a secret anymore as to what happened or where it's going wouldn't really work. In this case, it was the right decision to just bring on the scares.
Scares are another thing this film does really well. Throughout the movie, there are a lot of jump scares. Some of them are good, some of them are bad, but it's just a fun watching experience. It does a relatively good job of building the tension with them, and then the ending is just completely explosive. The ride in the last twenty or so minutes is chaotic and unexpected, and actually really terrifying. It's clear that the film was building to its massive ending, which is another thing the original did in 1999. The amount of jump scares has been criticized so someone who is not a fan of them may not enjoy this movie at all, but for those who don't mind them there are some quality ones.
Not everything about this movie is great, and it really doesn't hold a candle to the original. However, it's not nearly as bad as some people make it seem. People who really love The Blair Witch Project have a good chance of enjoying this one quite a lot too. In this case, while critics have many valid points, it does feel like they were a bit harsh. Perhaps that could have been because it's more geared to teen audiences or just because it's a sequel to a beloved classic, but no matter what it doesn't feel fair. Despite not being amazing, Blair Witch is perfectly competent and a lot of fun.