Blair Witch Review (Film, 2016) #31DaysofHorror
We’re at an interesting time in horror. The genre has always been a profitable mainstay for studios. The films do not have to cost much money or even be particularly good to turn a strong profit at the box office. Now, it seems easier than ever to launch a horror franchise. From Insidious pounding out haunted house/object sequel after haunted house/object sequel to The Purge spinning off into a television series after four films, films made on a shoestring budget are quickly turning into the new horror mainstays.
The Blair Witch Project is an icon of American horror, with Heather’s teary-eyed monologue becoming a horror staple.
It is quite strange that The Blair Witch Project was not able to follow a similar trajectory. Had a film made for $60000 turned in close to $250million worldwide in 2018, we’d be guaranteed at least three films back to back if not more. That’s Paranormal Activity margins and that series had six films released in eight years. The Blair Witch Project also established a new genre of POV/found footage horror—shakycam took off from here—and set up the Sundance to box office blockbuster path that so many tiny weird horror films followed in the future.
But 1999 was a very different time for horror. The lasting reach of Freddy, Jason, and Michael was not a guarantee for box office success. Scream turned everyone into an expert on how the horror machine in America worked and studios were trying to turn the little genre that could into big budget mega productions. The Blair Witch Project stood out for a brilliant marketing campaign—we were absolutely convinced that the film was based on a true story if not actual found footage—and for its utter simplicity. Three people go into the woods to find the Blair Witch. They do. They’re never seen again. Only their camera footage remains.
A sequel was made right away: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. Its budget was 250 times the original ($15 million) and was more a showcase for visual effects than a natural extension of the story. I remember quite liking the new wrinkles in the lore of the Blair Witch story—she can manipulate your camera footage until your death to ensure no one can save you or stop her—but the film was a critical and commercial failure. Spending 250 times as much money to only earn 1/5 the profits of the original stopped the potential series in its tracks.
The new Blair Witch crew is twice as large as the original, complete with competing film crews and three couples.
Blair Witch attempts to reboot The Blair Witch Project into a potential commercial series. Jeremy is the brother of Heather, the documentarian at the center of the original film. He is now the subject of his own documentary, shot by Lisa. With the help of Ashley, another film student, and Peter, Jeremy’s oldest friend, Jeremy sets out to find proof that his sister really did disappear at the Parr house from the final moments of the original film. The house itself has never been rediscovered in any modern search and rescue mission, so the new theory is that Heather and her team were attacked nowhere near the Burkittsville Woods. Two local conspiracy theorists with a YouTube channel about the Blair Witch agree to show Jeremy and his crew where the newest tapes were located.
Director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett set up a lot of great stuff in this sequel. They pull on the suggestion of lore in the original to explore how the Blair Witch might manipulate time and physical space to trap her victims. They also make great use of more modern technology to justify a better quality film. The six filmmakers are equipped with earpiece cameras, GPS, state of the art camcorders, DV cameras (like in the original), and even a drone to tackle the mystery of the Burkittsville Woods. The characters also have a bit more definition, meaning no one has to pull all the weight like Heather Donahue in her iconic performance from the original.
The problem with Blair Witch is that it’s meant to be a reboot. Whether we like it or not, Lisa is our Heather. It’s not her story to tell but she’s the central figure of the edit. Her motivation is purely making a project for school, so her perspective on the story is nowhere near as engaging as anyone else’s in the film. The two locals have built a career out of investigating the Blair Witch and will stop at nothing to get their next video. Jeremy is fulfilling a lifelong quest to find his lost sister Heather. Peter is his best friend who has known him since before Heather went missing. Ashley is Peter’s girlfriend and the one who works with Lisa to make the film about Jeremy happen. The desire to parallel the original story means potentially more interesting perspectives are cast aside for another run at the infamous “I’m so scared” monologue from the original.
The play with time and space is used to devastating effect in the story arc of the local Blair Witch conspiracy video makers.
The structure of the film is a carbon copy, too. The first act is setting up equipment and getting to the woods. The second act is realizing that the woods might actually be haunted. The third act is nauseating chase sequences in and around the Parr house. There are some great new moments that show what Blair Witch could have been, but it’s just too reliant on the original to really stand out.
There’s another issue at play with the film. Horror has evolved a lot since 1999. The Blair Witch Project may not have become a multi-billion dollar horror franchise, but it did inspire a whole wave of creators to produce “true story” horror online. That marketing campaign centered on Heather’s research into the Blair Witch before disappearing has been copied over and over again for new online horror stories to emerge. Whether or not the original film was riffing on the emerging creepypasta trend or creepypasta found a tried and true formula in The Blair Witch Project marketing is straight up a chicken and the egg conundrum in horror.
What I can say without a doubt is how creepypasta wound up influencing Blair Witch. Sometimes, it’s best not to reveal what the monster actually looks like; Blair Witch does and I have mixed feelings. I feel the visual of the Blair Witch is used well in the film, but it really doesn’t feel authentic to that world. It looks like and functions as Slender Man sans suit, down to you can avoid its attacks if you don’t look at it.
We’re back at the chicken and the egg scenario. The expanded lore of The Blair Witch Project in novels, games, and comics mentioned this concept long before the first mentions of Slender Man existed on the Internet, but I’m really struggling to remember references to unnaturally long arms and disorienting people with static and breaking flashlights being part of the Blair Witch’s bag of tricks before the existence of Slender Man.
I can’t prove that Slender Man inspired the new lore and design of the Blair Witch, but it seems highly unlikely that a studio financed reboot of a horror classic was not influenced by Slender Man. The film had to be going into pre-production around the time the Slender Man myth became a major news story with the tragic copycat attack in 2014 and the style notes are just too similar to the Slender Man fan games. I remember even thinking before the Blair Witch is first seen that Blair Witch itself was closer in style to a modern survival horror game than a modern horror film.
There aren’t many new surprises in Blair Witch. It’s not a bad horror film by any stretch of the imagination. It’s just competing with the legacy of a film that quite literally revolutionized modern horror. I will give credit where credit is due. There is one scare leading into the final act that is so brutal and unexpected that I jumped out of my chair. That sequence alone is worth watching the film.
Blair Witch is currently streaming on Hulu Plus.
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