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score 8/10
I loved The Blair Witch Project. There is something fundamentally unnerving about deep dark woods, you never really know what is hiding just out of site. The BWP understood this, and did a great job building dread in what should have been a beautiful place. It was a slow burn that culminated in one of the scariest endings in the genre.
In terms of the forest Blair Witch picks up almost where the BWP left off. It completely skipped out on the beauty aspect of the woods and went right into building dread. As the characters hike deeper, and deeper the mood gets darker. This is where the Blair Witch really succeeds. By their second day in the woods I wanted them to get out of there. Once the attacks started I found myself not wanting to even see what was hunting them. By the third act I was getting goosebumps and was tempted to leave the the theater. The creepy setting, the witch, and certain environmental anomalies, combine to create a extremely unnerving experience. If you can get yourself in the shoes of the characters this is one of the scariest movies in a long time.
In terms of the "attacks" the Blair Witch went in a different direction. The BWP kept the witch at a distance. Blair Witch brings it much closer, and much louder. There is a lot more jump scares, but I don't feel that it takes away from the movie. This is a sequel, it isn't supposed to do exactly what the original did. Blair Witch is more of a modern horror movie, when compared to the slow burn the was the BWP. Both have their pros and cons but I believe they stand well together.
In the first act, the first person viewpoint is really distracting and poorly executed. However once they get out into the woods it gets a lot better. The movie did tread a little too close to the original for my taste. It added to the myth, and did things differently, but I would have liked it to differentiate itself more from the BWP. In the end it is another group of people trapped in an endless forest who meet very similar fates.
Even with some flaws, Blair Witch is a fitting sequel. It's not the original, and it scares the audience in different ways. If you go in expecting something as great as the Blair Witch Project, you will be disappointed. But as long as you realize that this is a sequel you likely will enjoy it. On the other hand if you never saw the BWP and are just looking for a scary movie you wont go wrong here.
tlm7692 21 September 2016
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3548315/ |
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21-11-2019 10:19:15
