Blair Witch - Movie Review

Starring James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson and Valorie Curry.
Written by Simon Barrett.
Directed by Adam Wingard.

★½

I was excited to see this horror movie. I really liked the Barrett/Wingard collaboration on You're Next, and I figured they could have fun with this. There are two reasons this movie doesn't succeed. It follows too closely to the template of the first Blair Witch movie. And it's not scary.

James is the younger brother of Heather, one of the documentarians who disappeared in the original Blair Witch. A recent tape was discovered in those woods outside Burkittsville, and James believes it contains evidence that Heather is still alive. His documentarian girlfriend Lisa and their friends Peter and Ashley tag along to go visit those woods. They find the couple, Lane and Talia, who originally found the tape to show them the exact location of where they found it.

So this time around we have six young people instead of three, and we have a lot more camera angles, although it is still all done under the found-footage conceit. Most of the jump-scares happen when suddenly someone enters the frame, but that's when the frame is shakiest, so you can't really see what you were supposed to be scared by.

The finale happens in that mysterious house in the middle of the woods, and that's the most suspenseful part of the movie. Once it was all over, I just wanted to give it a gigantic shrug.