There’s something wonderful about watching a horror at the cinema, you’re sharing some scares with a roomful of strangers, all with differing reaction times and personal squirm limits. The difficulty in disguising your fright can be quite endearing to the person next to you and you might just have a laugh at yourself.
In the lead up to the film, I wanted to be scared and expected to get a little jumpy; opening my mind to the possibility of fundamental character and plot flaws and running with it because I simply wanted it to be believable!
Typical of the Blair Witch franchise, this found-footage forest-romp doesn’t stray far from expectations; we have a bunch of pals hoon off into the Black Hills Woods to investigate and document the disappearance of Heather Donahue, the sister of the protagonist, who went missing some 20 years earlier. Don’t worry about Heather’s friends who also went missing at the same time, though, and by the way, don’t bother notifying your families, or anyone, in fact, of what you’re planning.
With slightly better camera gear and a jaunty inclination towards the telling of ghost stories over campfire, we find ourselves lost while stepping on the toes of the Blair Witch and pissing her off yet again, cool. Here we discover some simple failures; just one torch each, guys, seriously wtf? In my mind I have images of the girl grabbing the banana instead of the gun in Scary Movie and can’t help but giggle throughout.
I won’t delve into how the acting made me feel but would rather mention the lack of ethnic diversity in the coupling of the characters. On that note, who dies first? You tell me. Pitiful, mostly.
I can only hope that the result of this film’s sudden appearance and hype activates a new generation to watch the original– because it was absolutely top notch.
5.5/10
– Ash Mosen
