Blair Witch

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 So, I was skeptical about Blair Witch. I wasn’t exactly a fan of The Blair Witch Project, but this one gave me a glimmer of hope because it was directed by Adam Wingard, who previously directed The Guest and You’re Next. Overall, I feel that this is an improvement over the first movie, even if it does suffer from some of the original’s same problems. First things first, I want to compliment Adam Wingard’s direction on the movie. He does some pretty cool things with the found footage genre here, adding a sort of Chronicle-style flair to it. This is a guy who is showing that he gets the horror genre. The characters aren’t great, but I do like them better in this movie. I genuinely believed these people actually were friends this time around. However, much like the first film, where this movie stumbles is the story. They do attempt to add to the Blair Witch’s backstory, but it doesn’t really make her feel like a lingering presence at first. Halfway through the movie however, it does get a bit more chilling The movie does follow some of the traditional horror movie cliches as well. For example, the minute I saw that there was a black guy in the cast, I knew what was going to happen to him. As Blair Witch goes on, I actually felt that it was building to something that was going to be worth it. The weird thing about this movie is that, story wise, it does share a lot of the same beats as the first Blair Witch Project. Do I think this is the best movie in the Blair Witch franchise? Yes, but it is still a very deeply flawed movie altogether, and the weakest thus far from Adam Wingard. Do I recommend seeing this movie? Yes, I honestly do, but only as a strong rental. 

7 / 10