The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

The Student News Site of Shawnee Mission Northwest

SMNW

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Blair Witch Review

Photo+by+Shelby+Beaumont
Photo by Shelby Beaumont

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

At its best, Blair Witch is another mildly entertaining horror flick that’s good for a single forgettable viewing. At its worst, it’s an extremely disappointing sequel to 1999’s genre-defining film The Blair Witch Project.

Blair Witch follows James Donahue and three of his friends as they enter the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland to search for James’ sister, who disappeared 20 years earlier while investigating the legend of the Blair Witch. The group soon lose their way, and find themselves hunted.

The Blair Witch Project is one of the greatest horror films of all time, and certainly the best movie in the found footage genre. Needless to say, people had high hopes for the film. And those hopes were not met.

The biggest flaw in the movie is that it doesn’t feel real. The Blair Witch Project, with its grainy 90’s footage and amateurish cinematography does a great job of immersing the viewer in the film. Blair Witch does not replicate this in any sense, and at no point in the movie did I feel that I was really there in the woods, fearing for my life with the characters.

Blair Witch also faces the dilemma plaguing nearly all horror movies of the last 15 years: It’s not scary. The jump scares are seen from a mile away, rendering them useless, and the only scene that had any dramatic tension at all was the ending sequence. This is disappointing, especially considering the original film is filled with edge-of-your-seat tension.

One of the few things that this film does right is the large amount of references to the original film. There are a lot of shots that appear in The Blair Witch Project which are replicated in this film, and quite a few iconic lines reappear as well. It was satisfying to see the filmmakers pay homage to the film that forever changed the horror genre.

Blair Witch is best summed up as a decent horror film but a terrible sequel. If you go see it, just know that you’re getting yourself into 90 minutes of pointless jump scares and irrelevant cliches.

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Blair Witch Review