17 years ago, my mom and I were driving around Winter Park
Florida looking for an R-Rated movie to watch. You see, I was a timid kid; when
I was growing up absolutely anything even remotely frightening scared me.
Personally, I blame this on my dad showing me the ending of
the Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade with great glee as Julian Glover dried up into a skeleton. I didn’t find it too humorous and I’m not sure my mother
did either.
Anyway, because of that, I was forbidden from watching scary
movies and pretty much anything rated R.
But one afternoon in 1999, my mom and I decided to break
this rule and check out one of two movies: Shakespeare in Love or The Blair
Witch Project.
Very similar films, I know.
I don’t recall what eventually caused us to land on The
Blair Witch Project but what I saw that afternoon stuck with me for a long,
long time. Yes, I was 14-years old and yes, as I mentioned above, I was pretty
easily scared back then but The Blair Witch Project affected me like few other movies
had.
I’d walk from our driveway to the house and the rustling of
the trees would bring me back to those fuzzy, endless woods.
Since then my skin has gotten a lot thicker when it comes to
horror movies. While I do startle easily (jump scares are my nemesis) it’s
pretty rare that I see a movie which I would generally consider to be scary.
All of that being said, I was more than excited when Blair
Witch was announced. A real sequel (Book of Shadows, whatnow?) to this awesome
movie that had such a memorable impact on me? Yes please!
And so on a nice Sunday afternoon, a friend of mine and I
set out to see what’s being hailed as “one of the scariest movies ever made”.
We ended up having the entire theater to ourselves which was a blessing as
audiences tend to ruin horror movies by playing the “who can overreact the most
to make their friends laugh” game.
Blair Witch begins much in the same way as its 1999
predecessor. Rumors (in this case, footage allegedly showing Heather from the
first film) lead her brother and his friends into the Burkittsville woods where,
slowly, things start to get creepy.
The group soon find themselves lost, walking for hours only to find themselves back where they started. All of the equipment they bring – GPS locators, cell phones, a drone – end up failing, leaving the group totally lost and followed by an increasingly malevolent, unseen presence.
It is once the group is fully and totally disoriented that
Blair Witch starts to ramp up. While it does have its share of irritating jump
scares, there is a legitimately tense and frightening atmosphere which never lets
go.
Honestly, the movie went by really, really fast for me.
I was engaged the entire time.
The sound – one of the things that again worked so well in
the original – is marvelous here. It has its blunders (again, I’m looking at
you jump scares) but it’s full of ominous, unsettling noises. At one point, I
asked my friend “dude, is that people or animals” and I’m still not sure.
Leaves rustle, tree branches crack, the wind howls and, somewhere
out there, the Blair Witch stomps around the woods.
The sounds really are on point and are one of more powerful
aspects of the movie.
The last 15 minutes or so – again, like the original – were heart
pounding. I remember sitting in that theater back in 1999, knees pulled up to my chest, with a look of utter discomfort
on my face as Heather made her way screaming through that creepy house and I
had the same reaction to the finale of this movie.
Spoilers begin following this image and end after the next
So, let’s talk spoilers.
The movie really ramps up as Lisa and James find themselves
to be the only two left. After finding the aforementioned house, James believes that he sees
Heather inside and runs in to find her, leaving Lisa alone outside in the woods.
That’s when perhaps the most divisive moment of the movie
comes: you see the Blair Witch. The original movie was famous for not showing
anything – for letting the viewer make up their own mind about what was out
there and what it looked like.
This movie does not.
You see her in all her grotesque glory, looking similar to
the monster at the end of REC and, you know what? It fucking scared me. Yes, I
can totally see how some people will find it silly and I could have done
without seeing her more than once, but actually seeing her was a very frightening
moment. We have confirmation of this hideous thing which has been chasing our protagonists
and it makes their desire to escape from it much more relatable.
I was also very nervous that the white light shown in the
trailer would end up being related to aliens somehow. I’m so very, very
thankful that this wasn’t the case. While I’m not entirely sure what that was
supposed to be, my favorite theory suggests that it was the
witch manipulating the sun – causing it to rise and fall extremely quickly to
keep the campers in eternal darkness.
This is another element of the movie that I really enjoyed –
the time bending. The characters set their alarms for 7 AM, but it’s still dark
outside when they’re awoken. Another night, they somehow manage to sleep straight
through until 2 PM. And it’s revealed late into the film that the footage which
was found and originally led them into the woods was, in fact, them all along.
Bait from the witch perhaps?
Spoilers end
Ultimately, Blair Witch is proving to be pretty divisive among
horror fans and I’m honestly pretty shocked. I found the performances to be
fine (nothing spectacular, but fine) the atmosphere to be incredible and the
plot to be simple and enough to keep the story moving forward.
Yes, there were annoying jump scares. Yes, some characters
make some odd choices but I feel like, outside of one particular scene involving
a drone and a tree, they can be forgiven due to fear and panic.
Blair Witch did a truly terrific job of moving the source
material of the original forward. It was respectful of the 1999 movie while
adding elements that modern horror fans have come to expect. And more than
that, at least for me, the movie was actually scary.
I felt my heart racing after the lights had come up and I’d
left the theater, for perhaps the first time in my adult life.
Rating: 9/10
