Blair Witch (2016) | Movie News & Review | - Pop Movee

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BLAIR WITCH (2016) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

blair witch (2016) movie

Genre | Horror Thriller

Classification | MA 15+

Running time | 89 minutes

Released | 15 September 2016

cast

James Allen McCune ... James
Callie Hernandez ... Lisa Arlington
Corbin Reid...Ashley
Brandon Scott ... Peter
Wes Robinson ... Lane
Valorie Curry ... Talia

director

Adam Wingard

writer

Simon Barrett ... (written by)

cinematographer

Robby Baumgartner

music

Adam Wingard

film editor

Louis Cioffi

box office result

Worldwide $45,172,994

Australia $1,518,340

North America $20,777,061

the best dialogue

Lisa Arlington: Okay, so the Blair Witch. Who is she really?
Talia: Elly Kedward. That's what most people say. She was accused of witchcraft after some of the children in town said that she'd taken blood from them. There wasn't much of a trial system back then. Townspeople took her out to these woods, tied her to a tree and left her to die of exposure.

Ashley: There's something out there.

James: Heather? Is that you?

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BLAIR WITCH (2016) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

Prior to the film's premiere at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, the fact that that the film was a Blair Witch sequel remained a closely guarded secret, as the film was shot under the title The Woods. According to the film's writer, Barrett, the film's secrecy was done to prevent backlash among Internet commenters, who the filmmakers felt would react negatively to news of a reboot. Prior to the official premiere, Lionsgate went as far as to release a trailer for the film incorporating actual footage, while still keeping the film's lineage a secret. The film was still publicly known as The Woods even at Comic-Con, prior to its first screening, with io9 reporting that the initial theater for the screening was filled with posters for the fake film. After the screening (during which audiences realized that the film was a sequel), all the promotional material in the theater was changed to reflect the film's actual title.

BLAIR WITCH (2016) STORY SYNOPSIS

A young man and his friends venture into the Black Hills Forest in Maryland to uncover the mystery surrounding his missing sister. Many believe her disappearance 17 years earlier is connected to the legend of the Blair Witch. At first the group is hopeful, especially when two locals act as guides through the dark and winding woods. As the night wears on, a visit from a menacing presence soon makes them realize that the legend is all too real, and more sinister than they could have ever imagined.

BLAIR WITCH (2016) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty | Review date 14 September 2016
Pop Movee Rating ⭐⭐⭐

Blair Witch serves up a smorgasbord of genre tropes in a smartly executed horror thriller that takes the original 1999 film’s mythology and provides a slightly more substantive threat to a new band of film-making thrill seekers. For those not familiar with the 1999 film, The Blair Witch Project was the first “found footage” film to gain mainstream commercial success; made for just $60,000 but earning over $140 million at the box office. The film was one of the first to capitalise on the use of online viral marketing and turned its budget limitations to its advantage; convincing people that what they were seeing was a “real” documentary. (Albeit one that went horribly wrong.) Without the element of originality that helped to differentiate the 1999 film, Blair Witch opts for a follow-up story that takes elements of the original and fuses them with advances in film-making technology to create an updated film-within-a-film documentary with new cast of characters.

Blair Witch is set sixteen years after the events depicted in the original film. James (James Allen McCune), the younger brother of Heather (Heather Donahue), one of the characters who disappeared in The Blair Witch Project, has decided to go into the Burkittsville woods looking for her after a video he believes is his sister surfaces online. James is joined by his best friend Peter (Brandon Scott), Peter’s girlfriend Ashley (Corbin Reid) and Lisa (Callie Hernandez), the obligatory film-maker in the group. James and his friends reluctantly accept the help of Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry), the rather peculiar duo responsible for posting the aforementioned video to the internet supposedly showing James’s sister. James and his friends spend the initial part of their journey into the woods in relative high spirits and are quite condescending toward Lane and Talia, despite the fact that they would seem to know more about what is going on than either James or his friends. Matters take a turn for the bizarre when the group hear a series of strange noises on their first night and wake in the morning to find themselves surrounded by the Blair Witch symbol.

While Simon Barrett’s Blair Witch script doesn't offer much in the way of new information, the film benefits from Adam Wingard’s economical direction and relatively short 89 minute running time. Events never feel as though they are dragging despite a vast amount of the film’s second half being presented from multiple, confused character perspectives that the viewer comprehends as much through sound as they do through the visual cues provided by the limited range of light sources. The “found footage” production technique is stretched beyond breaking point, but Wingard keeps the action moving at such frenetic pace the viewer ceases to question the plausibility of what is being presented and become immersed in figuring out what is going on. This is where Blair Witch is at its best. As it races to its conclusion, the desperation of the film’s two key characters (James and Lisa) becomes more pronounced. Both McCune and Hernandez are better actors that anyone who appeared in the original film and both convey the right level of fear at critical moments that convince the viewer that they are facing real jeopardy. Barrett’s script makes an effort to add some depth to the mythology with the idea that the Burkittsville woods are subject to some sort of time distortion that plays a part in the Blair Witch’s power and provides some answers as to why no survivors are ever found when they venture in the forest. Unfortunately, this element becomes part of the broader unsolved mystery of what is happening to James and his friends and has been left as a dangling thread for a follow-up story.

Adam Wingard has not reinvented the Blair Witch franchise with his new film but he has managed to create a follow-up that delivers enough interesting ideas and jump scares to make this latest trips into the domain of the Blair Witch well worth the journey. There is a definite intention to expand the material in new directions, but Blair Witch acts very much as a reintroduction for the viewer and teases what may come subject to the commercial success of the new film. With this approach, fans of the original may feel a little short-changed as they are familiar with what Blair Witch has to offer. For those not so familiar with the Blair Witch, just remember, if you go into the woods today, you may be in for a big surprise…