435: Blair Witch

[00:00:00] Alright, let's get to the last film in the franchise and then we'll get to Unfriended. Let's get to Blair Witch which came out in 2016, directed by Adam Wingard who went on to do Godzilla vs. Kong, he also did The Guest, You're Next

[00:00:17] and Death Note, a live-action film. Stars James Alan McCoon, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reed, Brandon Scott, Wes Robinson, Valerie Currie and the synopsis is After discovering a video showing what he believes to be his vanished sister

[00:00:35] Heather, James and a group of friends head to the forest believed to be inhabited by the Blair Witch. This one was a first watch for me. I watched all three of these in a row the other night. I really like Adam Wingard

[00:00:49] for the most part. A lot of his movies I'm big big fans of and I typically will watch whatever he does at this point. When this one came out I had no real attachment to Blair Witch. It had been years since I'd seen the first one and I

[00:01:03] put it out of my brain until just recently. As a sequel it's really not too bad. I don't think it's as bad, nearly as bad as a lot of people make it out to be

[00:01:14] but I also don't think it's amazing. It's one of Wingard's lesser movies in my opinion. If you're gonna do a Blair Witch sequel I prefer to be in this sort of style where it's basically characters going back out into the woods

[00:01:31] and crazy stuff starts happening. I don't really need a Book of Shadows sort of spinoff sequel. It doesn't really do much for me so I'm glad that they did it this way and I would happily watch another film if they did it even though I

[00:01:44] don't love any of these movies. I think that as I said with the first film I prefer the characters in this one because some are less insufferable. They're more grounded and restrained in terms of emotions and there's also more

[00:02:00] variety in terms of certain characters being with each other and then coming back to others and then characters being by themselves and so I like that variety a lot more than the first one. The first two-thirds are alright.

[00:02:13] I don't think I was ever fully loving it or engaged like really engaged but it's decent. The camera work is good, the lighting is good. I like the callbacks from the first film in terms of scanning the woods with flashlights and all

[00:02:30] that. I like that concept and horror style overall however one big thing and I talked about it on my Letterboxd review, the gimmick and I don't fault the first one for doing it but in Book of Shadows and then in this one I hate the trope of

[00:02:47] characters running through the woods and crashing into each other especially when they have lights that show where they are. Like I'm tired of characters being zoomed in on someone and then someone ramming right into them and them

[00:02:59] screaming and saying oh like what the hell like why'd you do that like you scared me. It just feels so lazy and gets really tiresome because they do it a decent amount of times in this from what I remember so I really don't like that.

[00:03:10] It feels very shallow and repetitive but the biggest thing as I said with the first film my favorite part probably of the whole franchise is the last 20 minutes or so of this movie. I think the sequence at the house, the Blair Witch

[00:03:28] house so to speak where there's the thunderstorm is amazing. The characters moving through the house up the stairs scanning the room scanning the hallways I don't mind also that you see the witch a little bit in this. Some people

[00:03:44] hate that I don't really get the hate for that I think it's done pretty well and it's not super in-your-face it's all from reflections and little shadows and glimpses I really like that and how it's done and so the last 20 minutes I was

[00:03:58] fully in for this movie. I was on the edge of my seat I had chills I was really really enjoying it and I wish that that part had started sooner because the look of the house, the look of the thunderstorm in terms of the rain coming

[00:04:12] in, the flash of lights, the wind, the creaking of the house and then the sequence towards the end of it where the girl is thrown into that tunnel and she has to crawl through and throw the flashlight in front of her and she ends

[00:04:28] up getting stuck and freaks out and then has to go back up into the house and there's the final sequence of her trying to not look at the witch and seeing her through the reflection in the camera or the rear view of the camera

[00:04:43] whatever you want to call it I think all that stuff is really intense some of the most enjoyable horror sequences handheld found footage or filmmaking that I've seen in a while and it's not enough to make the movie amazing or a masterpiece

[00:04:56] or anywhere close to being better than the first one but that filmmaking in that last 20 minutes awesome could not praise it enough but before that the characters they're okay I don't mind that they're not super likable for the

[00:05:12] most part I like the idea of the brother of Heather being in the sequel it's not just a random group of kids going and saying hey let's explore it's alright I want to go find my sister and then I like the emotional aspect of that

[00:05:25] towards the end where that is more of a motivation for him to go into the house it's like all right no I hear my sister screaming or calling for me even though obviously we know it's not I want to go in there as opposed to hey let's go

[00:05:36] explore the house what could we find I think all that stuff works the twists of who is I don't know what you want to call it sabotaging them in some ways I really like that the sequence where the guy is earlier on in the movie is

[00:05:54] running through the woods and the tree falls on him so they're all really good parts I don't love the thing with the girls foot injury I think that's a little lame in terms of all the stuff you could do with witchcraft and taboo

[00:06:07] and all that stuff in terms of horror imagery and ideas that foot injury is a little lame and not very interesting so that would be a detractor for me but the overall filmmaking the direction is good there are times where it's too shaky too

[00:06:25] people are grabbing it and it's flying all over the place in terms of where you're looking and it got to the point at times where I could not even tell what was happening I'm like oh whoa like what happened there I was thinking what

[00:06:36] actually just happened I did not see it and so it's not perfect in terms of that but still pretty solid it is worth watching and you don't even really have to have seen the first one to understand this one I think you could go in and

[00:06:48] really get the overall understanding of why they're going in there again and get into the style and the concept so that in some ways is what makes a good sequel so yeah not an amazing movie one that I might go back and rewatch him right like

[00:07:03] a little bit more and that's probably gonna be the case with the first one as well it ended on a great high note can't say that enough love those last 20 minutes so creepy so unsettling great imagery

[00:07:17] great lighting great camera work editing all that stuff I was a big big fan of just not enough to fully save the movie from not being a best of the year best of the decade best horror film ever kind of thing which doesn't need to be

[00:07:31] but so yeah give it a look there are much worse movies out there I don't think it's as bad as a lot people say as I mentioned it's not amazing but was better than I expected and I am in some ways looking forward to going back and

[00:07:47] rewatching it sometime down the road so that one is a three and a half out of five