Blair Witch
Director: Adam Wingard
Talent: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Corbin Reid, Brandon Scott
Release Date: 15th September
Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, behind such horror gems as You’re Next and The Guest, have a proven track record of entertainingly and exhilaratingly adhering to and subverting genre tropes, which makes their belated entry in the Blair Witch series all the more disappointing.
While it is perhaps unfair to expect a game-changer on a par with the seminal 1999 film, the filmmakers’ impeccable credentials suggest that there will be at least some small amount of invention to the proceedings — this is sadly not the case. In fact, this is not too far from remake territory, the story repeating itself almost beat-by-beat, except with the first film’s relentless, deeply disquieting sense of dread now replaced by an increasingly ineffective succession of jump scares. Although the cast is capable enough, they are simply too professional, too polished; one never forgets that they are actors performing in a movie and not real people lost and terrified for their lives. Found-footage has been done to death in the 17 years since that inaugural trip to the woods; this is the final nail in the coffin.
Words: Felipe Deakin
