Director Adam Wingard and screenwriter Simon Barrett made their names snarking on ’80s action movies with
The Guest and ’70s slasher flicks with
You’re Next. They don’t make their own movies so much as remake everyone else’s. So who better to give us
Blair Witch, which isn’t merely an entirely superfluous attempt to recapture the magic of the groundbreaking 1999 film—not possible now that found-footage is played out—but is also a remake masquerading as a sequel. James (James Allen McCune) heads into the Maryland woods with some pals to find out what happened to his sister, Heather, the documentary director from the original movie. Expanding the found-footage conceit with aerial drones and ear-fitted cameras that offer POV shots only breaks the tone; this looks a lot like a traditionally edited narrative. Much worse: After some tromping around in the woods, familiar horror-flick scares, and fresher but ultimately dead-end hints that the fabric of the physical world is broken, Blair Witch ends up in the same place where the first film ended. It goes nowhere, and says nothing we hadn’t already heard 17 years ago.
By
MaryAnn Johanson