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craigoxbrowFirst off, I'll put my hand up and admit it - I really liked The Blair Witch Project. Saw it in a preview, bought the book, wear the T-shirt. As a look at people semi-genuinely freaking out in response to zero-budget shock tactics, I think it's great. So I was curious as to what a sequel would - could do.
And it could have done so much more.
The opening is far and away the most interesting part of the film: a reflection to the hysteria over the film. Not something most sequels can address on any level, obviously, and I feel it should have been the unique selling point of a Blair Witch follow-up. If you got it baby, flaunt it. But no, after that it goes and follows a group of interested people going on a tour of the area and something going Horribly Wrong.
Good points:
Some of the characters are bang-on. The Wiccan complaining about the film's depiction of a witch, the unimpressed goth chick.
Likewise some of the dialogue: the tour's really ropy and they duly laugh at it.
Blair Witch mania is addressed, even if mostly as a source of setup and jokes.
Bad points:
The supernatural is in sight (unlike BWP) but not in-your-face. It's neither suspenseful nor scary, a killer for a horror film.
The original angle is jettisoned almost entirely once we get past the "first seventeen minutes to set up the plot" and into the plot itself.
So much more could have been done with the backstory, or with the hysteria angle. Instead... it isn't.
Good soundtrack though.
And it could have done so much more.
The opening is far and away the most interesting part of the film: a reflection to the hysteria over the film. Not something most sequels can address on any level, obviously, and I feel it should have been the unique selling point of a Blair Witch follow-up. If you got it baby, flaunt it. But no, after that it goes and follows a group of interested people going on a tour of the area and something going Horribly Wrong.
Good points:
Some of the characters are bang-on. The Wiccan complaining about the film's depiction of a witch, the unimpressed goth chick.
Likewise some of the dialogue: the tour's really ropy and they duly laugh at it.
Blair Witch mania is addressed, even if mostly as a source of setup and jokes.
Bad points:
The supernatural is in sight (unlike BWP) but not in-your-face. It's neither suspenseful nor scary, a killer for a horror film.
The original angle is jettisoned almost entirely once we get past the "first seventeen minutes to set up the plot" and into the plot itself.
So much more could have been done with the backstory, or with the hysteria angle. Instead... it isn't.
Good soundtrack though.
