Not another Blair Witch reboot
The third time is a charm, right? Right? The Blair Witch will work this time, right?
Aux News Blair Witch
Photo: Artisan Entertainment
The Blair Witch Project is a once-in-a-lifetime film. It’s the type of low-budget horror movie, like Evil Dead and Night Of The Living Dead, that not only inspires a generation of creative, passionate, and hardworking filmmakers but also a generation of Hollywood executives attempting to turn them into cinematic universes. Since Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez’s The Blair Witch Project became one of the most profitable films of all time in 1999, attempts at continuing the Blair Witch saga have been top of mind for horror studios. And just like a rag-tag trip of twentysomethings hoping to debunk a folktale about a child-killing crone, Lionsgate is heading back to Blair, Maryland.
Eight years removed from Adam Wingard’s 2016 reboot, Lionsgate and Blumhouse are once again placing some sticks outside of tents. Per The Hollywood Reporter, Lionsgate and Blumhouse have signed a multi-film deal to pilfer the Lionsgate vault and “reimagine” some of their horror movies. This will begin with Blair Witch, bumping the 1999 original’s forgotten sequel tally to three.
Of course, there are a lot of variables here. Will this be a found footage movie like the original, a straightforward narrative film like Book Of Shadows, or a mixture of the two, like 2016’s reboot? Maybe it’ll be a video game like the video game. If there was ever a movie that required a video game adaptation, it’s The Blair Witch Project, a $35,000 cheapie about a trio of college kids arguing about some logs that convinced a nation that a malevolent witch spirit haunted the Maryland woods. To be clear, there is still only one good Blair Witch spin-off, and it’s Curse Of The Blair Witch, a SyFy original movie from a time when it was called the Sci-Fi Channel. That’s the movie that actually convinced people Blair Witch Project was a found document, making it even funnier that anyone ever believed it.
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Why not? The 2nd one was #DOPE! In unrelated news, here’s a new SPR3 music video that ALL my av club pals are sure to enjoy!
Where are we currently on the Blair Witch backlash-reappraisal-backlash-reappraisal cycle? Personally, I always thought it was a snoozefest, and preferred the campy/meta shenanigans of Book of Shadows (not that I’m saying it was great, and it was apparently a pretty big compromise on the film the director actually wanted to make, it was just more entertaining to me)
I don’t think there is any right or wrong here. It comes down to what scares you. For some people, the primal scares of The Blair Witch Project – being lost, cold, alone in the dark, feeling chased, watched – feel very real and visceral. For others it can seem silly. I think both views are valid.What I don’t think anyone can really deny, is the importance of Blair Witch as a marketing experiment. The way the film was sold was truly brilliant. It was the first film to really leverage the power of the internet. It anticipates the viral phenomenon, and is really a 21st century conception that happens to have been released in 1999, because it didn’t rely upon word of mouth from theatergoers, or critical reviews in trade magazines and newspapers. It reached out directly to viewers via new media. It’s a hugely significant film in that regard, as significant in its own way, as the first talkie or color film.
The initial marketing, almost a proto ARG, was the best part about the movie. I was pretty hyped going into it but left thoroughly disappointed…which was better than the friend who I saw it with, she left disappointed and nauseated.
I remember reading about it a entertainment magazine, and they didn’t give away it was a work of fiction. I didn’t know about Sundance(?) having missing posters up to promote the movie. Mike Williams came into the place where I worked wearing a Blair Witch t-shirt and I told him I can’t wait to see that movie. He proudly replied “I’m in it.”
The first one is like 90% heavy breathing. Unwatchable.
and not the kind you want it to be.
Definitely only 10% talking head interviews. And scenes of the crew arguing with each other. Walking through the woods. Setting up camp.I think your math is wrong.Not that I would know since it was “unwatchable”…
i still consider it one of the scariest films ever made, and that’s having rewatched it numerous times and knowing full well that it’s fiction. something about the highly believable, “here’s what it’s like to be lost in the woods” vibe which works for me.
I have great reverence for it as my entry into the faux doc style of horror film. I loved it on my first watch in the theater and loved it again on my second and third. I absolutely LOATHED people in the theater, half of whom walked out bitching about a movie they claimed they could have made (and not a single fucking one of them did because it turns out making movies is hard despite assholes pretending otherwise).Having now experienced more of the subgenre/technique and having gone back to the film a number of times, I find it pretty flawed in some disappointing ways. I still love it, will always love it, but it’s dated and weak in spots. But I feel similarly about The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. TCM is slower and less extreme than people remember. I much prefer the more batshit, more deliberately funny sequel. But I would never deny its relevance to the genre or the quality of the filmmaking.tl;dr version – Blair Witch is a classic and deserves its status despite some dated weakness.
Not another Blair Witch reboot1) There hasn’t been a reboot yet. The 2016 film was a sequel.The Blair Witch will work this time, right2) The 2016 film made $45M on a $5M budget. I’d say it worked, at least commercially.
I get your point and I think it’s probably a decent rejoinder, but I also think the snarky point Schimkowitz is making has more to do with “working” creatively. And while I really like Adam Wingard and think he was on to something interesting with the sequel, I ultimately don’t think it works. I wonder how much he was talking to Benson and Moorhead during the development of Blair Witch because I find it to be very, very similar in premise to The Endless. While also being inferior in some significant ways. I really don’t think the time loop shenanigans work for the Blair Witch narrative, which is more straightforward. They tried to make Blair Witch cosmic horror and it functions much better as supernatural horror, IMO.
Schimkowitz is making has more to do with “working” creativelyCould be (which is why I qualified my remark with “commercially”). I’m a Wingard fan as well and really liked his take – mind you, I got to attend the Midnight Madness screening at TIFF and everyone was pretty fired up so that goes a long way! I hope he finds his way back to genre fair after his Godzilla outings.
Agreed re: Wingard returning. I’m always a little disappointed when a director makes their name on horror and then steps away. I don’t blame most of them, I have non-horror interests too. I’d love to write a romcom as well as the horror stuff I do.
I still remember watching the Curse of the Blair Witch on SciFi, back before it was widely known the movie was a mockumentary. I thought it was real, and watching that doc absolutely freaked me out.
I posit that Curse of the Blair Witch was largely responsible for peoples belief the movie was real moreso than the actual movie. As I too saw that and thought it was a real show, as those types of shows were really popular at the time (well, I guess they are still popular). I think the whole thing was debunked pretty much as soon as the movie came out, if I remember correctly.
It would make for a great double feature with with the film
Like how MTV used to show the making of Thriller along with the video.
I had a friend who believed the same – in part because he misremembered the doc as being on the History Channel instead of SciFi. Funny that back in 1999 the History Channel was considered a trustworthy source instead of your #1 stop for aliens and conspiracy theories.
Just do the Scooby-Doo Blair witch already and get it over with! That 10 minute spoof on Cartoon network was the 2nd best Blair witch thing ever!
Not Another Blair Witch Movie, It’s an XXX Parody!Featuring the sort of screen resolution and color distortion that you’d expect from your average nineteen eighties amatuer porn joint. Maybe better haircuts, though.
MIKE!!!!!!
Blair Witch Project or the 1984 Wings Hauser classic Mutant, which one wins for “Most Annoying Search for Mike”?
Mix it up. Have them get lost in suburbia.
Curse of the Blair Witch predates Blair Witch Project. It’s not a spinoff.
It was made to market the movie and was produced after the film’s initial festival screenings. It’s definitely a spin-off.
I’ve said it a dozen times, always into the void: creative bankruptcy. It’s now the extremely rare instance where an original idea comes to us in film. I find it genuinely sad, after living through arguably one of the best decades of cinema, to be here now. But wow, to be cannibalizing indie material from 25 years ago twice over. ffs…
The conceit of the original film, that it was made from and made *on* consumer technology, was its only charm. It gave every hopeful indie filmmaker a low hanging fruit to reach for. But its legacy remains in the 20th Century. It had a hot moment, but who in 2024 still talks about it? Will it be preserved by the Library of Congress? Will it make Sight & Sounds greatest ever list? Not likely. Its only value as an IP is that they don’t have to pay for it, and it can be (re)made cheaply. I guess that’s the only expectation that can be met. Otherwise, what’s the point?
huh, I have no memory of the 2016 reboot? But i’m hopeful, the latest Hell House turned out to be the best of the lot, so there’s still a chance
I know I watched it but I can’t remember a thing about it.
The headline should be the title.
Personally I really enjoyed the VR version of the spinoff game. I wish they would port it over from PSVR to PSVR2 like they’re doing with Exorcist: Legion. I know they’re two different publishers but still, I never finished the PSVR game and gave away my headset when I got the 2.
There was a 2016 reboot? Wow, totally missed that one. I remember the Book of Shadow because of how much hype there was because it was the sequel but one in 2016. Not a clue. Guess that says all there is to know about it.