Blair Witch (film)

Blair Witch

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Adam Wingard
Produced by
Screenplay by Simon Barrett
Starring
Music by Adam Wingard
Cinematography Robby Baumgartner
Edited by Louis Cioffi
Production
company
Distributed by Lionsgate
Release date
  • September 11, 2016 (2016-09-11) (TIFF)
  • September 16, 2016 (2016-09-16) (United States)
Running time
 89 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $5 million[2][3]
Box office $45.2 million[3]

Blair Witch is a 2016 American found footage supernatural horror film directed by Adam Wingard[4] and written by Simon Barrett. It is the third official film in the Blair Witch series and a direct sequel to the 1999 film The Blair Witch Project, ignoring the events of its 2000 follow-up film Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, given the events of that film being a film within a film.[lower-alpha 1] Blair Witch stars James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson, and Valorie Curry. The film, shot in a found footage style, follows a group of college students and their local guides who venture into the Black Hills Forest in Maryland to uncover the mysteries surrounding the disappearance years ago of Heather Donahue, the sister of one of the characters.[5] Initially, the film's connection to the Blair Witch franchise was kept secret, with the film having been shot under the fake title, The Woods.

The film was screened at San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2016 and premiered at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, before being theatrically released in the United States on September 16 by Lionsgate.[6] The film received generally negative reviews[7] and despite grossing $45 million on a budget of $5 million, it was considered a box office disappointment, given that the original film had grossed nearly $250 million in 1999.[8][9][10]

Plot

In 2014, James Donahue finds a video on YouTube containing an image of a woman he believes to be his sister Heather who disappeared in 1994 near Burkittsville while investigating the legend of the Blair Witch. Believing she is still alive, he heads into the woods, accompanied by friends Peter Jones, Ashley Bennett, and film student Lisa Arlington, who wants to film James' search for her documentary, The Absence of Closure.[11][12] Locals Talia and Lane join them.

Upon setting up camp for the night, Lane and Talia discuss the disappearance of Heather's film crew, and other mysterious occurrences, which they ascribe to the Blair Witch. After hearing noises during the night, the group awakens to find strange stick figures hanging from the trees. Unnerved, they elect to leave. Lisa notices twine in Lane's backpack and both he and Talia are banished after admitting to creating the figures in order to convince the group to leave, given that there had been strange noises during the night and they had woken up at 2am.

After hours of walking, the four arrive back at their original campsite, having gone in circles. Lisa pilots a drone to obtain their location, but it malfunctions. Ashley becomes sick due to a wound on her foot, forcing the group to camp again. When Peter inspects Ashley's wounded foot, he spots a parasite inside her foot but makes no mention of it to Ashley. Peter leaves the camp for firewood, soon being chased by an unknown entity; he gets wounded from a tree falling on him, and disappears.

During the night, Lane and Talia emerge, claiming they have been wandering around the forest for five days without a sunrise. Believing that he is hallucinating the camp, Lane runs off. The next morning, James and Lisa are stunned to find that it is still dark outside and discover larger stick figures. Talia sees clumps of her hair tied to one of the figures. Ashley accuses Talia of crafting them and snaps the figure with Talia's hair in half; Talia is then snapped in half. An unseen force lifts their tent and the ensuing panic separates the group. Ashley finds the drone and climbs a tree to recover it but after falling from the tree, the unknown entity drags her away.

A rainstorm ensues as Lisa and James stumble across Rustin Parr's house, which James had previously stated to have been burned down after his execution. James seemingly spots his sister Heather upstairs, enters the house and sees Peter standing in the corner. He chases after the figure he believes to be Heather, confronted by a teleporting dishevelled figure;[lower-alpha 2] upon its vanishing he barricades himself.

Outside, Lisa spots the unknown entity, a tall, pale, long-limbed creature moving through the trees, and she runs into the house, into the basement. She finds an aged and hostile Lane who traps her in an underground tunnel as “you have to do what she tells you”. Lisa escapes through the tunnel to a different part of the house, and is forced to stab and kill Lane when he attacks her. Lisa attempts to cover up the tunnel; she is forced to flee when the long-limbed creature she glimpsed outside emerges and chases her down the corridors. Lisa runs up to the attic with Lane's camcorder, creating the paradox that lured them all to the woods.[lower-alpha 3]

She reunites with James in the attic and they try to barricade the door. A bright light shines from outside the building, around the walls before stopping at the door, indicating the arrival of the witch. James tells Lisa to face the corner of the room and desperately apologizes to her for their fate before the witch enters, alongside her creature. James is tricked into turning around, believing that he hears Heather's voice, and vanishes from sight. Lisa uses Lane's camcorder to view what is behind her and begins walking backward. However, hearing James' apology again, she turns, and vanishes, leaving her camera behind before it gives out, leaving their fates unknown.

Cast

Production

Wingard first ran into the original Blair Witch Project filmmakers, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, while promoting V/H/S/2 at the Sundance Film Festival, and asked them why there were not any more Blair Witch films. Although nothing came of the meeting at the time, looking back on it, writer Simon Barrett had opined that the conversation led to them being asked by Lionsgate to produce the sequel.[13] Barrett recalled that, in the initial pitch meeting, Lionsgate had already crafted a synopsis for the film, and simply asked if he would be interested in making it, and the "only thing I really pitched was the other characters; they’d originally conceived the film as more similar to the first film, following its narrative fairly closely, with only three or four characters, I think, but I wanted more characters to give us more scare sequences. I also wanted a unique dynamic within the group from the start, so I pitched the idea of introducing some Burkittsville locals to the group."[13]

Barrett would later note that the team found that the found footage genre more challenging, as they have only previously worked with it on the V/H/S anthology movies.[14] Barrett noted that with the V/H/S series, there was an inherent entertainment value, where the segments "were never meant to feel entirely real", an element that did not work for the Blair Witch series.[14] Speaking on the issue to Bloody Disgusting, Barrett stated "even if our scares didn’t work in V/H/S, hopefully people would still be entertained, and if they weren’t, well, another short would start in a few minutes"; he added that if a scare did not work in Blair Witch, "we’d have nothing to fall back on, we’d just have failed completely, and publicly." To prevent this from happening, Barrett and Winger extensively went over each "scare" to discover why it was scary and how the audience would react to it. For some sequences, multiple approaches were tried differently, "to give us options in the editing room."[14]

Prior to the film's premiere at the 2016 Comic-Con, the fact that that the film was a Blair Witch sequel remained a closely guarded secret,[15] as the film was shot under the title The Woods.[15] According to the film's writer, Barrett, the film's secrecy was done to prevent backlash among Internet commenters, who the filmmakers felt would react negatively to news of a reboot.[16] Prior to the official premiere, Lionsgate went as far as to release a trailer for the film incorporating actual footage, while still keeping the film's lineage a secret.[15] The film was still publicly known as The Woods even at Comic-Con, prior to its first screening, with io9 reporting that the initial theater for the screening was filled with posters for the fake film. After the screening (during which audiences realized that the film was a sequel), all the promotional material in the theater was changed to reflect the film's actual title.[16]

Release

The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2016[17] and was theatrically released on September 16, 2016.[18]

Reception

Box office

Blair Witch grossed $20.8 million in North America and $24.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $45.2 million, against a production budget of $5 million.[3]

In the United States and Canada, the film was released on September 16, 2016, and was initially projected to gross at least $20 million with a chance to get as high as $26 million in its opening weekend, from 3,121 theaters.[19][20] Lionsgate's expectations were more conservative, however, with a projected $15–18 million opening, although rival studios were predicting significantly higher numbers, noting how horror films saw solid performances throughout 2016, including Lights Out, The Conjuring 2, The Purge: Election Year, The Shallows and Don't Breathe.[19] However, after grossing $765,000 from its Thursday previews and $4.1 million on its first day, opening projections were lowered to $10 million. It ended up grossing $9.7 million in its opening weekend, below expectations and the lowest opening weekend of the series.[21] The film was considered a box office disappointment by analysts.[9]

The film received a day-and-date release in many countries in conjunction with its North American debut.[22]

The film cost $5 million to produce, with an additional $20 million spent on promotion, advertising and marketing costs.[23]

Critical response

Blair Witch received generally negative reviews, with critics noting it as an improvement on Book of Shadows while criticizing the writing and special effects.[7][24][25] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 36% based on 177 reviews, with an average rating of 5.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Blair Witch doles out a handful of effective scares, but aside from a few new twists, it mainly offers a belated rehash of the original – and far more memorable – first film."[26] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 47 out of 100, based on 41 critics.[27] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "D+" on an A+ to F scale.[28] According to Entertainment Weekly's Joey Nolfi, while Blair Witch is generally regarded as an improvement over Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, "moviegoers and film journalists essentially told [Blair Witch] to stand in the corner...critical reviews and audience exit polling...are still some of the worst of any 2016 release thus far."[7]

Michael Roffman of Consequence of Sound wrote that "Nothing [about the film] is scary, nothing is remotely disturbing, and there’s this boring familiarity to the proceedings, namely because it’s more or less a beat-by-beat remake of the original."[29] The Hollywood Reporter's Leslie Felperin criticized the film, commenting that it is "a dull retread rather than a full-on reinvention," enlarging the cast numbers this time but sticking to the same basic beats.[30] Scott Tobias of GQ felt that the makers of Blair Witch made a poor decision by making the film less subtle than the original.[31] Thomas Simpson of the Rock River Times said that the film "lacks any real scares" and that, after watching it, "you shouldn’t have any issues turning the light off at night."[25] The New York Post's Kyle Smith condemned the film by saying that "the take-away from Blair Witch is not terror, but sorrow," and gave it 1.5 stars out of 4.[32]

Josh Kurp of Uproxx gave the film a mixed review, saying "Blair Witch is scary, but it lacks surprise, and without surprise, you’re left with a bunch of kind-of annoying people shakily filming themselves wandering the woods and reacting to loud noises."[33] Mark Kermode gave the film three out of five stars in a review for The Guardian, calling it "efficient if unadventurous."[34] Vanity Fair's Jordan Hoffman felt that the film was inferior to You're Next, a previous film by Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, and said Blair Witch's "jump-scares [will] make for a fun night at the movies, but it’s like chomping on White Castle hamburgers—when this creative team has previously served us a prime rib."[35]

Conversely, IGN reviewer Chris Tilly declared that Blair Witch is "so good it'll make you forget that Book of Shadows ever happened."[36] Mark Eccleston of Glamour wrote that the film has "genuine, jarring scares...and an unsettling late surprise that makes it well worth popping to you nearest multiplex to have the holy crap scared out of you."[37] Bloody Disgusting's Brad Miska writes, "Blair Witch is that game-changer horror fans desperately have been waiting for." Miska gave the film a 4.5 out of 5 rating,[38] and included it in his list of the "Best Horror Films of 2016".[39]

Soundtrack

Blair Witch (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Studio album by Adam Wingard
Released September 16, 2016
Recorded January 23, 2016
Genre Stage & Screen
Length 32:20
Label Lakeshore Records

The soundtrack was released on September 16, 2016 via Lakeshore Records, concurrent with Lionsgate’s release of the movie. The score is a collaboration of Adam Wingard with electronic music producer Robert Rich.[40]

All Music Composed By Adam Wingard

1.Black Hills Forest

2.Rustin Parr

3.Camp Fire

4.Panic Attack

5.Blair Witch

6.Lane And Talia

7.The Project

8.Invocation Of Evil

9.No Tresspassing

10.The House In The Woods

Time Album Length 32:20


Additional Music:

  1. "Hakmarrja" – N.K.V.D[41][42]
  2. "Pagan Dance Move" – Arnaud Rebotini[41][42]
  3. "Rien à Paris" – Liz & László[41][42]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ In the tie-in documentary to Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, Shadow of the Blair Witch, the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are presented in-universe as a film adaptation based on the "Black Hills murders" that took place shortly after the events of The Blair Witch Project. This documentary presents the events of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 as a film within a film. Shadow of the Blair Witch follows "the real James Patterson"’s defense team as the case prepares for trial and as the public reacts to plans to fictionalize the case’s events for the big screen from the defense's point-of-view. Protests of the film Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 are discussed within the documentary coming from both the families of those involved with the case and from the Wiccan community as a whole. Rachel Moskowitz and Andre Brooks respectively portray the "real" Kim Diamond and Jeffrey Patterson within the documentary.
  2. ↑ Though glimpsed briefly, the figure indeed appears to be Heather Donahue as she appeared in the closing scenes of The Blair Witch Project, complete with her torn cardigan and hat, with Donahue reprising her role. In an interview with Adam Wingard, the film's director, it was later confirmed that Donahue was portraying the Blair Witch in the form of Heather Donahue.
  3. ↑ Early on in the film, as the group makes its way deep into the woods, Lisa asks Lane about his camera, an older model that she notes uses the exact same tape as the one he claims to have found. The footage Lisa records on Lane’s camera while running through the shack is the same footage Lane found in the woods before they ever actually went into the woods, implying that the group has been caught in a time loop

References

  1. ↑ "BLAIR WITCH (15)". British Board of Film Classification. August 17, 2016. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  2. ↑ Doty, Meriah. "Will ‘Blair Witch’ Beat ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’ in Box Office Battle of Long-Delayed Sequels?". TheWrap. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 "Blair Witch (2016)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved December 17, 2016.
  4. ↑ Nordine, Michael (May 10, 2016). "The Woods Trailer: Adam Wingard Takes Us Camping in New Found-Footage Horror Flick". Indiewire. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  5. ↑ "Adam Wingard's The Woods is actually a sequel to The Blair Witch Project". July 23, 2016. Retrieved July 25, 2016.
  6. ↑ Smith, Michelle (May 10, 2016). "The Woods Trailer Doesn't Reveal Much, But Is Sure To Give You Massive Goosebumps". MoviePilot. Retrieved May 11, 2016.
  7. 1 2 3 Nolfi, Joey (September 19, 2016). "Blair Witch 2 director defends his movie after new sequel stumbles". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
  8. ↑ Anthony D'Alessandro (September 14, 2016). "‘Sully’ Squares Off With ‘Blair Witch’ At Weekend Box Office". Deadline. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  9. 1 2 Gleiberman, Owen (September 18, 2016). "As ‘Blair Witch’ Flops, Is the Found-Footage Horror Film Over?". Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  10. ↑ "Why Blair Witch Bombed At The Box Office - CINEMABLEND". Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  11. ↑ "The Absence of Closure by Lisa Arlington". Kickstarter.com. May 12, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  12. ↑ "The Absence of Closure". Absenceofclosure.tumblr.com. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  13. 1 2 "[Interview] The Story Behind the ‘Blair Witch’ Revival". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  14. 1 2 3 "[Interview] ‘Blair Witch’ Was Just as Scary to Make, Explains Writer Simon Barrett". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved September 8, 2016.
  15. 1 2 3 Calvario, Liz. "Blair Witch: How Filmmakers Were Able to Keep the Sequel Under Wraps for Three Years". Indiewire. Retrieved August 31, 2016.
  16. 1 2 Lussler, Germain. "Why the New Blair Witch Movie Had to Be Kept Secret". io9. Retrieved September 2, 2016.
  17. ↑ Pond, Steve (September 9, 2016). "Toronto Film Festival Adds Movies by Leonardo DiCaprio, Werner Herzog, Marlon Brando". The Wrap. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
  18. ↑ Busch, Anita (May 10, 2016). "Lionsgate Moves YA Title Nerve Into Summer, Schedules The Woods". Deadline.com. Retrieved July 23, 2016.
  19. 1 2 Dave McNarry (September 13, 2016). "Box Office: ‘Blair Witch’ Looks to Scare Off ‘Sully,’ ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby’". Variety. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  20. ↑ "Weekend Forecast: ‘Blair Witch,’ ‘Bridget Jones’s Baby,’ ‘Hillsong – Let Hope Rise’ & ‘Snowden’". pro.boxoffice.com. September 14, 2016.
  21. ↑ "‘Sully’ Burns ‘Blair Witch’, ‘Bridget Jones’ & ‘Snowden’ At The Box Office Stake – Friday Evening Update". Deadline.com.
  22. ↑ Anita Busch and Anthony D'Alessandro (September 12, 2016). "‘Sully’ Lands At $35M, ‘Bough’ Breaks With $14.2M – Monday B.O. Final". Deadline.com. Retrieved September 13, 2016.
  23. ↑ Anthony D'Alessandro (September 14, 2016). "Can ‘Sully’ Crucify ‘Blair Witch’ At The Weekend B.O.? – Preview". Deadline.com. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
  24. ↑ Orr, Christopher (September 16, 2016). "Blair Witch Gets Lost in the Woods (Again)". The Atlantic. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
  25. 1 2 Simpson, Thomas (September 20, 2016). "Blair Witch lacks any real scares". Rock River Times. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
  26. ↑ "Blair Witch (2016)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandago. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  27. ↑ "Blair Witch reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 22, 2016.
  28. ↑ "CinemaScore". cinemascore.com.
  29. ↑ Roffman, Michael (September 14, 2016). "Film Review: Blair Witch". Consequence of Sound. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  30. ↑ Felperin, Leslie (September 11, 2016). "'Blair Witch': Film Review TIFF 2016". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  31. ↑ Tobias, Scott (September 13, 2016). "Blair Witch Review: It’s No Blair Witch Project". GQ. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  32. ↑ Smith, Kyle (September 15, 2016). "Poor Blair Witch — she deserves a better movie". New York Post. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  33. ↑ "‘Blair Witch’ Is Too Afraid To Do Anything New". Uproxx.
  34. ↑ Kermode, Mark (September 18, 2016). "Blair Witch review – efficient horror sequel". The Guardian. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  35. ↑ Hoffman, Jordan (September 12, 2016). "Blair Witch Has Scares, but It Never Quite Gets Out of the Woods". Vanity Fair. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  36. ↑ Tilly, Chris (September 12, 2016). "Blair Witch Review". IGN. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  37. ↑ Eccleston, Mark (September 16, 2016). "FILM REVIEW: Just how scary is the new Blair Witch?". Glamour. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
  38. ↑ Miska, Brad (July 22, 2016). "[Review] 'Blair Witch'". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved September 15, 2016.
  39. ↑ Miska, Brad (December 26, 2016). "Mr. Disgusting Picks the Best Horror Films of 2016!". Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved January 3, 2016.
  40. ↑ Calvario, Liz (September 17, 2016). "‘Blair Witch’ Soundtrack: Listen to Director Adam Wingard’s Creepy Ambient Music". indiewire.com. Retrieved October 28, 2016.
  41. 1 2 3 "Blair Witch (2016): Soundtrack and Complete List of Songs". WhatSong. September 16, 2016. Retrieved October 1, 2016.
  42. 1 2 3
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