Until recently, almost no one knew that a Blair Witch Project sequel was coming. If the picture didn’t–and still doesn’t–hang together as great craftsmanship, it at least stands as a primo example of horror gimcrackery, and for better or, more likely, worse, it ushered in the era of the found-footage horror movie. The group disappeared, leaving just a scattering of video equipment: the film was presented as footage recovered from the doomed expedition, and some early viewers of the film took the bait, believing the footage was real. It makes you wonder why, if director Adam Wingard ( You're Next, The Guest) had enough skill to generate chills, he couldn't have made a smart, emotionally engaging movie.The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, was a mostly improvised affair in which three characters venture into the woods near Burkittsville, Md., to make a documentary about the legend of a witch who supposedly haunted the place. The shaky-cam footage can get tiresome, but the film's stark lighting, spooky woods, and even spookier cabin at the climax are actually, genuinely hair-raising, relying more on goosebumps than on jump-scares. Ideas like a flying drone camera and the two locals initially faking some scares are dropped or never explored they seem more like desperate filler than actual content. The characters' reason for going into the woods is ridiculous, and the friends are selfish and treat each other callously. Blair Witch has more in common with the rushed, boneheaded Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) than it does with the crafty, groundbreaking original. As it grows more unreal, this "threequel" to the original Blair Witch Project becomes intensely scary, but it's undone by a weak set-up and irritatingly dumb, shallow characters.
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