Director: Adam Wingard
Notable Cast: James
Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Corbin Reid, Wes Robinson,
Valorie Curry
When the trailer for The
Woods first showed up online, I had a friend of mine bring it up in one of
our movie discussions. “It looks like a Blair
Witch movie,” he said. “Nah. Adam Wingard wouldn’t touch that franchise and
why would they bring it back now? The second one killed any kind of hopes for a
series,” I replied. Turns out I was wrong. Dead wrong. Never underestimated
Hollywood’s new need to capitalize on nostalgia, I guess. The Woods was then revealed a short time later to be a secret Blair Witch sequel, cleverly titled Blair Witch, and was meant to reboot the
franchise and bring back ‘one of horror’s scariest movies’ just a few years
short of 20 years from when the original Blair
Witch Project capsized the box office. Still, the first two films don’t necessarily
hook my attention and even the addition of Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett
didn’t perk my interest enough. Now that Blair
Witch hit home video, the franchise whore in my just had to finish off my
collection. Oddly enough, Blair Witch
just might be my favorite one. It’s a bit tedious in the first half in its
replication of the style and set up of the original, but when it finally picks
up momentum it hits some of the potential this franchise has been missing. Who
knew?