And now the third Blair Witch film comes along, which may as well have Blair Witch 2 plastered on the poster, such is the non-existent shrift it gives to the staggeringly bad Blair Witch: Book Of Shadows. Aligning itself very closely to the tone and style of the first film – as well as picking up its narrative threads – this new Blair Witch shoots out of the gate at speed, before settling down, and doing the requisite introductions and establishing character dynamics (perhaps inevitably, the least interesting part of the film). Screenwriter Simon Barrett duly just about strings enough reasons together why they’d all want to venture off on this particular trek, hobbled a little as he is by an audience that’s far more familiar with the found footage playbook than it was when the first film came around. Not for nothing does the film pack everyone in the car relatively quickly. Barrett is reunited with director Adam Wingard, and the pair previously have given us the brilliant double bill of You’re Next and The Guest, two of my favourite horrors of recent times. They’re a little more contained here, although clearly have a determination to try a few more things to break audience familiarity. As such, the ensemble of characters is widened, allowing factions of sorts to develop. Then there are concessions to technological advances, with – for instance – the addition of a drone to the new batch of explorers’ backpacks. Yet we know that. In fact, unlike the first Blair Witch film, there are moments when – as an audience member – you can’t help but be a couple of chapters ahead of the film, and what it’s trying to do. That’s not to say it’s not successful, but rather it’s more a good, solid sequel in a long-dormant film series. What it’s not is anything as surprising and different as The Guest. Or memorable. Or leaves you wanting to preorder the disc, just to sit through it again. In fact, arguably its biggest surprise is that the film exists in the first place, given that it was cleverly made under a veil of secrecy, and teased in its early days as a film by the name of The Woods. Blair Witch is in UK cinemas now. Follow our Twitter feed for faster news and bad jokes right here. And be our Facebook chum here.
Blair Witch Review
<span title='2025-07-08 00:00:00 +0000 UTC'>July 8, 2025</span> · 2 min · 399 words · Phyllis Cisco