10 Reasons Blair Witch Is A Crushing Disappointment
7. It's Visually Incoherent (And Has No Excuse To Be)
Probably the most common complaint about the original movie (other than "nothing happens") is the abundance of shaky cam which, combined with the low-budget filmmaking, results in a number of visually incoherent scenes.
It's a fair complaint, though fans ultimately concede on the whole that this is mitigated by the film's effective tension and the fact it was made for just $60,000.
The new Blair Witch doesn't have the same defense, having been made for a crisp $5 million and yet returning to the same tricks in order to avoid showing the audience much at all as the characters frantically run away from the titular creature.
While the shakiness of the original was more acceptable given its budget, this time around the tactic feels a lot cheaper, because with glossy cinematography and cinematic lighting, there's not much excuse to make the image this intentionally incoherent so often.
Now, the film does ultimately reveal a lot more of the Blair Witch than the original, but it still feels like a massive waste of modern tech that so much of it is rendered intentionally muddy through shaky cam and digital video glitches.