Blair Witch Review: 7 Ups And 3 Downs

2. The Middle Section Is Confused

Blair Witch is a major studio movie trying to look like a scrappy "real" film, and where it can't quite replicate the shock factor of reality (or even the original) is in the actual telling of the story. Wingard tries to insert some narrative structure into proceedings, while at the same time wanting to keep a sense of unpredictability, two things that don't gel.

It's too counterintuitive and in the second act things begin to feel a lot more box ticky than they have any right to. It's a series of creepy vignettes, all ordered seemingly at random yet too comfortably placed, and while there's fun moments in there, the editing, with cross-cutting and little pause, mean many fall flat.

Faked realism is a hard thing to pull off for sure, although given how adept Wingard is in translating the other elements, and how skilful his convention busting narratives have been in the past, it feels like a major mis-step.