Overblown and not really worthwhile

Rating: 5/10 (19 May 2015)

Arriving in a small Maryland town, a group of students shooting a documentary on the legend of the Blair Witch head out to the woods where a series of events forces them to believe the urban legend is true and try to leave the woods alive.
There wasn't much, but this one here did have a few good moments. One of the better elements here is the fact that the woods themselves look incredibly intimidating and freaky which goes a long way towards making them feel much more mysterious and imposing than normally expected. There's a really well-done attempt to make it seem like there's a real presence just beyond the eye-range, and it makes the terror and suspense of the scenes that much more powerful. Among the better sequences is when they come upon the Wiccan ceremonial site which is creepy, disturbing and a little unnerving, and it stands up as one of the best scenes in the film. There's also the fantastic scene where they come upon a specific site in the forest after leaving it behind earlier and their disbelief at it is really accomplished well. The film's best accomplishment is that it really makes it seem like a supernatural force is behind it all, and this is mostly done with just noises, yells or screams that indicate something is amiss and it just seems all the more realistic that something is causing it even without showing the actual witch here. When the small artifacts turn up or the camping equipment goes missing during the night, it just makes it far more creepy and realistic. While its' slam-bang ending ends the film in the right manner, there's quite a few flaws to it that manage to hold it down. The main one is the seemingly aggravating and annoying camera-work throughout here, as the entire purpose is ruined with the shaking-camera gimmick. Granted, it's supposed to be through their lenses as they're out in the woods and is handled well in that regard, but you still want to be able to see exactly what you're shooting. There's no way it should've featured the scenes of them running through the woods still shooting, since the shaking camera makes it nearly impossible to see what's being attempted, and there's really nothing in there that needed to be seen, making it quite confusing why that was being attempted. It's practically impossible to do so in some of the film's scenes in here, especially the second campground attack as it looks exactly like it's being shot through the wrong lens and is out-of-focus since there's no way it has to look as terrible as it does there, and a later shot of them wandering around in the woods is ruined due to the glare from the Sun in the background, and for a couple seconds it really looks like the entire scene has a tarp thrown over the area, darkening it to an unimaginable degree. The last big flaw is that this one has one of the most boring and dull set-ups ever. The early scenes of them filming their set-up for the shoot itself is just packed with nonsensical scenes that really could've been explored in a prologue introduction where they come upon research giving the same answers rather than the bland interviews here that don't move the film along any faster. The last half of the film is barely any better in that the constant yelling and screaming at each other is just impossible to sit through. It's not character-building, it's just aggravating to the audience to have to sit through them yelling and curse at each other for five minutes about moves that don't even matter at all, and each time it becomes harder to get through. Beyond these issues, there's not a whole lot to like here.
Rated R: Extreme Graphic Language and Mild Violence.