James (James Allen McCune) has had his life defined by the fact that his sister Heather disappeared while searching for the Blair Witch, and Wingard/Barrett even incorporate the end of that movie—the terrifying house and the man in the corner—into the narrative of this one. A pair of internet personalities have found a DV tape in the woods near where Heather disappeared that shows someone or something racing up the stairs of that infamous house. James is convinced he can see his sister Heather in the footage. Could she still be alive after all this time? He needs answers.
James gathers three friends—Lisa (Callie Hernandez), Ashley (Corbin Reid) and Peter (Brandon Scott)—and the quartet equips themselves with every kind of recording device imaginable. Wingard and Barrett’s most clever take on the material is how much they capture the modern ability to record a moment to death. The team all wear GoPros, allowing for first-person perspectives throughout, but that’s just the beginning. There are iPads used to record, HD cameras strapped to trees, and even a drone that the team proposes they can use to send up for cheap helicopter shots or to orient themselves in the woods. These are kids who are not only amateur filmmakers but have grown up in an era in which documenting multiple angles of their lives is the norm.
The quartet gains two more members in their party when the pair who found the DV tape—Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry)—tag along on the adventure into the deadly woods. There’s some brief set-up, but almost immediately the mood of this “Blair Witch” is different and ineffective. The gang shares the urban legends of the woods—a kid was dragged into the river by a mysterious hand, you can’t look the Blair Witch direct in the face without dying of fear—and we wait until we know things are going to get creepy. The set-up is the same—someone found this footage and assembled it into a horror movie—and while that felt fresh in the first film, it now just kind of drains the piece of tension because we know no one is making it out alive.
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