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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 428483" data-attributes="member: 23">Blair Witch (2016) AKA The Woods <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fimages.complex.com%2Fcomplex%2Fimages%2Fc_fill%2Cg_center%2Cw_1200%2Ffl_lossy%2Cpg_1%2FScreen_Shot_2016-08-25_at_8.10.27_AM_a2u4pz%2Fblair-witch-poster-crop&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=03c0375f8ebe8a7c94c7f1a57dd2f895a597ccb0a5a267e2fb375e6d69f46ace" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 953px" /> Going in I had no real opinion on this. I hadn't read up on opinions about the story, nor had I really picked up much about how it was viewed critically, though I got the general sense it was fairly well-received. First low-key disappointment was the found footage element. The original is probably the best-known example of this genre, so it shouldn't be surprising that a sequel would take this approach, but Book Of Shadows had gone in a different direction and I'd hoped this might as well (I wasn't bothered about them taking any other cues from that first sequel). The jerky movements are even more nauseating in 2016 than they were in 1999, and also feel more contrived and unforgivable because technology has improved and  everyone's a filmmaker in the 21st Century, so there's simply no excuse for poor framing anymore. As before, the characters are abrasively loud and so far up their own arses it's difficult to feel any kind of empathy. And the narcissism levels are elevated to reflect (probably fairly accurately) a generation plugged into social media and obsessed with documenting everything. One particularly unpleasant scene near the beginning showed them having a conversation over thumping music in a nightclub while filming one another, which seemed at first a huge contrivance, but on reflection I'm sure there are now people who habitually do this. Dire as I remember Book Of Shadows being, at least the story was somewhat original. Sadly, Blair Witch is an uninspired remake of the original, with most of the same beats in much the same order:  Burkitsville and history; interviewing locals; arriving at the woods; strange noises; rock pile; stick figures; disappearances; breakdowns; confrontations; house in the woods; standing in the corner... And all with shaky, badly edited imagery and lots of heavy panicked breathing. Worse still, the creators of this film attempt to raise the stakes throwing in other perils such as serious injury (leading to body horror); falls and suchlike. When the film is barely ninety minutes, this means there is no room for pacing or suggestion. This is Blair Witch for the attention deficit. Most disappointing of all is that we see more. Flying tents, falling trees, scary figures... they're all there to be seen. The "subtlety" is that we only see flashes of these things, but the fact that they're there at all is very telling about the mindset. It really is quite a feat to produce a film that has far too much going on but also manages to severely bore.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played JR Ewing?