Blair Witch (2016): Remake, Reboot, Recycled

In the middle of this past summer, one late July morning, I woke up and went to the bathroom for my annual morning pee. I sat (judge me for sitting to pee early in the morning, see if I care) on the toilet and skimmed my Twitter newsfeed:

"Why in the world is Blair Witch trending?!"

- I thought to myself as my bladder emptied out. I soon found out the reason behind this trending topic. Comic-Con also known as Homecoming for Nerds, held a special screening for a new horror film titled The Woods except it wasn't just any new horror film, it was a new installment of a preexisting franchise.

Thus began my nearly two and half months of anticipatory waiting until I could once again enter the infamous Black Hills Woods of Maryland and discover what the insidious legend of the Blair Witch had in store for me. It has been nearly 17 years since the original hit the big screen. Rumors of a third film in the franchise have been around for years, but the fact that one had been created in complete secrecy was almost too much for a film geek's heart to bear. I decided in July that I would see this film opening night, to protect myself from the spoilers that would inevitably run amuck online immediately following the mass release. The film tells the tale of James Donahue, the brother of Heather, the main protagonist of the original film. James and a group of his friends, along with two tour guides enter the Maryland wilderness in search of his long-missing sister after a tape recovered in the woods seems to indicate she may still be alive out there. While the original film relied on the POV's of just two cameras, this film's story unfolds alongside the perspectives of several different earpiece cameras, professional cameras and even a drone!

I had high expectations for this sequel, particularly because it had such a positive reception initially at its Comic-Con screenings. This was reinforced when the original directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick gave the new film their blessing as well. Now, after seeing the opening night screening for myself I have to say, one word came to my mind when all the screaming and shaky cam had stopped, and the lights came up... "underwhelming."

I am going to split this review into three sections that I'd prefer to focus on; Characters, Mythology and Plot.

Characters

The Blair Witch Project (1999) gave us three well fleshed out leads mainly because when a person is put in a life-threatening situation, their true colors tend to come out. Therefore by seeing Heather, Mike and Josh before and after they got lost in the woods we have a decent sense of their personalities, their habits and triggers, even their fears. In this film, the character count is plus three. You'd think, with six characters heading into the woods, we'd have even more substantial character development and story arcs for our leads. Unfortunately, the script does little to add color to who these people are. Ashley and Peter (the film's token black couple) have undefined characters and relationships. Lisa is compelling in her relentless dedication to document James's grief even at his expense, but her confidence becomes deficient when she plays the damsel in the latter half of the film. These errors end up being at no fault to the actors themselves. They are a competent bunch, but aren't given much to work with in terms of substance in the script. Character motivations wants and needs are abysmal. The most underdeveloped character is, unfortunately, our protagonist.

James is Heather's brother and the group's designated leader. We sympathize with him as audience members because we know what horrible fate fell upon his sister in the first film, and it's a similar one likely in store for him. The audience does NOT, however, gain a good understanding of why James truly believes she could be alive after all these years, or what his minimal relationship with her (he was four when she disappeared) must've been like. In truth, James hardly speaks about her before or after they enter the woods. It's a true shame because an emotional monologue about her loss could've been almost as effective as Heather's famous "apology" monologue in the first installment's third act. It would've added a human layer to this otherwise supernatural centered film. The human element is almost completely forgotten by the writers and it relied so much on James's character. I did not believe he truly felt his sister was alive or that he was even after the truth. He just seemed to be a chicken without a head blindly walking into the forest that took his sister 17 years prior. He hardly behaves as if he's even seen Heather's footage! If he had, he would've logically saw a lot more in this film coming and possibly understood some of the signifiers he was coming across as they got deeper into the woods, which brings us to the next point of discussion.

Mythology

Blair Witches's fictional mythology is much richer than most people seem to know. Countless comic books, mockumentaries and dossiers have been released over the last several years that have expanded greatly on the rivetingly disturbing folktale. Director of the new film, Adam Wingard claims to be a longtime fan of the Blair Witch and its accompanied works, but he and screenwriter, Simon Barrett do little in the script to explore these potentially supple plot lines. Elly Kedward, Rustin Parr, Coffin Rock and Robin Weaver are all mentioned by the hiker's during a traveling montage as they're trekking through the vast greenery. Their stories are recounted with false allurement to the audience that they will do anything to serve the plot. THEY DO NOT! We learn nothing more about Parr's slaughtering of those seven children or the little girl who was drowned in the creek by a mysterious hand pulling her in. All we are given is an alternative theory to the "standing in the corner" myth, but this addition ends up not fitting well with the pre-established history. In this movie, it is stated that if you look at the Witch directly, that's how she kills you. This makes little sense in the Blair Witch Universe however considering that neither Mike nor Heather directly view the Witch in the first film and yet it is heavily implied that they died, especially Heather who falls to the ground. Also Mary Brown claims to have seen the Witch with her own eyes when she was a little girl, and she lived to a ripe old age so she could tell Heather and the film crew all about it! Why contradict a pre-established trope when they had so much untapped material to work with already? Why didn't Coffin Rock play a more significant role in the story or Elly Kedward and the historically abandoned town formally known as Blair? Wingard and Barrett only made the popular tropes (the house at the end, standing in the corner, the stick figures) significant without breaking any real new ground in the mythology at all. All this film did was reinforce the already widely accepted fan theory that the woods have the ability to distort and alter time. After 17 years and a smorgasbord of mythology to work with, I expected much more dammit. It's like filling a rocket with supplies for the moon and forgetting to light the damn match!

Plot

The film's first half-hour is extremely well-paced. We meet the characters, understand their primary goal and are off into the woods well before the half-hour mark. We get some pretty drone shots of the enormous Black Hills Forest and a history lesson from Lane and Talia, two local Blair Witch buffs who found the footage that prompted James to go back and search for his sister. Once nighttime falls, however, an unrelenting fright-fest begins. The second half of the movie is predominately set in prolonged nighttime, the Witch apparently toying with time and space to keep the group blanketed in darkness. Talia and Lane go off on their own and return hours later to say they've been traveling for five days. Again the time-bending element is alluded to, but never fleshed out. When the film begins to get truly horrifying is when it starts running into its primary plot problems. Ashley's foot injury is set up to be something disturbingly terrifying and maybe even gross, but all she ends up doing is extracting a piece of a tree branch from her leg! She should've been transformed into a giant stick figure or gotten possessed! Okay, neither of those ideas are very good, but still, come on! Her injury and illness is another example of the film offering a glimmer of originality before squandering it at its most interesting point. If you saw the trailer, you know how Talia dies, and this death would've had a greater reaction in the cinema had it not been a part of the marketing campaign. Peter is done away with off-screen. Unsurprisingly Lisa and James are the last two standing and when we finally reach the infamous house, are ending is beginning to shape up into something...ridiculous. The house in this film is treated as a haunted house maze in an amusement park, with various rooms and corridors that serve no purpose and add nothing to the storyline unfolding across the screen. It's clearly larger in structure, and yet it has much less impact than the small run-down shack found by Heather and Mike in the original film. Lane shows up again, now with a beard and seemingly under the Witch's control, but if this is true, he should've been the one to kill James and Lisa, the way Parr killed those seven children. Some even theorize that Josh killed Heather and Mike in the climax of the first, under the Witch's spell. Lane's reentrance into the plot makes little sense and comes off as convolutedly vague when it should be intriguingly ambiguous. Why is Lane experiencing time so different than the others, and why did the Witch choose him to possess? Josh was chosen because he was a nonbeliever, Lane was an adamant Blair Witch aficionado! A tunnel scene is effectively used for those who fear claustrophobia more than witchcraft, but the tunnel ends up going in a circle which makes the entire sequence feel pointless in the end; much like most of the film's second half. The ending scene in the attic (a nice reversal on the basement set ending of the first film I will admit) is frightening and suspenseful, but at the same time, it feels half-hearted. It's unsatisfying because the film doesn't guide you into it as well as the first film excellently carries its unsuspecting audiences into its hauntingly memorable conclusion. What should be profoundly horrifying comes off as, meh.

 

Closing Thoughts

Overall would I recommend horror fans to see this long-awaited sequel? Honestly, I would because while the film has its many faults, it is nonetheless made with a reasonable degree of respect to the Blair Witch name and legacy. It's well-intended, if not naively misguided to adhere to today's cliché horror movie conventions. It is hesitant to be innovative but still manages to evoke fear in interesting ways many times throughout the plot. I have confidence that if this film sparks a continuation of the series and I hope it does, future films can and will expand on the mythology in the way it so desperately deserves to be told on a larger scale. Until then the Witch and her devilish antics may be appreciated in this well-crafted but ultimately all too familiar sequel; Good ideas, dressed up in old clothes.

Note: During research today, I discovered an article with an interview with Adam Wingard and would like to clarify that the Witch is NOT seen in this movie. Those of you, like me, who thought or think otherwise are incorrect in your assumption. Still what the hell was that thing chasing them at the end? Possibly a scorned fan?

American Horror Story Season 6: Chapter 1 Review

The Most Shocking Reveal of the Season 6 Premiere Episode Was...Subtly?

I have been a longtime fan of American Horror Story since its first season in 2011. I was initially interested in the show because it was the brainchild of the same skillful minds that created Glee. Yes, correct, dear reader, I am a Ryan Murphy fan. If you don't know who Ryan Murphy is, then why the hell are you reading a blog about film and television in 2016?

American Horror Story reinvents itself each year, generating a new horror story from the greatest country on earth, especially when you're looking for a history of horrible choices, God Bless America. It assembles more or less the same core cast who return each year to play new characters in a brand new setting each season. The show's seasons also center on a different theme each year. Now some people seem to be confused by this, the theme of each season is not the same as the setting or plot. We'll get back to this distinction later.

The show has gotten flack over the last few seasons for losing its way in the middle. Story arcs seem to be promisingly built up in the beginning only to deflate and disperse by the season's conclusion. Graphic sexual images often take the place of character developing moments. Great performances are often lost amid the campiness the show has come to be known infamously for. These flaws are not unnoticed by viewers like myself, they're simply forgiven because where the show fails in one area, it exceedingly succeeds in another, such as sustaining viewer attention and generating a top-quality cast and set.

This year the creative team behind the show decided to try something drastically different in terms of marketing. It kept the general plot and theme of the sixth season a complete secret; using teaser trailers as red herrings to delight and infuriate fans over who could guess what horrific story the show was going to tell next. Now back to the distinction, I wanted to make between the theme, the plot and the setting. The latter two are what the ad campaigns have been making us try and decipher. What is the story going to be, and where is it going to be set? The theme of each season is the approach or overall morality tale the writers wish to invoke within the narrative of the episodes. For example, last season's theme was "addiction" which was an ideal fit to accompany the usage of vampires into the Hotel Cortez's storyline; their bloodlust representing their drug of choice. It is unclear by the end of the first episode what the "theme" of this current season will be; I fear the writers may have forgotten this important story device but will pay close attention as the season progresses to see if one does surface.

Well, last night the show aired its first episode and what a surprise it was, though perhaps not the kind of surprise we'd been expecting as regular viewers. Season's six's premiere is shocking, not with violent imagery or depraved sexual acts, but rather shocking in its subtly! Now don't be misunderstood, there are sex and violence in the first episode, but not to the usual degree that AHS has grown us accustomed. Instead of throat slashing or rubber suit sodomizing, we get near-hot tub -drowning's and a weather report of well - a chance of teeth. The horror comes steady, but gives us time to breathe and percolate between scenes so we can fully digest what we as a viewer are being presented. This was the first opening episode to an AHS Season in a long time that didn't visually assault or exhaust my retinas. It intrigued without trying so damn hard to be intriguing! It gave questions, as opposed to elaborate overdrawn exposition.

This year the term "reinvention" couldn't apply more to the show's format. Season 6 is constructed as a sort of true-crime television series special; you know the kind your parents watch on Sundays after dinner? Three actors play fictional victims telling their stories to the camera, while other stars play those characters in "reenactments" of the terrifying events they described. This may seem confusing on paper, but narrative-wise it flowed quite seamlessly into the first episode, which started and ended with quite a jolt of adrenaline! This season shows a troubled couple (Sarah Paulson and Cuba Gooding Jr) moving into a beautifully renovated farmhouse in rural North Carolina. There they are deprived of neighbors, or so they think. Something is living alongside them within the forest trees, a real-life horror story that will no doubt be fictionalized to dazzling extravagance by Murphy and his talented creative team in upcoming episodes. If you want to know what kind of real-life horror it is, just punch the word "Roanoke" into your computer's search engine.

How did the American Horror Story writing team come up with such a satisfying premise for their sixth season? I couldn't say for sure. What I can say is it seems they borrowed from past seasons in order to create a freshly reinvigorated concept for this one. Here are some examples of similarities:

1. Troubled married couple moving into a new home (Season 1: Murder House) 
2. Biracial couple (Season 2: Asylum)
3. Humorous moments for levity (Season 3: Coven)
4. Entrancing visual landscape (Season 4: Freak Show)
5. Inventive twists on common horror tropes (Season 5: Hotel)  

This does not mean that the show is being repetitive or relying on old material; on the contrary, it is doing what good television should do, paying attention to viewers attractions! Sometimes good television and filmmaking are as easy as serving the audience what they asked for in the first place. Since fans have been complaining about the overtly convoluted plots that plagued the last few seasons, it seems the makers of the show are finally taking a listen, serving them a story that is terrifying and novice without being unfamiliar or redundant in comparison to previous incarnations. Cohesive like Season 1, but distinctly different from any other that followed.

I have high expectations for this coming season, which many current and former fans of the show will find me foolish for having. American Horror Story is nothing if not entertainingly enticing with its talented repertoire of competent actors and actresses and devilishly delicious storytelling. It is this millennium's Twilight Zone with maybe not quite the punch, but plenty of the pizazz. Keep the faith always because "once good" television has the potential to become "newly great" television, especially in a program that specializes in reinventing and rebooting its look and style each year. Bring on the horror; we're just dying to see what comes next! 

The Night Of: What Could Have Been

I had initially heard of this HBO Series only a week ago after its finale aired. It came highly recommended to me by my brother, sister and fellow screenwriting students at Brooklyn College. Highly unusual for me when starting a miniseries or television show, I went into this not knowing the premise or plot at all. When word of mouth reaches the ear though, those words must be substantiated, in television terms that usually means binge-watching. 

The first episode is one of the strongest pilots I've seen in a while, including for a miniseries, if this ends up being more than that is still unclear at present. It not only establishes the primary characters and the plot but sets a chilling tone that overlaps throughout the proceeding eight episodes. Young Muslim, Naz, living in New York City is dropped into a nightmare of all too real proportions when he's arrested for the murder of a girl with whom he had a one night stand.

The series presents a multilayered arc, diving into the personal lives of all those involved in the murder investigation: the detective, the DA, the lawyer and of course the accused man himself. The first three episodes of the series fair best, in my opinion, building tension and suspense as the plot, begins to thicken with intrigue and complexity. Will Naz be convicted of a crime he did not commit? Will this smart-mouthed, small-time, ailing lawyer be able to save Naz's life potentially? Who did kill this young woman? The questions hang in the air throughout the middle seven episodes, but when it comes time for the finale, they fall to the ground like metal beams held up with dental floss. 

What should've been a compelling storyline exploring our countries flawed legal system and skewed morals, especially in regards to race and religion, becomes a gloomy Law and Order-esque display of shock without awe, instead. Now, in order to go into detail about everything wrong with the series, particularly its finale, spoilers will have to be discussed so consider yourself warned. 

• Naz and one of his lawyers, Chandra Kapoor develop a romantic relationship that not only feels completely forced, but it is also unbelievably poor character development. Chandra is introduced and developed as a young, intelligent and cunning woman hoping to gain more respect at her boss's law firm. She believes Naz's innocence practically from the get-go and is dedicated to getting him out of prison. Why then does she fall in love with him, going so far as to smuggle drugs into jail for this boy she's barley known for weeks? A boy she is defending in her first real criminal case. Her reputation, her career and her life are all put in jeopardy in the name of what; Bad character development. Chandra is exactly what is wrong with female characters on television these days. We build them up to be indestructible and then give them character flaws such as lust or naivety so we can bring them back down again. It's as if the writers were uncomfortable with how strong of a female character, of color no less, they had created. Her choices are not only poor; they're illogical to any sensible viewer.

• Naz becomes acclimated to jail in Riker's Island far too quickly. His arc, once he is in prison, feels like some mediocre prison flick starring Dwayne Johnson. While prisoners must adapt quickly in order to survive, Naz just doesn't seem to go through a natural transformation. He's polite and meek one moment, then gritty and tattooed the next. If he is so sure of his innocence why is he allowing this place to pollute his soul so much? It's almost as if he's disappointed in leaving jail by the end of the finale. A devout educated Muslim would not become a drug-addicted thug in a matter of weeks, especially if his case were this high profile.

• The lead detective on the case, Dennis Box initially plays the sympathetic ear to Naz's plight. He doesn't seem thoroughly convinced of Naz's guilt early on, which is why it's strange that he waits until the finale to chase down a viable lead with a far better motive than Naz. Why does Detective Box wait so long to pursue this lead if he's skeptical from the beginning that Naz is the killer? The show doesn't seem to understand how proper crime thrillers are meant to be structured. We are given the true identity of the killer in the show's final half-hour after having no opportunity as an engaged viewer to put the pieces together ourselves because hardly any pieces were made available to us in the first place! The killer's motives, in the end, are boring and uninventive and the viewer is left with an indifferent feeling towards the dead girl whom we had come to care about quite a bit by the end of episode one.

These three main points are not the entirety of what went wrong with the series, but they were the most appallingly apparent to me upon my initial viewing. It's a shame to see a show excel so much in narrative velocity in its first few hours before burning to a crisp on impact by its last few minutes. John Turturro shines through the bleakness as the character of John Stone, and if this series does continue, my dearest hope is that it continues to follow him. Stone is the most fully realized character of The Night Of and his character arc comes off substantial and poignant throughout the whole season. 

Ultimately The Night Of offers us so much but delivers so little. It's a true disservice to television, but it's still an entertaining disservice nonetheless. It presents us with questions that should be asked but struggles very deeply at its core to answer them with the profound significance they require. By the end, Naz can't fully comprehend what went wrong, and to be honest neither could I. 

Sausage Party Review: Substance Under Cooked

Walking into Sausage Party (2016) yesterday afternoon with my friend Christian, I wasn't expecting too much. Having enjoyed the meta outing that was This is The End (2013) I had little doubt that Seth Rogen would fail to entertain me in his first adult-animated adventure. Christian and I were the only two people in the auditorium for this screening, which allowed me to entertain the self-delusion that this was a private screening held for expert critics and movie buffs such as myself. I was glad we were the only two in the general vicinity because it allowed our reaction's to the events on the screen to be amplified, and boy were there some reactions. It's one thing to watch animated food get viciously murdered and consumed by dim and dowdy human folk, but it's another thing to watch food fornicate on screen and sing songs about praising a higher power that desires to maim and eat you for dinner. The most surprising thing about Sausage Party for me, however, was not the amount of visual or audible obscenities displayed, but the serious allegories beneath them. The film makes allusions to religion, atheism, political turmoil, racial profiling and even manages to represent the LGBT community without being overtly offensive. I actually sympathized with Teresa the Taco and her forbidden love, though the Twinkie character was pushing it, then again, what wasn't? A movie like this must push buttons, or else why even bother paying the animators to take on such an ambitious venture in the first place? Sausage Party is a spectacle, but at least it is a spectacle that is attempting to say something. We shouldn't believe something just because we are told by our elders and "superiors" that it is true. Sometimes, we must go on our own journey of self-discovery to decide what the truth really is, and what to do with that information once we possess it. For the food in the film, they choose to fight back against the humans, quite graphically I might add, but not without laughs nonetheless. It leaves the door open for future films in the franchise of course, which I'd like to see on the condition that they follow in Sausage Party's footsteps, not just in terms of comedy, but also in substance. No metaphor or potential symbolic representation should go unturned. These are, after all, animated movies for adults. Please give us the Easter eggs and allow us to go on the hunt for them. Rogen, much like Matt Stone and Trey Parker, understands that a joke is nothing without the punch behind it. Sausage Party won't likely win any accolades, but don't dismiss it as smut too quickly. This smut has something to say.