The expedition has been doubled, updated and complicated. Set 20 years after the original story, Blair Witch pays all due respect to its predecessor, following the same format of young film documentarians tramping into the trees in search of answers and scary footage. Originally titled The Woods and secretly in the works for the past three years, Blair Witch is an attempt by two longtime horror collaborators, director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett ( The Guest, You’re Next, A Horrible Way to Die), to breathe life into the corpse of a franchise felled by Joe Berlinger’s DOA sequel Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows from 2000.īerlinger failed because he tried to discredit and even send up the Blair Witch myth, which had been made so believable by original writers/directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez that ardent fans still visit the small town of Burkittsville, Maryland, in pursuit of an ancient child-snatching crone they believe resides in the dark nearby woods.īerlinger failed to realize that it’s this very myth that fires the imagination and sustains a narrative that otherwise would be little more than a lost-in-the-forest saga. The crowd response was more to his liking and also more appropriate to the occasion: the world premiere of Blair Witch, the rebooted sequel to The Blair Witch Project, the haunted woods horror classic from 1999 that sparked the “found footage” movie genre and haunted a million nightmares.

“No, who likes really being scared?” Geddes prodded. But they weren’t loud enough for cryptmaster Geddes, who sets high standards for his fellow graveyard wanderers.

“Who likes being scared?” TIFF Midnight Madness programmer Colin Geddes asked a capacity Ryerson Theatre audience early Monday.

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