Earlier this year, a poster was released for an upcoming found footage movie titled The Woods. From the poster, it looked like we could expect The Woods to be a horror movie, with a similar aesthetic to the Evil Dead remake, boasting a blood red colour contrasted with silhouetted trees.
But at the San Diego Comic Con it was revealed and that the movie the poster had been a part of a stealth marketing campaign for the direct sequel to the 1999 horror classic The Blair Witch Project.
The poster now flaunts the famous Blair Witch symbol in the trees and was accompanied by this full trailer at the convention.
The story picks up after the events of the first film and kicks off with the characters finding recordings that show Heather from the first movie. From there we find out that one of the characters is her brother and now the spookiness begins as they go on a terrifying journey to find what happened to her in the woods.
From the trailer, this film seems to have a similar aesthetic to the original and turns the horror vibe to 11. What was so engaging and unsettling about the original was the time period and the way that the movie was shot. It was released in a time where found footage films weren’t a thing and the marketing for the movie made it completely believable.
Since the original looked like it was shot by genuinely scared people and not in a cinematic way, it made it more believable. With this remake, it looks like they are trying to bring this look back but there are noticeable cinematic shots that take away from that feeling. Along with this, where in the original the quality of the picture was grainy and desaturated (elements which were absolutely integral to the look and feel of the first film), the sequel appears to have cleaned the film up a bit, taking the found footage experience away slightly. So, from this trailer, it doesn’t feel quite the same.
Nevertheless, Blair Witch will be released in theatres on September 26th and you can bet we’ll all be hiding behind our popcorn and weeping watching it.