Blair Witch

The most interesting thing about Blair Witch is the extensive misdirection its makers went to in order to generate a bit of advance buzz.

Until a few months ago, not much was known about a found-footage horror movie known, with the working title The Woods, other than it was the latest project from director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett, a team acclaimed for their lo-fi thrillers You're Next and The Guest.

Then came the reveal: it was actually a sequel to (or rehash of) the 1999 chiller The Blair Witch Project, a micro-budgeted nerve-jangler that helped make the documentary-style format a mainstay of the genre for the next decade or so.

In a time when every aspect of a film's production history seems to be scrutinised from the get-go, being able to keep something a secret from horror fans for so long was kind of a neat trick.

Combine that with Wingard and Barrett's bona fides, and anticipation for Blair Witch gradually ramped up.

The payoff, however, is somewhat lacking.

Maybe I'm suffering found-footage burnout (too many Paranormal Activity sequels of varying degrees of quality can do that to a person) or maybe Blair Witch is simply a more polished but less intense take on material already well-covered by its predecessor, but I found myself unable to surrender to the spookiness this time around.

The story follows James (James Allen McCune) and his friends as they venture into the Black Hills Forest to follow up a tenuous lead about the fate of James' big sister Heather, one of The Blair Witch Project's ill-fated trio of documentary filmmakers.

James' friend Lisa (Callie Hernandez) is also a filmmaker, and she's kitted out the group with a variety of cool earpiece cameras that'll capture the action as it happens.

Of course, once they enter the deep, forbidding forest, everything goes to shit. And getting out - alive or not - is not an option.

The performances become suitably shouty as the situation grows dire, and Wingard's direction occasionally strikes a not-bad balance between you-are-there verisimilitude and capable genre-movie composition and choreography.

But by the time our designated victims find themselves stuck in an isolated house of horrors, Blair Witch has degenerated into a barrage of shaky-cam visuals and sonic cacophony that isn't so much gruelling as...well, just a grind.

For newcomers to the found-footage genre, Blair Witch may prove a good entry point. But horror fans will more likely regard this movie as a well-made but unengaging piece of work.