The stigmatic reputation of found footage horror is strong enough to scare away even the most determined filmmakers, but director Adam Wingard and writer Simon Barrett aren’t your everyday horror makers. Not only did they accept the challenge of found footage filmmaking, but they did so by making a sequel to one of the most historic genre films of that nature – The Blair Witch Project.
The duo’s surprise sequel, Blair Witch, is an intense little horror thrill-ride built on what made Eduardo Sanchez and Gregg Hale’s iconic Massachusetts nightmare such an instantaneous success. Tight-knit, claustrophobic tension serves up a platter of anxiety-riddled scares once a group of campers find themselves lost in the witch’s woods, doomed by the curse inflicted upon them. My review out of the Toronto International Film Festival really says it all, detailing how standard subgenre fare evolves into a beastly haunted house ending worth all the bickering and jump scares.
While in Toronto, I had to opportunity to sit down with both Mr. Wingard and Mr. Barrett to chat briefly about their new endeavor, and how they approached a found footage film of this nature. You can tell that they’re not particularly impressed by the subgenre’s current status, and can sense their desire to jolt the found footage movement by using the franchise that started it all. I would have loved to get into detail about their thoughts on mainstream horror as a whole, along with some tremendous upcoming projects they have announced/are developing, but these press junkets are a tricky beast – you take what you get, and appreciate what you have.
Hear what they had to say in the video above and be sure to catch Blair Witch, which is now in theaters nationwide!
