The Blair Witch

Ok...I was one of the ones that was really bummed that THE WOODS from Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett - a team I love - wasn't really The Woods, but was The Blair Witch. Wingard and Barrett are grand. They have great ideas and are a cool team. But, I just saw this as a studio film that was going to be a disappointment in one way or another. Based on the 47% Metacritic score, it seems like they did miss the mark a bit. I was in no rush to see it at the time, but I finally circled back around and checked it out today. And, it didn't suck. :)

Nutshell - dude's going to look for his sister Heather from the first film. It's only been 18 years - she's probably fine. :::grin:::  He gets a lead from some shifty townies and gets his friends, a bunch of camera's, a drone, and the like and tromps off into the forest. Madness and heartache follow. :::spoiler:::

Now, the film itself passed my "AWWW! FUCK YOU, FOUND FOOTAGE! YOU BORING SHITE!" test. Things keep rolling and the story hums along nicely. But, it did have me chortling and growling out, "Jump scare bullshit," a few times. People keep creeping up on others in the group, then they make this loud noise of some type.

"HEY!!!!! W have to get out of here!"

"HEY!!!!! Did you hear that?"

"WHERE'S Paul?!"

"I'M BACK! Everything ok?"




I thought this was utter crap and it pissed me off. However, the film rallies and really comes back pretty strong in the third act. And, it had some fun and shocking moments that even had me giggling and saying, "Well...I didn't see THAT coming!" out loud.

The film had some set pieces that were friggin' upsetting and some cool woods scenes and "magical world" gags that I enjoyed. The addition of ear-cams took a bit of the "why are they still filming?" out of the mix, which was cool. 

So...the long and the short - I think this is a fun offering and a solid addition the the BLAIR WITCH franchise. But...I still wonder what Wingard and Barrett's THE WOODS would have been like.

Laura Panic

Adam Wingard seems like a guy that is just driven to get stuff out into the world and he's not scared of working hard to do so. From Tumbler to Twitter to events and creative, he seems like he's constantly moving and striving. It's inspiring to see. I've been trying to play catch up with some previous works (I recently caught his co-directed feature Autoerotic - so good) and LAURA PANIC popped into view.






The plot is rather simple in this 2008 short. An obsessed girl follows her love and gets in a bit of a...situation...with his room mate. Did I mention that she's bonkers?

Oh, young love.

While the voice over isn't 100% with me (no voice over ever really is with me), it's the only way this story could be told keeping with it's style. The acting and edits are sound and the Adam Wingard style is definitely there.

I love the work coming out of these indie directors, writers and actors of late. Wingard, West, Barret, Eisener, Sánchez....they are just turning out really grand work and I hope that it keeps on coming!It's also fun to see actors returning to work with the same group from time to time. The "Laura" character was played by Hannah Hughes who went on to be in another Wingard item from V/H/S/2 - the "Phase I Clinical Trials" segment. Working with the same actors and writers seems like a good way to go if everyone wants to keep creating great content. You already know each other and when you hit the set, you're ready to roll. It must be fantastic.

Check out LAURA PANIC. 

You're Next

The trailer for You're Next is up and it's looking pretty dern grand.

Now, I'm not thrilled with the home invasion theme of the film, the players are some heavy hitters in the genre. I'm a huge fan of Director Adam Wingard (Pop Skull, V/H/S , ABCs Of Death) and writer Simon Barrett (V/H/S - writer / actor, ABCs Of Death, V/H/S2) and can see them knocking it out of the park again.

Odd point - IMDB has You're Next dated 2011. I looked it up and it was due to it being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival. And, here we are years later with it hitting screens. LIONSGATE picked up the film in 2011 and it had a 2012 released planned, but that didn't happen.

I'm really hoping that this genre crew does what it usually does and provides something that takes this specific, home invasion idea to a new level and presents some more interesting content than something like The Strangers managed to do. (Not a bad film, just predictable.)

So...do you think Wingard, Barrett, AJ Bowen, Ti West, Kate Lyn Sheil et al can win our hearts as the try to stop them with You're Next? :)