‘Blair Witch’ and horror franchise fatigue

In 1999, two independent filmmakers released a movie that reshaped the horror landscape. That film was The Blair Witch Project, a found-footage horror that, through an incredible viral marketing campaign in the internet’s early days, helped establish a sub-genre. Subsequent entries in the series, however, failed to recapture the magic, and after a recent interview with one of the directors, it begs the question of where the series should go next. And, perhaps more importantly, should it go anywhere at all – why do most horror franchises get increasingly worse?

In an interview with ComicBook.com, director Eduardo Sanchez stated: “I still think that there is a way to bring back a little bit of the mystery of Blair Witch, which is the newness of it. I’m not sure if going on the sequel route is the way to do it.” It’s not widely known, but The Blair Witch Project actually already has two sequels – after the first film’s success, a sequel was rushed out the next year, to much critical and audience derision. Book of Shadows, a meta-film about people obsessed with the first film who head to the shooting location, was slated for deviating massively from what made that film so successful. And then, there was 2016’s Blair Witch, which made a decent degree of money, but was criticised for being overly-similar and not scary.

That film was The Blair Witch Project, a found-footage horror that, through an incredible viral marketing campaign in the internet’s early days, helped establish a sub-genre

Perhaps a sequel isn’t the way to go at all. Sanchez said that “[he thought] that the Blair Witch film property should have gone backwards. We should have gone back in time and done period pieces of the mythology, and those elements.” He suggested shaking up the styles, so each film felt like its own entity as well as part of the franchise. He suggested that the Rustin Parr aspect of the story (set in 1941) could be shot in black and white, and the Elly Kedward part (set in 1785) could use unknown actors from Europe, creating a sense of colonial America (in much the same way as 2015’s The Witch).

It’s hard to make a horror franchise work, particularly after a strong initial entry. The only major examples that I can think of are the Conjuring films and (until Paradox came along) the Cloverfield movies, and this is because the stories are only tangentially linked – they’re essentially anthology stories with a common theme. These films exist in the same universe, but they don’t have to repeat the same beats as the earlier films and are able to expand on other elements on that world, much as Sanchez suggests for the Blair Witch franchise.

It’s hard to make a horror franchise work, particularly after a strong initial entry

Horror movies’ villains are normally frightening because they’re things of mystery, and they don’t hang around long enough to lose their fear factor – so, expanding on them, giving them more time and explaining them further is bound to ruin them. Freddie Krueger transformed from a killing machine that haunted your dreams into a deadbeat dad who keeps cracking lame puns. Jason Voorhees got on a boat to Manhattan and became a weird demonic snake that possesses people (seriously). Michael Myers, once the most frightening horror villain of them all, became the plaything of a cult and got beaten up by Busta Rhymes.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, could such an expansion work for the Blair Witch series? Would we want to expand on the lore behind the Blair Witch – after all, it was widely acknowledged that a scene in the 2016 Blair Witch, in which we saw the monster, was one of the film’s biggest misfires. The films could be good in their own right, and it’s hard to say that the prequels would ruin the original, because the mythology elements don’t particularly factor into the horror of the film. But then, the franchise was dealt a big blow by the backlash towards the 2016 film – there’s the chance that, if such a film was made and was actually good, association with the recent Blair Witch could actually negatively impact any new entry.

The Blair Witch Project was such a smash hit back in 1999 because it was a game changer – the directors tried something new, and audiences responded

Perhaps the best avenue for the series was the surprise E3 announcement that a video game based on the series is coming out soon, a survival horror with a trailer that looks really interesting. But perhaps it would be better to stop looking at everything through a franchise point of view. The Blair Witch Project was such a smash hit back in 1999 because it was a game changer – the directors tried something new, and audiences responded. I understand that name recognition brings in money, but (excusing the Conjuring films) many modern cinematic horrors bring in viewers and make a ton of profit without that. Franchises do well, certainly, but surely horror is always more frightening when it steps into the unknown?