Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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OCTOBER 5-11, 2016 UCW 25 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Not Worth the Aspirin Blair Witch (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Once upon a time shaky footage was the new hot thing, and a little indie film called The Blair Witch Project was innovative and ground breaking and confused people into thinking they were scared when, in fact, they were just motion sick. An underrated sequel tanked the franchise potential, and an infinite number of film school students went on to make an infinite number of cinema headache machines. In 2016, the top-secret-no-more sequel, Blair Witch (89 minutes) was lensed by mumblegore auteur Adam Wingard under the name The Woods — and even though I loved You're Next and The Guest, if I'm being honest, his latest effort was frankly underwhelming. I suspect they kept the film so secret because the filmmakers knew the film wasn't that great, and the only thing they had going for them was nostalgia. The latest iteration begins with Heather Donahue's brother, James (James Allen McCune) reviewing some found footage containing what he believes is the image of his sister. Based on the footage I saw, it was the image of someone in a bad wig holding a camera over their face while looking in a mirror, but what do I know. Based on this flimsiest of evidence, James decides to wander off into the Burkittsville woods with a friend, who is exploiting his pain by filming their adventure for her film school project. Surely, this time around, with an independently wealthy friend and concerned parents not completely over the pain of losing their first child, they will plan ahead about how not to get lost in the woods by notifying the authorities of their plans. Or not. Lisa (Callie Hernandez) manages to bring a drone, several GoPro cameras, and some racial diversity with them, but no common sense. The racial diversity includes James' childhood friend Peter (Brandon Scott) and Peter's girlfriend Ashley (Corbin Reid). Peter is sort of antagonistic towards Lisa, and apparently, the world in general. I think I would like to hang out with him and see which one of us snaps first. Their first act upon arriving in Burkittsville is to hook up with some shady locals, Lane (Wes Robinson) and Talia (Valorie Curry), who may or may not consume massive amounts of illicit narcotics in their spare time. They uploaded the video that encouraged James to go on his Spring Break Vision Quest in the woods and promise to take his Best Friends Gang to where it was found. James and his buddies are idiots and think that it's a great idea to wander through haunted woods with people they don't know whose hopes for fortune and glory are pinned on proving that ghosts exist. Why the dangerously unstable locals didn't take their mysterious footage to any one of half a dozen ghost-hunting reality shows I can name in the time it took me to write this sentence, I have no idea. It's not like any of those shows are held to high journalistic standards. While walking in the woods, they find lots of mysterious dark shadows, off camera noises, falling trees, a body horror plotline that was much better when it appeared in The Ruins and some folk art that was effectively scary 20 years ago, before it was used on the latest and lousiest season of American Horror Story. You know what they don't find? An ability to act next to a script that makes some sense. At least the writers managed to flesh out the backstory of the Blair Witch while capturing some of what made the original a success. Overall, I would be remiss if I didn't admit that some parts of what I saw scared me. Of course, by the last half hour I was ready to barf from a shaky-cam induced migraine, and reduced to covering my eyes while sneaking quick peeks whenever sounds suggested that the camera was still for 30 seconds. Now showing at Patriot 14 + IMAX. HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910.484.6200. $i. 50 Drink, Every Day, All Day! $i. 50 Drink, Every Day, All Day! $i. 50 Popcorn. Every Day All Day! $i. 50 Popcorn. Every Day All Day! $i. 50 Popcorn. Every Day All Day! $i. 50 Drinks. Every Day, All Day! $i. 50 Drinks. Every Day, All Day! $i. 50 Drinks. Every Day, All Day! $2.00 before 6:00 p.m. $3.00 after 6:00 p.m. $1.00 extra for 3D MOVIES Movie Monday: $1.50 All Day(Holiday or 3D movies excluded) Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry VOL. 16 FREE to Residents, Businesses and Organizations throughout our Community. Welcome to Radio & TV Stations 18 Month Calendar WINNERS! 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