Blair Witch Movies Ranked

"The Blair Witch Project" is back in the news. First, word recently broke that a new "Blair Witch" movie is in the works from Blumhouse and Lionsgate. This was greeted as less-than-ideal information by the folks involved with the original movie, who feel they should be involved with the new film, too, and who can blame them? Then came word that the original cast members of the first film were asking for residuals for the use of their likenesses throughout the franchise. 

In short, things seem messy in "Blair Witch" world. Talk about scary! But let's look beyond these recent headlines and back at the franchise itself. As of now, there are three feature films. There are also a handful of excellent made-for-TV faux documentaries that served as tie-ins for the films, but we won't be touching on those here. Instead, we're going to focus on the three theatrical releases: "The Blair Witch Project," "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," and "Blair Witch." 

How does the franchise as a whole stack up? Let's rank the films and find out! 

Adam Wingard's 2016 "Blair Witch" is probably best remembered for its clever marketing campaign rather than for the film itself — probably because the film itself is quite poor! For weeks leading up to its release, "Blair Witch" was being marketed as a new horror film called "The Woods." Then, at the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, the rug was pulled out from under us all when it was revealed "The Woods" was actually a secret "Blair Witch Project" sequel! It was a fun twist, and I admit that as a fan of the original "Blair Witch Project," I fully got swept up in the hype. Then I saw the movie, which was a dull rehash of the original film with newer technology. I think Wingard can make good films (see: "The Guest"), but he missed the mark here, crafting an unscary, slightly annoying story about a bunch of boring loudmouths lost in the woods. Throw in a CGI monster that shows up at the end (Is it supposed to be the witch? Who the hell knows!), and you have a film that feels like it completely misunderstands what made the original "Blair Witch Project" such a classic. Oh well. We'll always have that fun marketing campaign I guess. 

"Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" gets a bad wrap. Seen as little more than a quick cash-in on the success of the first film, this sequel, helmed by documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger, eschews the found footage set-up for a more traditional narrative. But you know what? I'm here to tell you that "Book of Shadows" is better than you remember. It's a fun, disturbing meta-sequel in which the first film is treated like a real documentary that's spawned a morbid tourist industry in Burkittsville, Maryland. A group of people sign up for a tour of the locations from the original film, only to find themselves waking up the next morning having lost time. And oh yeah, there's a body count. Did our main characters blackout from partying too hard? Or is something supernatural at work? Perhaps it's the work of ... the Blair Witch! More cerebral and twisty than you probably remember, "Book of Shadows" deserves to be reappraised. It's certainly better than Adam Wingard's clunky "Blair Witch" sequel that ignores the events of this film entirely. 

It cannot be overstated what a seismic event the original "Blair Witch Project" was. While the internet was around at the time (there was even a Blair Witch website), it wasn't quite what it is today. And yet, this original faux documentary, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez and starring then-unknowns Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard as fictionalized versions of themselves, was able to build a massive amount of hype through word of mouth and festival screenings. Before the film found its way to theaters, rumors swirled that this was going to be the scariest movie of all time. On top of that, it was real! 

It wasn't real, of course. And yet for months even after the film was released, people thought that Donahue, Williams, and Leonard were really missing, and that the footage they shot was entirely 100% authentic. It's not, and yet, it feels genuine. We never really see anything, but there's a palpable sense of dread blanketing the movie as our three film students get progressively more and more lost in the woods. The power of suggestion goes a long way, and piles of rocks and little stickmen suddenly become omens of doom. Using some planted interviews with "locals," those aforementioned made-for-TV faux documentaries, and some books, "The Blair Witch Project" was able to build up a brilliant, effective, and frightening mythology that still endures to this day. We know the movie isn't real now. But that doesn't make it any less scary.