Blair Witch (Film Review)

2016 Lionsgate Films
Directed by: Adam Windgard; Written by: Simon Barrett
Starring: James Allen McCune, Callie Hernandez, Brandon Scott, Corbin Reid, Valorie Curry, and Wes Robinson
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 89 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 2/10

James Donahue's sister, Heather, disappeared in the remote Maryland woods many years before. However, James has now seen recent footage that makes him believe Heather is still alive. Now, he and a group of friends, along with the Maryland locals who shot the footage, head into the woods. James wants to find Heather. Everyone else wants to document his search. 17 years after The Blair Witch Project...it's 2016's Blair Witch.
I've found Adam Windgard''s directing work to be rather hit-and-miss. If he is working in the real world, his films can be gritty, fun, and unpredictable. If he goes supernatural, though, I've found his work to be very...dumb.
2016's Blair Witch is dumb. The 2000 attempt at a sequel to the brilliant 1999 original, The Blair Witch Project, was regarded so badly, this 16-years-later attempt completely ignores its existence. Either way, Blair Witch is terrible. The film starts off okay. It appears Windgard and frequent screenwriter collaborator, Simon Barrett, seem happy enough to mimic the original film in the modern times of 2016. This is unimaginative, but would at least make for a fun, if throwaway film.
Instead, Windgard and Barrett, in the second and third acts, continuously swing for the fences and strike out again and again and again. Nothing works, from the weird time manipulations, to a giant monster wandering in the woods, to a new, skinny interpretation of the witch. It's all very dumb, and very lousy, to the point that I felt bad for the young actors running around and trying to make the film believable. 
It's a shame that, while a sequel to The Blair Witch Project is ill-advised, the two attempts at it have been this bad. There's no excuse for it, but Book of Shadows and Blair Witch are both very bad, and should go stand and face the corner.