The Woods Are Alive and Terrifying in New 'Blair Witch' Promos
The face of cinematic fear was forever changed in 1999 with the premiere of The Blair Witch Project, a low-budget indie that ushered in an age of faux-verité, found-footage horror movies. While a subsequent 2000 sequel (Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) did much to sully the legacy of that hit, the franchise will be revived next month courtesy of director Adam Wingard (You’re Next, The Guest). And in two new teases, it’s clear that his follow-up will be faithful to the style and spirit of its predecessor. (Watch the first one above and the second one below.)
Simply dubbed Blair Witch, Wingard’s long-in-the-making sequel — which was originally advertised as The Woods in order to keep its true identity secret — concerns the brother of Heather, the woman who went missing in Maryland’s Black Hills woods at the conclusion of the original film. The first promo lays out this basic premise via one of the protagonist’s friends, who accompanies him into the woods (with lots of high-tech gear in tow, including a drone!) in search of the mysterious cabin where Heather disappeared.
Related: Lionsgate Reveals That ‘The Woods’ Is Really New ‘Blair Witch’ Sequel at Comic-Con
The second advertisement, meanwhile, is a more traditional TV spot that provides some further camcorder-filtered shots of the characters venturing into the wilderness where they become surrounded by those creepy wooden totems and, scarier still, some dilapidated abodes where, at the conclusion of the spot, they’re engulfed by ominous, blinding light.
Given that Wingard has made a name for himself in genre cinema corners for his 2001 slasher film You’re Next, his contribution to the V/H/S anthologies, and his 2014 John Carpenter-esque thriller The Guest, Blair Witch seems like it’ll be far more than just a cheap cash-in when it creeps into theaters on Sept. 16. Watch the previously-released teaser below.
