Suppose you're a filmmaker, and you see really bad movie with a really good premise. What do you do? If you try to make a good movie with the same premise, you're accused of stealing from the bad movie. If you don't, you have this really good premise gone to waste. It's a shame, really. That's the biggest problem I have with this movie. Now, you're probably asking yourself why this movie sucks. Well, I'll try to be specific. First, the characters are one-dimensional. Let's look at who we have to work with and what they're like:
The Wiccan: "Hi. I'm the Wiccan. I worship nature. Blessed be! I'm Wiccan. Guess what. I'm a witch. I'm Wiccan. Perception is reality. I'm Wiccan." I swear, she spens the entire movie reminding us that she's Wiccan.
The Goth Chick: "I'm psychic. I try to look like Rose McGowen because I'm so Goth. The world sucks, and I need beer. People think I'm all evil and a killer and stuff just because I dress in black, but I'm just trying to be myself. And I'm psychic. I'm not sure why, but I am." She's actually the most interesting and likeable character in the movie.
The Skeptic: "I thought it was a good movie, and I enjoyed it, but that's all it was. A movie. Nothing more. In fact, everything is just as it seems. There is absolutely no depth to anything. Oh, and my girlfriend's pregnant." Unfortunately, this guy doesn't die. What a pity.
The Pregnant Girlfriend: "I believe in the Blair Witch, and I'm pregnant, but not for long. I'm gonna have a freak micarriage and be absent from most of the movie, until they go out of ther way to remind the viewer that I'm still here." Really, the only reason this character esists is so her boyfriend can kill her in a fit of rage.
The Randy Clone: "I'm convinced that the Blair Witch is real, and I'm making as much money off it as I can. I also like to video tape stuff. A lot." Ever see Scream? This guy is a direct copy of the Randy character.
The movie starts of with four of them in a van and Marilyn Manson's Disposable Teens (read: The Beautiful People) playing. They go out to a cemetary to pick up the Goth Chick (who I'll call Kim). She wants beer and weed, so they get some of that and start the tour. The Randy clone (Randy) is leading the tour, and the characters all meet each other. The Wiccan (Lisa) starts talking about how she has a bond with the Blair witch who, evidently, was also Wiccan, and also about how Wicca has been around for so long, and how they used to burn witches and whatnot. Of course, she's wrong about all of that, since Wicca originated in the 1900's and witches were never burned, but who really cares? Kim asks the Pregnant Girlfriend (Tristen) how far along she is. Kim, you see, is psychic. You can ignore this now. She'll remind you a few more times. Well, they stop to spend the night at one of the places where the Blair Witch killed. They set up cameras, meet another Blair Witch tour group, get high, and pass out.
Well, the next morning, there's shredded paper everywhere (it was all of the Skeptic's research. We'll call him Art), and the cameras are all missing or broken. Kim knows where the tapes are. Good thing she's psychic, eh? Well, they go to the hospital because Tristen has a miscarriage, and then they go to Randy's place to watch the tapes. Also, they have these weird scratches and stuff. So, the tapes don't show anything, but there's a strange jump in the time code. Using his editing equipment, he freeze-frames it, and it's Lisa dancing naked around a small tree (which was huge when they were actually there). Lisa's not terribly pleased with this, and she does some weird Wiccan incantation thing. Meanwhile, Tristen's in bed and Art's telling her that they'll be leaving soon. She doesn't want to. Kim goes to get some beer, and the woman there won't sell it to her. There's a lttle exchange, and Kim throws some money at her and leaves with the beer. When she gets back, she cuts herself on a nail file which is covered in blood. The woman at the store had been filing her nails. Well, this becomes an all-too-common occurrence. They start seeing things that aren't there. Art and Lisa start to have sex, but it turns out they're sitting on opposite sides of the table. Also, the other tour group was brutally murdered, and Randy's the prime suspect. Lisa disappears too. Later, she's seen dancing naked around a tree.
It's at around this point the movie actually gets good. There's all this weird stuff going on. Randy gets a call from the sherrif saying he's heading over. There's a knock at the front door, so Randy gets his shotgun from the closet and opens the door. (There had been dogs there earlier.) No one's there. He opens the closet to put the gun back, and there's Lisa, dead, as if she'd been hanged. He goes back to the editing room to tell the others, and Tristen's there. She's feeling better, I guess. She tells him that the weird things have been happening in reverse order from how they originally happened, and maybe they should watch the tapes in reverse, so they do. The tapes reveal the group dancing around naked, having sex, getting high, smashing the camera equipment, and tearing up Art's research. It also shows them killing the other tour group. Art accuses Tristen of being the witch. His proof is that she had the miscarriage, and the witch kills children. There's a big fight and Tristen wraps a rope around her neck and urges Art to push her off the ledge. He finally does.
Kim, Art, and Randy are arrested interrogated. They all claim to be innocent. Art tells them that the house had security cameras all over, and they should watch them. The camera doesn't lie. Well, guess what. The cameras reveal Randy hiding Lisa's body, Art yelling at Tristen while she pleads for her life right before he kills her, and all the other events that took place. The store securty camera shows Kim stabbing the store manager to death with a nail file and running off with the beer. Kim, Randy, and Art insist that the cameras are wrong. That's not how it happened.
Perception, it turns out, is not reality.