【In 80 Betten um die Welt】

You'd assume putting two great things together -- an iconic horror movie and In 80 Betten um die Weltacclaimed indie horror video game studio -- would guarantee at least a good result. But the Blair Witch video game, recently released by the celebrated creators of games like Layers of Fearand Observer, proves otherwise.

To be fair, not a single extension to the unassuming 1999 independent horror movie turned genre-defining found-footage sensation has ever succeeded in adding anything worthwhile to the original. The video game is far from the worst efforts born out of cashing in on this iconic IP. But that's not a high bar to clear, considering its nearest comparison might actually be the nauseatingly millennial 2016 reboot-ish sequel.

But like all its failed predecessors, the video game misses the point entirely on what made TheBlair Witch Projectlightning in a bottle with a lasting impact on our cultural consciousness. Worse still, it turns the strengths of Bloober Team game studio -- namely, surreal narrative storytelling through spacial exploration -- against itself.

Set a couple years after the movie, you play as Ellis, whose entire personality, backstory, and arc can be distilled into the single word "tortured." A former cop and war veteran struggling with PTSD, he's eager to redeem himself for unknown bad deeds and joins the search party for a missing boy in Black Hills Forest.

You know how this ends. And the journey there does nothing to surprise or terrify you.

Yeah, you know how this ends. And the journey there does nothing to surprise or terrify you.

There's also a dog named Bullet who, by nature of being a dog, is the goodest part of the game -- though even then, his purpose is mechanically incongruent with what made Blair Witcha great horror movie.

Hardcore fans of Blair Witch(hello, me) understand its greatness doesn't come from any amount of narrative laurels. Instead, it recontextualized the old, run-of-the-mill woods witch archetype through an innovative framing device that tapped into our developing relationship with a new technology at the time. Suddenly, everyone could afford a camcorder and try to make a documentary about their town's stupid urban legend. What if you did that for a laugh -- and found something real?

The movie also basically invented the first-ever viral marketing internet campaign, selling it as a "true story." You'd think video games -- our most modern medium with a huge capacity for experimentation and innovation -- could breathe some life back into this old witch again.

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Sadly, it doesn't innovate on either the Blair Witch movieor Layers of Fear formula in any meaningful way. Really, it doesn't even attempt to meld the two in a way that makes any amount of sense.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

There's camcorder mechanics, all infuriatingly forced, half-baked, and less essential to your moment-to-moment experience than, like, a flashlight. The game is smart enough to know that mystifying our relationship to new tech was essential to Blair Witch's horror in 1999. But it's not smart enough to realize that in 2019, there's nothing scary about receiving a T9 SMS text from a mystic force on your Nokia phone that's like, "g2g murder u down ?"

There's nothing scary about receiving a T9 SMS text from a mystic force on your Nokia phone that's like, "g2g murder u down ?"

Three-quarters of the game takes place in nondescript woods that look procedurally generated, zapping all the power of Layers of Fear's sumptuously surrealist approach to atmospheric storytelling. I get what they were trying to do, presumably attempting to recreate the experience of a movie that's filled with mostly aimless walking around alone in an ever-shifting forest.

But the seemingly boring premise of people just trying to get out of the woods works in the context of a found-footage horror film since the live-action people on screen make you feel like that could be you -- only heightened by the fact that the actors ofBlair Witchwere genuinely reacting to planned events they didn't know were coming.

A first-person video game, on the other hand, has no human faces for us to identify with, and in this one, it's hard to feel anything but contempt for the protagonist. Ellis is less believably human than his dog. By a long shot.

The game doesn't actually even let you get lost or feel aimless or alone, since that goodboy dog is always there with a bark to direct you back to the preset path if you wander too far.

Like the movie, the video game features those now iconic bunches of twig figurines and stone piles, but the game is missing the mystery. In the movie, you didn't know their intent, but destroying them led to disastrous consequences. In the video game, all you do is walk up to one, crush it, and move on with your boring life with no further incident. And the mystery becomes, why the fuck include them at all?

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

A shift happens in the last quarter of the game that is as close to a saving grace as you'll find in this wasteland of disappointing tedium. I won't spoil anything, but finally the game discovers a middle ground for the Blair Witchuniverse where it can find footing in a Layers of Fear-style gameplay.

Ultimately though, even that doesn't rise above the caliber of a very cheap and unconvincing P. T. clone. And it's still undercut by the laughably incomprehensible clichés of Ellis' narrative.

The original Blair Witch's success received astronomical backlash after the audience realized its "real" found-footage was actually staged. Now, we recognize that "lie" to be one of the most brilliant tools for suspension of disbelief in recent film. Realizing it's all "fake" doesn't take away any of the Blair Witch's ability to cast a spell on you.

It's a bad sign when an indie movie made 20 years ago with a $60,000 budget remains endlessly more immersive than a video game made in 2019.

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