I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER vs. BLAIR WITCH

Which of these two high profile titles was less torture for me to sit through? Let’s get right to it.

I AM NOT A SERIAL KILLER (2016)

I seriously thought I was going to have an ADHD meltdown trying to get through this snoozefest. My soul was revolting, trying to tear through my skin to escape this mental prison—a sight that would have been more frightening and gruesome than anything that happens here.

An organ harvesting serial killer is on the loose in a small town. There’s this teenage boy who is obsessed with serial killers and works as an assistant for his mom, the local mortician. He is also one unlikable fucking protagonist. I just can’t get into the creepy, moody, morbid, long-haired high school weirdo type when it’s a dude. This kid’s angle is that he knows if he doesn’t focus completely on trying to be normal, he’ll turn into a serial killer.

So in keeping with that plan of acting normal, he spends the movie lurking in the shadows around the snowy streets of his town profiling the serial killer. He occasionally gets some unnecessary input from an unnecessary best friend character. He talks to and spies on his neighbor – played by Christopher Lloyd, who is probably great in this film. I simply couldn’t tell because I couldn’t hear a single word he whispered.

Selfies of my face while watching I Am Not A Serial Killer

In a couple of moments that try to bring some suspense and horror to this mind-numbing experience, the teen witnesses some murders that reveal the non-human circumstances of this particular serial killer. So he eventually takes on the killer in a climax that is as monotone and low-energy as the rest of the film, leading to a sudden jarring upbeat ending. WTF?

I imagine that this story, based on a novel from a series by Dan Wells, probably just works way better as a book.

The only positive I got from I Am Not a Serial Killer is the awesome song “Zom-beee-aye-eee” by Combo Zombo, which plays during a Halloween dance. The video even has a gay moment at 1:40.

Yes, there’s a Halloween sequence in I Am Not a Serial Killer…but the film even succeeds in making Halloween boring.

BLAIR WITCH THREE (2016)

That’s right, it’s Blair Witch THREE. How dare they pretend the crappy masterpiece-compared-to-the-first-film sequel Book of Shadows doesn’t even exist.

So, yeah. Pretend that the sequel doesn’t exist. 15 years after his sister Heather disappears, some dipshit decides to make a documentary with his friends about heading into the woods to find her. He believes she’s alive because he has a piece of her lost footage that shows her running up stairs and seeing in a mirror reflection what is clearly a fucking witch…yet this dude is like, “That’s my sister!” WHAT?

For a majority of this rehash, the best part is the surround sound. Make sure to watch only if you have a home theater audio system, because the endless cheap jump scares would be nothing without the sound, and most of the movie would be nothing without the cheap jump scares.

This new group of kids has a drone to add modern flavor to the footage. The good news about that is that we aren’t staring at leaves on the ground for a fucking hour. Yes, I’m referencing the piece of shit original movie.

We watch these kids hike, set up camp, talk about the legends of the forest at a campfire, then fight and split up. Eventually, Blair Witch becomes a way better movie than the original (any attempt at a sequel should be ashamed if it isn’t). Shit actually happens here that better demonstrates some sort of serious witchery going on in those woods beyond a bitch scratching at a tent.

But it’s when the kids finally arrive at the house that the creators of the sequel show us what the original film could have been. There’s a fricking tiny tunnel crawl scene that completely got under my skin (I seriously can’t handle nightmarish, claustrophobic shit à la The Descent).

However, it’s lengthier time spent in the house, an actual sighting of a creature, and a final suspenseful scene directly tied to the legend of having to stand in a corner that make this film all worth it, even if the conclusion does borrow heavily from the final scene of [REC].