'Blair Witch' Trailer Covers Familiar Ground

The first TV trailer for Blair Witch, the sequel to 1999's The Blair Witch Project, debuted this week, and fans of the horror classic were thrilled to see that this new film closely mirrors the original. Critics of the first film, of which there are many, were less impressed, as the new trailer presented the sequel as a repackaging of the original's scares rather than a fresh take on the subject.

The original film about a trio of young people who get lost in a forest haunted by a malevolent force ushered in the era of found-footage horror films. It was praised for its minimalist approach to horror and its inventive filmmaking techniques, which the filmmakers achieved on a shoestring budget.

The sequel sends more young people back into the woods - one of them the brother of one of the original film's characters - and the new trailer showcases the sequel's resurrection of the first film's most memorable images: kids hiking alone into the woods, shaky handheld shots of a tumble-down house, lots of off-camera screaming, weird twig sculptures, and even one of the original film's signature lines ("I'm so sorry").

Shots of a camera-toting drone in the trailer, however, suggest that the sequel will try to use current hot tech as a new gimmick in the film, and the release this week, too, of a "VR experience" trailer seems to be another attempt to drag the 90s film into the 21st century.

Blair Witch debuts in theaters on September 16, 2016.