Directed by Joe Berlinger
Starring Kim Director, Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen, Tristine Skyler and Stephen Barker Turner
Oh boy, the time has come to review Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. I reviewed the original movie last November here on the ol' blog, and for those of you who scan right through my reviews on Twitter, message boards or your Facebook feed (for SHAME!), the gist of it is this: I really, really love the first movie. It's a polarizing movie, to be sure, but I happen to fall in the camp that feels that it was not only scary as f**k back in the day but still holds up in 2017. When the flick came out, I was borderline obsessed, tracking down all of the tie-in novels and nonfiction/fiction books that went along with it. And then news comes out that there's a sequel? Color me there. And I was - on opening night, no less, with a theater consisting primarily of the remainder of my high school graduating class. And I thought that it sucked.
It sucked then, much hardly. I remember walking out of that theater pissed off that they took something that I was really into and "raped" it, or some really profound critical thought process thing. I re-watched this film for the first time since then late last year and again a few days ago, and I can now report that it sucks...decidedly less than it did back in 2000. All these years later, now without the prism of how original and fresh the first movie seemed back then totally washed out of my mouth, I can actually appreciate what writer-director Joe Berlinger was trying to accomplish here. I repeat, trying. In execution, it was still a failure. But it's a failure in that oh-so-lovable way that you can see that there is a decent movie desperately trying to escape somewhere here. Occasionally, that movie does peek through. Mostly, though, it doesn't. The film criticism just don't stop here on the Lick Ness Monster blog. Where did this movie go wrong? Let's recap and find out.
First things first: This movie is definitely WAY different from the original Blair Witch Project. So if you weren't into the found footage thing that the first film didn't exactly invent but definitely popularized, you might be willing to give this movie a bit more of a chance. Nope, instead, what Joe Berlinger wanted to convey here was an actual narrative, with a full script, characters, three-act structure...you know, all the stuff you hear about in writing class. I'll give credit to Berlinger for his original idea - he did not simply repeat the story of the original. Not even conceptually. The general idea behind the film concerns the impact that the first film had on its group of characters. This fact depresses me, because it means that I have to talk about them.
Yes, folks, let's talk about the characters in this movie. It doesn't take long for us to meet them, and they're almost funny in their pitch-perfect stereotypical notes. Stephen and and his pregnant wife Tristen are your resident nice characters, researching a book about the Blair Witch after the events of the original film become public. They're not terribly interesting people, but they are definitely the most tolerable people that you're about to meet. The side characters, however, are your real main eventers. Believe me, it's for the worse. We have Jeff, the group's guide who is sort of a mix between Burt Gummer-style survivalist and basic weed-smoking anciliary guy. We have Erica, a trendy Wiccan who eventually has one of the greatest nude dancing sequences in cinematic history (and it is a Patrick Bateman-style undisputed masterpiece). And then there's Kim. Ahhh...Kim. She's Goth, that Kim. Even better, she's PSYCHIC. Talk about a movie that covers all of its bases when it comes to covering all of the high school demographics that it desperately needed to connect with to turn a profit. Which it did, by the way - as poorly reviewed as this film was, it still grossed almost $50 million worldwide on its $15 million budget. Call it residual after-effect from 1999's popularity or just the fact that people will go to anything just because it's there (hello Avatar sequels that are about to gross 60 gajillion dollars), it happened.
Halfway through this review, and I've already run off the beaten path. I will wholeheartedly admit that the movie actually roped me in on that first watch all those years ago, showing us all of the characters' motivations and reasons for being interested in the Blair Witch. I will also admit to feeling a sense of dread when the characters find the Rustin Parr household from the original movie, set up camp and spend the night. It also seemed like a logical next step in the screenplay when it plays the Ruh-roh, Raggy card on us and has the group wake up the next morning with no memory of the previous night. I was very intrigued by where we were going with this as the movie starts to get weird. Unfortunately, it's also where the movie flies off the rails.
The first curveball that this movie throws at us is Tristen's miscarriage. Yeah, 'memba Tristen? 'Memba that she was pregnant? Well, she was. After this second Ruh-roh, the group head back to Jeff's house (which, amazingly, is in an ABANDONED BROOM FACTORY - now that is some amazing storytelling) to review their tapes from the previous night where we get the first of many hallucination sequences featuring the strange ghostly children. These kids show up a lot as this movie gets weirder, so get used to them. We get the aforementioned naked Erica dancing sequence on one of the tapes, as well as each member of the group experiencing visions of themselves doing terrible, terrible things...things that gradually come true. And, unfortunately, there isn't an ounce of tension to be had with any of it.
It's hard to explain why. Reportedly, the version of the movie that we got was a very different one than what Joe Berlinger originally intended. His flick was much more of a slow burn leading up to a horrific climax. Also, the music and tone of the film he shot was totally different. There were reportedly no supernatural elements whatsoever to the plot - it was all about media obsession and mass hysteria. Well, the studio didn't like this and massively re-cut Berlinger's footage, inserting new music and ordering new scenes to be shot. A good example of what this means is an eerie, atmospheric piano score being replaced by early 2000s heavy metal music. In short, all of the tone that Berlinger was going for was essentially lost with this re-cut, and it's a damn shame, because all indications are that his vision for this film actually would have been pretty freaky.
Oh, and the actors? I haven't mentioned them for a reason, because while I'm sure some of them did go on to other things...f**k me if I know what they are. Yeah, they're pretty bad.
Still, the movie isn't a total failure. Yeah, once it gets going with it's "forced amnesia and hallucinations" plot, we can take a guess where it's going. But the opening 20 minutes or so is actually very well done, even in it's non-director-approved version. The Stephen and Tristen characters are rendered pretty well, the setup seems like the solid logical thing to do after the massive success of the original film seemed impossible to replicate, and there's even a good air of mystery after the initial night spent at that creepy house in the woods. In short, it's unique and definitely carves out its own identity - thus, why it was so damn hated back in its day. And while the movie is a failure in the form that it exists today, I now nonetheless have a soft spot for this entry in the long list of "screwed by studio involvement" feature films. It had ambition. That's more than I can say for, say, Rings.
I know it sounds like I've bashed on this movie a lot, but there are parts of it that I actually enjoy. Thus, I'll give Book of Shadows ** out of ****. Hopefully, someday Berlinger can give us that director's cut that this film's grand total of seven fans are clamoring for. Also, amazingly enough, this film is actually better than the follow-up that pretends this one doesn't exist. /teaser
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