Critics complain that it doesn't stand up against the original Blair Witch Project. It has a dismal 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 4/10 on IMDb. is there really a Blair Witch? The answer, if any, may come in "BW3," now being prepared by Myrick and Sanchez.People love to hate on Book of Shadows. The 35mm footage may or may not accurately reflect how the characters remember what happened the video footage may or may not be an objective record of some of the same events. The rest is video footage shot by the protagonists. Like the first movie, this one has two visual styles (but not nearly as much of that hand-held photography that forced some patrons to recycle their popcorn bags).
The other group is advised to seek out Coffin Rock, with fatal results, and eventually the sheriff gets involved, and the movie intercuts interrogation scenes as the Witch Hunt group are quizzed by the law. Soon they have a confrontation with another tour group, which leads to an unconvincing shoving match. I liked Erica's cautionary Wiccan lore: "The first rule of Wicca is, do no harm, because whatever you do will come back to you threefold." This sounds like " Pay It Forward" in reverse. Others include Erica, a witch who practices Wicca, which is the white-magic form of witchcraft Stephen and his girlfriend, the pregnant Tristen, who are writing a book on the hysteria caused by the film, and Kim, who dresses in black and says, in an oblique reference to the "Paradise Lost" movies, "Where I come from, people believe because I dress in black, I'm some kind of killer." (In keeping with the "BW" pseudo-realistic approach, all of the actors play characters who have their names.) The group plunges into the woods, where they begin to argue about their different approaches to the experience. The Blair Witch Hunt, as it is called, is led by a tour guide ( Jeff Donovan) who, we will learn, is a former mental patient, now cured, apparently. Tourists have descended on the town, locals are on eBay selling twig-sculptures like those in the movie, and the exasperated local sheriff patrols the woods with a bullhorn, shouting, "Get out of these woods and go home! There is no goddamned Blair Witch!" We meet a group of Witch fanciers who have signed up for an overnight tour in the woods. This is not one of Joe Berlinger's proudest days.īut what about the movie itself-apart from Berlinger's involvement? It opens promisingly as a documentary about the effect that the first movie had on the (fictional) town of Burkittsville, Md., where the Blair Witch was rumored to haunt the nearby woods. I can imagine a preacher thundering from his pulpit: "This Berlinger comes down here and makes a couple of propaganda films making us look bad, and then what does he do? Makes a film glorifying black magic and witches." If the film had argued against the mind-set that essentially framed the West Memphis Three, that would be one thing.
At the same time, because of loaded characters and dialogue, "BW2" supplies ammunition to those who think the Arkansas prisoners are guilty. It's a muddled, sometimes-atmospheric effort that could have come from many filmmakers. The movie shows no special insight that made it necessary for Berlinger to direct it. But now that I've seen "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," I'm disturbed. I wondered earlier why Berlinger would want to make a fiction film on witchcraft and black magic, but suspended judgment: He is one of the best documentarians around. The movies are deadly serious because they make the case that injustice is being done.