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The Rice Thresher
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Robert Reichle thresher editorial staff Unless you were stranded in the forest for the entire summer of 1999, it was impossible to avoid the phenomenon of The Blair Witch Project. Its low-budget feel, documentary point of view and deceptively realistic marketing scheme made it the antithesis of recent studio horror movies like Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer. So what business does Artisan have making a big-budget sequel to a movie that, by its very independent nature, should have been impossible to follow? Well, studios are in the business of making money, and based on its merits (and hype), Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 should turn a decent profit. Following the lead of the self-referential Scream movies, Book of Shadows begins on the premise that the original Blair Witch was in fact a love-it-or-hate-it fictional horror movie that inspired something of a cult following. Since the original's release, fans of the movie have been flocking to Burkittsville, Md., to make unholy pilgrimages to Coffin Rock, that spooky house with the handprints on the wall and the merchandise-filled booths of profiteers like Jeff (played by Jeffrey Donovan - all the movie's characters are named after the actors who portray them _ almost as if it's a true story!). Jeff, recently released from a mental institution, takes a group of tourists on an overnight trip to the abandoned home of Rustin Parr (a murderer who played a role in the myth of the Blair Witch) as part of a "Blair Witch-hunt." The group members fall into convenient stereotypes: there's Kim (Kim Director), the Goth who thinks she's psychic; Erica (Erica Leerhsen), a real-life Wiccan with an ax to grind about the bad rap witches get; and Tristen and Stephen (Tristen Skylar and Stephen Barker Turner), an academic couple working on a book about the Blair Witch phenomenon. Of course, as in any good horror movie, the characters are young and like to have a few drinks. In this case they have many, many drinks. When the group wakes up after a night of partying in the haunted woods, they're shaken by the fact that their campsite is trashed and they can't remember a chunk of time in the middle of the night. Did they pass out wasted, or was it something more sinister? After some freaky, unexpected events, the group sets up base in the abandoned factory where Jeff lives and tries to sort out what happened. Although they've left the forest alive, they're still subject to the evils of the Blair Witch, and gallons of blood will flow before they understand what really happened that fateful night in the Black Hills. Book of Shadow's plot might seem like a half-hearted attempt to cash in on the first movie's success (which it is), but the execution of the movie actually works. Book of Shadows is almost as psychological as the first Blair Witch: You never see too much, and a lot of eerie stuff goes unexplained. The plot also keeps you guessing to an extent - multiple explanations for the movie's creepy events are always floating around in your head. The editing and cinematography are actually pretty cool, especially when you consider how boring and flat a traditional follow-up to the jittery original could have been. Integral to the movie's plot is a set of damaged videotapes the campers bring back from the woods, and the successful filming and editing of these segments brings to mind the realism of the first movie. Director Joe Berlinger has previously worked mostly on documentaries, making him a good choice for this film. Aside from the cool visual style and better-than-expected plot, Book of Shadows suffers from mediocre acting and one-dimensional characters - only Kim seems to be anything more than a one-note piece of Blair Witch bait. Most importantly, viewers will either love or hate the movie's reliance on mind games rather than shock and gore to get scares. And just like in the original Blair Witch, everything builds up to a confusing climax that leaves the audience wondering what the hell happened. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is smarter than the usual horror movie fare, but unlike its predecessor, it's nothing groundbreaking. It'll provide an above-average thrill this Halloween, but it doesn't score points for creativity or originality.
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