Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

Rewatched Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows last night for the first time in like 20 years. I remember liking it when I was a kid, but was kind of shocked at how much I enjoyed it.

I definitely think this is an unfairly maligned film and don't quite understand the hate or the 4.0 imdb user rating.

Don't get me wrong, it's far from a masterpiece, but at least Book of Shadows tried to do something different with the Blair Witch lore. A solid attempt was made to preserve and integrate all the faux "history" into the story. Yes, there are plot holes, and some ridiculous scenes, but overall the cast and acting are above average for a horror film, and I thought it did adequately carry a fair bit of suspense throughout.

Having seen both recently, I think Book of Shadows is a far superior film to 2016's "Blair Witch", which I thought was a pretty shallow rehash of the original with no original ideas or even the most minimal attempt to expand upon the given mythology.

Attracted by the film `The Blair Witch Project' hoards of film fans have been pouring into the small town of the film. One such group books onto a `Blair Witch Hunt' tour to camp in the woods and see the sights. When they awake the next morning to find their camera equipment smashed, 5 hours unaccounted for and their film hidden in the same spot as the film from the original movie they are unsure what happened. However as they replay the video tape they notice some very weird things.

Undeterred by bad reviews I decided to watch this film on television the other night. Initially I was impressed by the idea, instead of following the original movie, the sequel twists the idea of the original as a documentary and presents it as a film but then uses the film to present another story that is `in the real world'. Conceptually this was quite clever and I was drawn in by it. Sadly this didn't last very long and it wasn't long before it became quite an ordinary film that wasn't creepy in any way and was actually quite dull.

The plot is interesting – interesting enough to keep me watching anyway. The twists are the end are meant to be horrifying and perhaps surprising but by then all they got out of me was an `oh' of vague interest. For most of the film it is noisy chat and fake surprises and creepy goings-on. They didn't work as the film felt very trashy and uninvolving. The gore and flashed edits of violence were supposed to keep us guessing I think but they only served to numb me to the film, as did the occasional dream/fantasy sequence. It was a shame as it was a clever idea and had some good bits in it but the delivery let it down.

The direction is very plain and doesn't manage to build an air of suspense anywhere near as well as in the original, resulting in a rather boring series of scenes punctuated by `scares' that don't work. The cast don't really help either, they don't come across as real people and it is hard to care for such as self important group of people who are walking stereotypes – the goth, the witch, the college boy etc. At least in the original we got to see them break down and become more afraid during the film – here they could be the cast from any teen horror movie.

As you may have guessed I'm not a big fan of teen slasher movies but Blair Witch was much more than that and traded on atmosphere – that was it's strength. By throwing in gore from the very start and having tonnes of little imagined scenes of horror, Book of Shadows loses that strength and becomes a movie that lives and dies on it's ability to scare. Sadly the originally good idea doesn't scare and remains `interesting' and nothing more. It is a shame that they had to make this film as it won't satisfy those who like their horror creepy or those who like it bloody.

Why is this film so hated? Yes, it's pretty dumb and no where near what the original was, but what I liked is that the people in the film are aware of the existence of The Blair Witch Project, and in the beginning it even has some nice clips from real reviews. I was entertained throughout this whole film, and enjoyed the twists and turns, even though, yes, they are pretty ludicrous. The overall plot is suspenseful and mysterious, and why would anyone expect the same thing as the original? I can see why as a sequel it would not work, but as a stand-alone horror film, I thought it got the job done well. Oh well, I guess I am easy to please...

Wow, I really don't get all the bad reviews. It's not a blockbuster movie or is it anything like the original Blair Witch Project. It's more like playing off of it with a set storyline about a group so fascinated and intrigued by the original Blair Witch movie, they all decide to go search for it. That is until they find something worse than the Blair Witch.

The twist to the story is unexpected and the acting is pretty tolerable for a movie like this. As a matter of fact, i'd say the acting is pretty damn good for a horror movie.

This movie is one of my favorite movies to watch during Halloween. I saw it when it first came out and was surprised how good it actually was.

People expecting to see some top notch production, direction, acting, plot, storyline, etc is going to be let down big time because that it is not. It's a simple horror movie playing off another that was hyped up with it's own story. That's it.

Just go in with no expectations and intentions to enjoy a horror movie. You will enjoy it.

An interesting movie that played well with test audiences was then ruined by studio execs who bizarrely decided to change the movie based on a tiny minority of the same test audience. Any subtlety or nuance is ruined by cliché after cliché and completely misplaced gore, jump scares and the worst CGI you've ever seen. Out on the Internet, there exist some fan edits that get closer to the director's original cut. I suggest you seek one of those out... they all improve upon this mess.