Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

The Test of Time series takes a look back at the 2000 sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, directed by Joe Berlinger

About a year ago we looked at The Blair Witch Project through the lens of a quarter century’s worth of passing time. While the popularity and success of that movie is undeniable, regardless of how you feel about it, the legacy is somewhat more complicated. It has 4 video games with varying degrees of quality, some cool toys courtesy of McFarlane, more lore than the average 21st century kids cartoon show, a hell of a mocumentary, and a couple sequels. While 2016’s Blair Witch does a good job of mixing in the found footage aspect while paying homage to its predecessor, Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows, which released the year following the first one, is mostly maligned both behind the scenes and with its final product. While it made a decent amount of money and IMDb claims that it has a cult following now, just how does the movie hold up 25 years later? Get your Burkittsville merch ready as we see how Book of Shadows stands the Test of Time.

The Plot

The Blair Witch Project was a whole damn phenomenon. Its marketing and execution was a master class like we have never seen before and honestly probably wont again. It was presented as real-life lost footage, and the cast was reported missing. It had a website, fake Sci-Fi Channel documentary, and an aura of mystery around it that made it a must-see property. Packed theaters of curious movie goers filled theaters nationwide to the tune of nearly 250 million at the box office on a budget of less than a million and significantly so depending on what source you look into. It made a whole lot on DVD and VHS with the at the time novelty of hidden things to find on the disc and remained in the public eye while starting a whole damn sub-genre of horror that remains popular and relevant today.

That’s the first movie though. Artisan, who had the rights to the first movie and made a comical amount of money off the first one, of course wanted to get a sequel out ASAP to keep the money train rolling. The co-directors and creators of the first movie, who were known as Haxan Films, weren’t so eager and wanted the hype to slow down before getting started on any potential sequel. This wasn’t going to work so while they were kept on as producers, Artisan moved on to different creators to get their sequel rolling. The original creators, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, ended up greatly disliking the final product. Something that will be a recurring issue for this movie. Artisan would seek out 4 scripts to try and use from writers Jon Bokenkamp, Neal Marshall Stevens, Robert Parigi, and a 4th that is still unidentified. Director Joe Berlinger was picked to helm but didn’t like any of the scripts presented and wrote a draft with a previous collaborator named Dick Beebe.

Beebe doesn’t have a ton on his resume but did give us one of the best horrors of the late 90s and a sneaky good remake in the Geoffrey Rush-led House on Haunted Hill as well as an episode of HBO’s Tales from the Crypt. Joe Berlinger had an interesting take on the first one as a documentary filmmaker. He felt making a fake documentary and presenting it as real was dishonest even if he did respect the first movie. He is almost certainly most famous for the Paradise Lost trilogy of documentaries on the child murders in the Robin Hood Hills for which he was nominated for an Oscar in 2012 for the third entry. Looking at his IMDb credits, it’s almost completely documentaries on the big and small screen besides today’s entry and based on his experience behind the scenes, I’m sure he had no interest in fiction after this.

The story follows a tour guide named Jeffrey who was institutionalized for a while and is known around the town of Burkittsville. He is trying to capitalize on the Blair Witch craze that the movie created by having a tour, something he is not alone in. He takes a couple graduate students, a witch, and a psychic goth with him to where the events allegedly happened. The group of 5 black out and the research they brought is ruined in addition to the camera equipment and the footage is buried. They spend the rest of the movie isolated and seemingly trapped in Jeffrey’s house while they review the footage they found buried at the site of Rustin Parr’s house. The witch named Erica ends up dying and so does Tristen who also lost her baby earlier in the film while the police show the survivors the tapes of them killing Erica and Tristan as well as a tour guide that passed them by earlier.

The movie was almost completely changed by Artisan against the wishes of the director in terms of music choices, gore, extra scenes shot, and the order that events appear on screen. The cast includes Jeffrey Donovan, Kim Hunter, Erica Leerhsen, Stephen Baker Turner, and Tristrine Skyler as the unlucky 5 with a handful of other appearances through archival footage and smaller roles. Tristine Skyler and Stephen Baker don’t really show up in much else, but Kim Director has made a nice career with Spike Lee and an assortment of TV roles. Erica Leerhsen went on to be one of the leads in the Texas Chainsaw remake in 2003 and Jeffrey Donovan is honestly one of the best underrated actors we have working today. The movie, because of the property and close proximity to the first movies release, did very well at the box office making nearly 48 million on its 15-million-dollar budget even if the critics were not kind to it.

Signs of the Time

There are quite a few signifiers of late 90s living here. That late 90s soundtrack that lingers throughout the movie is a dead giveaway and was added after the fact by the studio against the directors wishes. You have very little cell phone usage as even the flip phones that came into prominence a few years later are mostly absent here besides the necessary usage from law enforcement and we do get a sweet office phone that the group uses at the place where Jeffrey lives. Tropes are fully used here from our goth girl played by Kim Director which was a staple in slasher films and horror in general at the time and if Jeffrey Donovan’s facial hair doesn’t bring you squarely back to the late 90s or early 2000s then I am a generation older than you. Even the dialogue and the way the characters interact with each other with all the sex, drugs, and foul language peppered into the script and deliveries.

Elsewhere in the movie we have the wonderful idea of what we thought being a hacker was in the 90s and 2000s. When Jeffrey is trying to go through the footage to figure out what happened, there is definitely some nonsense thrown around in how they tweak the footage to be seen properly. Finally, and I never thought I’d compare Blair Witch 2 to Scream, but this movie is smart and very meta at a time when a lot of movies hadn’t figured out how to translate that on the screen. The director’s original idea, and one of the unproduced scripts, of mass media consumption and what ideas can do to us is one of the best things going for the film and a move that would be attempted over and over again.

What holds up?

I sat rewatching this movie with only the bad taste and poor memories of having watched it as a VHS rental when it first got released on home video. Not to bury the lead but I was still mostly disappointed in the final product and may never watch it again. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by a couple things. The very concept of the movie is a novel one but with what ended up on screen and what was originally planned. Taking the first movie and putting it in the real world with fans going to investigate is a logical and yet brilliant idea. Execution aside, it’s such an intriguing way to go about a sequel to a one-of-a-kind movie. Smaller bits that turned out really fun include the scene where the two tour groups run into each other and try to get the other participants to join the other tour is pleasantly funny. Two more serious scenes that end up working for the movie are both near the end when the tapes are shown two different ways, what the main characters see vs what the police see, and the scenes when we actually see what they did to the tour group. Finally, and this doesn’t really have any bearing on the quality of the movie, but the opening credits give me a boost of serotonin that takes me back to late 90’s slasher movies.

What Doesn’t Hold Up?

Sadly, much of this movie that was maligned when it came out 25 years ago is still pretty rough around the edges. The found footage aspect that made the first movie so special just feels cheap here and since it’s not the main conceit of the movie, it doesn’t work. Going with what made the movie so special, the movie goes out of its way to explain what happened and the lore that was gone over extensively in the first movie. If this was made 20 years later then maybe it would be helpful, but this came out the very next year and everyone that saw this movie knows exactly what happened and what was discussed in the first movie. Even with the logic of seeing this movie for the first time 25 years later, people watching this movie are ones that really enjoyed the first movie and would know a good amount about the source material.

A whole mixing bowl of other aspects fall flat too as the acting, script, including bad attempts at humor, and even the soundtrack all feel off in a way that the original film did so much better with even less well-known actors. Finally, the technical aspects of this movie that may have saved it at times just look bad. The ghostly apparitions, anything in the found footage, and that stupid looking animatronic owl all go between distracting to outright offensive in what they add to the movie. There really isnt much to enjoy here and it hasn’t gotten better over time.

Verdict

Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows is a case of time and opportunity. Had Artisan waited and let the original creators craft something that they really wanted to do, or hell, used one of the other 4 scripts and actually stuck to the creative vision instead of meddling, we may have gotten a completely different movie. Unfortunately, what we did get is just not it. Time has not been kind to this movie at all and it is certainly not destined to become a cult classic. The series will live on in media from all over the place but this sophomore effort should remain in the shadows.

A couple of the previous episodes of The Test of Time can be seen below. To see more, click over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!