“Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” Movie Review

Runtime: 90 minutes

Rating: R

Release Date: October 27, 2000

Director: Joe Berlinger

A random group of people show up in Burketsville to create their own documentary about the Blair Witch. Tristen, who is pregnant, and her boyfriend Stephen want to write a book about the witch, while Kim is a psychic and goth girl and Erica (Erica Leerhsen, “Wrong Turn 2: Dead End”) kind of seems to just go along for kicks. They're lead by Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan, “Hindsight”) who claims that he had thousands of satisfied customers leading tours of the areas associated with the previous film, though it turns out he just meant people who bought crap from his website.

They head out on a tour of the woods, eventually settling in the ruins of an old house for the night. After a night of partying, they wake to discover their belongings trashed. The group ventures back to Jeff's house to go over the footage they shot, and things turn even weirder.

Here is where I lose any bit of horror street cred that I have: I actually liked this film. I saw “The Blair Witch Project” in the theater with a friend who also loved horror films, and we were both pissed by the time it ended. I have never seen the movie again, and I have no interest in seeing it. I bought a used copy of this movie from a store here in Dayton, and the cashier tried to upsell me to the two-disc set for $1 more, which included a copy of the first film, and I completely shot him down.

I frequently tried to tell people that “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2” was a good movie and way better than the first one. I still maintain that it's far superior to the last film, but after watching it recently, I don't know why the hell I once liked it so much. Granted, Donovan is creepily hot in the movie, and it has an interesting ending but that's about it.

The problem is that there is just something a little too slick about the film. If you haven't read about the problems between the director and the studio, go read about it. It's like the studio decided that everything original about the previous film wasnt't good enough for a sequel, so they decided to make a traditional horror film. After watching it again, I think it probably would have been better to make this as a stand-alone film with no connection to the Blair Witch.