Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 backdrop
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 poster

BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2

2000 US HMDB
October 27, 2000

A group of college students decide to take part in a witch hunt tour inspired by a horror movie. As the adventure goes awry, the students realise that an evil being has followed them home.

Directors

Cast

👍 👎 🔥 🧻 👑

Comments

Comments (0)

Crew

Production: Daniel Myrick (Executive Producer)Bill Carraro (Producer)Eduardo Sánchez (Executive Producer)
Screenplay: Joe Berlinger (Screenplay)Dick Beebe (Screenplay)
Music: Marilyn Manson (Music)Carter Burwell (Original Music Composer)
Cinematography: Nancy Schreiber (Director of Photography)

REVIEWS (1)

Marco Castellini
Three young people head to the forests of the Black Hills of Burkittsville, Maryland, driven by the buzz surrounding the film "The Blair Witch Project". Two of them, Stephen and Tristen, need to conduct research for a book; with them is Kim, an attractive young woman with psychic abilities, and Erika, a so-called "Wiccan", a sort of modern witch who does not share the portrait that the film has drawn of the category. To accompany them is Jeff, a boy whose past has been marked by psychic imbalances. The little group camps, equipped with cameras, near the dilapidated house where the videotapes documenting the famous misadventures of the protagonists of the previous film were found. Follows a night of drinking in the sinister place. In the morning, they wake up not even remembering having slept and with all their equipment destroyed. Fear grips them also due to strange and disturbing hallucinations they are victims of. The situation further complicates when all are accused, by the sheriff of Burkittsville, of the murder of five other campers who came to the Black Hills with the same curiosity. The methods of the gruesome murders mimic the horrible deeds of the Blair witch... Sequel to the "cinematic phenomenon" of recent years, the film, whose direction is entrusted to the established documentarian Joe Berlinger, is not a true sequel but rather a film about the "Blair Witch" phenomenon. Starting from a short documentary on the impact that "The Blair Witch Project" has had on the town of Burkittsville, the film continues the game by mixing reality and fiction. But while the first episode, through its filming techniques, kept the viewer in a balance between observation and identification, drawing them into a dimension where fear exploded in its most atavistic form, this sequel sends us back to the outside and becomes an ordinary horror product, precisely the genre that the extreme choices of "The Blair Witch Project" had identified as saturated. However, although much less original than the first (and it could not be otherwise), the film is a successful experiment and certainly superior to the standard average of sequels. Moreover, it has the undeniable merit of being able to please both fans of "The Blair Witch Project", because it anyway recalls its story and atmospheres, and those who hated it, because it has a better defined style and structure, from a "classic" horror film. Curiosity: the soundtrack, which enriches and completes the atmospheres of mystery and threat, is largely signed by Marilyn Manson, who asked for the help of other "cursed" rock stars like him, such as Godhead, Rob Zombie, and others.
👍 👎 🔥 🧻 👑

Comments

Comments (0)

Where to Watch

Stream

Lionsgate+ Amazon Channels Lionsgate+ Amazon Channels

Rent

Rakuten TV Rakuten TV

Buy

Rakuten TV Rakuten TV

COMMUNITY REVIEWS (2)

Gimly

Gimly

4 /10

It really does seem as if maybe, at one point, in the days of yore, there was a really interesting psychological thriller at play, now buried deep within the layers of garbage that Blair Witch 2 ended up being. I mean, hey, props to you, Book of Shadows tried something totally different to the original. It's just a shame that it failed abysmally.

Final rating:★★ - Had some things that appeal to me, but a poor finished product.

Wuchak

Wuchak

7 /10

Entertaining horror flick about a haunting witch that's been dead for over two centuries

Released in 2000 and directed by Joe Berlinger, "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" begins amidst the hysteria of the found-footage of the first film. People from around the world curious about the Blair witch phenomenon overrun Burkittsville, Maryland, wherein an entrepreneurial dude named Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan) leads a 'Blair Witch Hunt' tour involving four clients, a Wiccan, a Goth girl and an academic couple. After camping at the ruins of the home of an executed murderous hermit (who was evidently possessed by the spirit of the witch in the 1940s) the group has a rude awakening when they can't remember what happened the night before. They go to Jeff's nearby pad—a curious factory-turned-house—to review the video tapes for answers and discover something horribly macabre.

Atmospherically, "Book of Shadows" is quite effective as a haunting ghost/witch flick and the writing is actually smart—the entire play on hysteria, delusion & perception is quite clever. The screenplay was written by director Berlinger, who's best known for the great "Paradise Lost" trilogy of documentaries about the "West Memphis three," youthful outcasts accused of a hideous 1993 triple murder in Arkansas based on dubious evidence (and who were finally released in 2011). Anyway, "Book of Shadows" starts satirically and amusing, but gets increasing serious and sinister. The acting is good too, with Kim Director's powerhouse performance as the Goth girl standing out. Erica Leerhsen is also a highlight as the Wiccan babe with several alluring scenes, but they coulda done more with her.

The reason so many people call this flick "the worst movie ever made" (Why sure!) is obviously because it's a knee-jerk reaction to it being a sequel to the mega-popular "The Blair Witch Project" (1999), which was an altogether different kind of movie, being a found-footage flick, not to mention the herd-mentality of an over-critical feeding-frenzy. Since I'm not a fan of found-footage films—seeing as how they're about as entertaining as watching home movies for an hour and a half—I find "Book of Shadows" far more interesting than the first film.

There's a secret message in the movie that you can discover in (SPOILER ALERT): the FIRE, the GRASS, the factory WINDOW, the GRAVESTONE and the RUG, which all-together spells: "Seek me no further or...". This combined with reversing Tristen's backward words in the last act reveal the secret of 'ESREVER': "Seek me no further or... the children will again walk free," meaning: the Blair witch would loose the spirits of the murdered children to torment the invaders of her domain. (END SPOILER)

As for the complaints of there being no Book of Shadows, it's simply not true. The character Jeff is a movie enthusiast with ambitions of being a filmmaker and "Book of Shadows" is the name of one of the scripts he put together and intends to shoot. So it's not something totally out of nowhere that Artisan dubiously added to the title, as most people think. Yes, they added it, but it had relevance to the movie. Furthermore, the actual 'Book of Shadows' is a Wiccan spell book and is figuratively used in the movie in that the group obviously falls under the spell of the Blair Witch after entering her diabolical terrain.

The film features a creative score by Carter Burwell and a rockin' soundtrack with quality cuts by the likes of Marilyn Manson ("Disposable Teens"), Godhead ("The Reckoning") and many more.

After Berlinger finished his version of the movie the studio complained that there weren't enough conventional horror elements and so additional scenes were shot & edited into the picture. What else is new? It has been thus throughout cinematic history. For me, the added scenes beef-up what might've otherwise been too low-key for a horror flick. True, this route was taken with the first film, but "Book of Shadows" is the antithesis of that movie, and it's the better for it IMHO.

"Book of Shadows" is a dense horror flick and therefore worthy of repeat viewings for gems to mine. (One aid in helping to understand the picture is Jeff's statement at the camp: "Film lies; video tells the truth"). Unfortunately, this is evidently too much for some dullards. Yes, it's a slow-build with meandering aspects, but the movie's laden with subtext and the climax is pretty horrific, even while it's somewhat predictable. You never see the witch, but her nefarious presence is palpable nevertheless and the ambiance fittingly oozes Gothic. As for the doofuses who argue that the pic has too little to do with the first one, nothing could be further from the truth. Lastly, Jeff's factory-turned-house is almost iconic; a great location for a ghostly horror flick.

The film runs 90 minutes and was shot in Baltimore, Maryland.

GRADE: B

Reviews provided by TMDB