The’Blair Witch’ is revisited, with surprising results
10:30 on a weeknight. Good. Hopefully nobody I know will be at themovies right now.
I laid down my $7, keeping my head down to avoid eye contact withthe girl behind the window. This must be how Paul Reubens felt whenhe bought a ticket for “Nancy Nurse” in Florida.
I muttered under my breath, ashamed to say the words in a voiceabove a whisper, “‘Blair Witch 2,’ please.”
Love it or hate it, the original “Blair Witch” was not just amovie, but a phenomenon. From presenting a fictional story as true tomarketing it over the Internet to introducing a generation offilmgoers to no-budget camera work on the big screen, it was the$30,000 shot heard ’round the world.
Then came the fallout. “Blair Witch” books, magazines, clothes andanything else marketable popped up everywhere. And the God-awfulspoofs keep coming.
Now there’s “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” a movie largelyignored by a public fed up with the witch. Despite my initial shameat seeing the film, I must admit the real shame is that “Blair Witch2” suffers from the success of the original installment.
That’s right: “Book of Shadows” is actually a good movie. Not onlydoes it effectively poke fun at the hoopla spawned by the original,but is also an engaging, and at times even thrilling, film.
“Book of Shadows” is supposedly a re-enactment of events that”happened” (just like the original movie “happened”) a year after therelease of “The Blair Witch Project.” The town of Burkittsville, Md.,is overrun with Blair Witch fans (as it was in real life). Anenterprising young man (and recently released mental patient) namedStephen (Stephen Barker Turner) leads five “Blair Witch Project” fanson a tour of sites from the film.
On the second morning of the tour, they wake to find their geartrashed and that they can’t remember what happened the night before.As the movie progresses and they discover clues about their losttime, their sanity and beliefs about the existence of thesupernatural are questioned.
“Book of Shadows” is not a sequel in the classic sense, and infact bears little resemblance to the original film. Instead, itstands on its own as an entertaining blend of supernatural horror andpsychological thriller. Granted, the acting is not so great (at timesso bad it has to be intentionally so) and a lot of the dialogue isdownright awful. Still, “Book of Shadows” offers an intriguing plotand a whole package that puts many other recent horror films toshame.
–Kenneth Smith
