Released: October 2000
Director: Joe Berlinger
Rated R
Run Time: 90 Minutes
Distributor: Artisan Entertainment
Genre: Horror
Cast:
Jeffrey Donovan: Jeffrey Patterson
Stephen Barker Turner: Stephen Ryan Parker
Erica Leerhson: Erica Geerson
Kim Director: Kim Diamond
Tristine Skyler: Tristin Ryler
When you have a horror movie that is a runaway success like The Exorcist, Nightmare on Elm Street, or Alien, how do you follow that up successfully? The even better question is: Should you? I’ve gone on many a tangent about sequels and their place in the film industry. Most of the time, it’s usually a business decision to go forward with a sequel. For other genres, sequels to movies like Star Wars are obvious. There are places that you can go creatively with a sequel, but at the end of the day, it’s ultimately a business decision if a sequel gets made. In horror, sequels are generally not really successful outside of some mainstream series like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th. There’s an established audience that has expectations for a sequel to take things to another level as well as deliver more of the same. Sometimes, though, a movie should just be one and done and left alone. Here’s a perfect example: The Exorcist. The original film was controversial to be sure, but people still went to see it and it ended up being one of the most talked about and revered horror movies of all time. The second movie, Exorcist II: The Heretic took everything that was great about the first movie and threw it out the window for a more “fantasy-based” kind of film. Exorcist II ended up being one of the worst sequels of all time, and an even worse movie. Apparently, somebody at Artisan Entertainment at the turn of the century decided that The Blair Witch Project needed a sequel, so they rushed forward into production, and what we ended up with was Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
Book of Shadows follows a group of Blair Witch Project fans as they head to Burkittsville, Maryland to actually look for the witch, despite the fact that the film had already been debunked as fiction. As these folks head into the woods, strange things begin to happen as they find their equipment wrecked. Heading to a nearby warehouse, even stranger begin happening as the group starts to turn on each other. From a narrative standpoint, having a sequel take place outside of the original film’s world is not a bad idea. Blair Witch 2 opens with a montage of clips talking about The Blair Witch Project as a movie. It’s actually a rather clever setup to what happens in the film. The problem is that the film doesn’t actually stick with that idea, and opts for a more traditional and gore-laden experience, which is exactly the opposite of what the original film was about. For every step The Blair Witch Project took to push the genre forward, Blair Witch 2 opted to not do that and took several steps back.
Even if the story had played out the way I think the film-makers had intended to, there are a lot of other problems here than just the story. The acting is fucking awful. Part of what made the original film succeed was the chemistry between the characters. Given the situation that they were in, the audience could feel the isolation, stress, and desperation of what those characters were going through. Here? It looks like the actors were reading off of cue cards. The reaction between the actors doesn’t feel natural. It feels incredibly forced, especially when certain characters get angry. We aren’t given any reason to care about what happens to these characters, so when the bad stuff happens, it feels like the film is checking something off a list. In order to craft tension, you need something that ties the characters together, and we didn’t get that here. There is no tension to be had here. The audience doesn’t get curious about happens next. In fact, the movie actually focuses more on the gore and violence surrounding the Blair Witch. Again, that’s not what the original film was trying to go for. In fact, the original film really didn’t have much in the way of blood at all, outside of a clump of hair and a tooth. That was it. Here, the film focuses more on people being stabbed and eviscerated, and honestly, the gore really isn’t that impressive.
Blair Witch 2 was supposed to be far more cerebral than visceral, which is what Joe Berlinger was trying to go for. Unfortunately, the idiots at Artisan Entertainment recut the film against the director’s will and put scenes of gore and violence into the film which they thought would spice it up. It didn’t. In an interview with Deadline, Joe Berlinger was traumatized by the fact that not only did the studio go behind his back, but that the subsequent reaction to the film hit him pretty hard. Of all the times to use the Alan Smithee pseudonym, this would’ve been it, and I wouldn’t have blamed Joe for it. Studio interference is really nothing new to hear about these days, but for the most part, studios get involved to keep a film on track and make it the best that it can be. But every so often, as was the case with Alien 3, studios often think they’re smarter than they really are and damage the film to the point where it’s an incoherent mess. There are some really good ideas here that could’ve been fleshed out. I mean, Blair Witch 2 could’ve pushed the genre forward even more. But because of some arrogant suit in a position of power thought that he/she knew better, Blair Witch 2 ended up being one of the worst sequels and movies ever made. That’s not to say that Berlinger’s true vision would have been better, but at least he would’ve had ownership of it.
Ultimately, the actors involved with this movie would still go on to better things. Jeffrey Donovan would star in several hit series including Burn Notice, which would run for 6 years. The director, Joe Berlinger, would go back to directing and producing documentaries after his horrendous experience with Blair Witch 2. His documentaries have been pretty successful, especially the one he did for Metallica, Some Kind of Monster. Erica Leerhson would go on to star in the 2003 Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake as well as the direct-to-video sequel to Wrong Turn, Wrong Turn 2: Dead End. So, some of the people involved with Blair Witch 2 found some success afterwards. Ultimately, Blair Witch 2 failed on a number of levels. A lot of those issues I can lay squarely at the feet of Artisan Entertainment. By turning Blair Witch 2 into a more traditional sequel, the studio robbed the film of any chance it may have had at being a commentary on the response to the original film. I can’t outright hate Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. I understand what Joe Berlinger, as a director, was trying to go for. It’s just a shame that studio execs had a different idea, and that idea ended up putting the franchise on the back-burner until 2016. Blair Witch 2 is a fascinating film, really. It’s fascinating in what it could have been and what it actually ended up being. Ultimately, I think Joe Berlinger was in a lose-lose situation. Even if he had been able to make the movie the way he wanted, he still would’ve had to contend with audiences that hold the original film in such high esteem. There really was no way for this movie to succeed.
My Final Recommendation:
Actual Film: 2/10. It’s awful.
What Could Have Been: 6/10. Joe Berlinger wouldn’t have been able to salvage certain aspects of the film, if had been allowed to do what he wanted to do.
Final Score: 4/10.