Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Leoni Haney Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

Wuchak 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

Leofwine_draca A film best described as an "interesting failure", this sequel didn't have me holding my hopes up very much - seeing as just about all reviewers gave it negative marks. In my mind, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was one of the scariest films I've ever seen, and any film following that is going to look bad in the process. So I kept my expectations extremely low and went to see this sequel on Halloween. It's a film that borderlines on genius and very nearly manages to be extremely scary, but loses all credibility with a cast of poor performers and some cheap shock tactics. Indeed it's easy to be alarmed by the "jump in your seat" shots of objects smashing through windows or instead be disgusted by some gruesome hallucinations our friends have - a woman rips a man's stomach open with her nails, another girl is seen to eat a dead bird - but the underlying themes in this film are the ones that make it interesting.Looking beyond the obvious shock/gore tactics, this film's main theme is that of perception - and whether we (the audience) or they (the people in the film) are truly seeing what's going on. Clever editing is used to build up to the chilling revelation and the ending was, for me, a very good one. Sadly the true horror of the situation is underplayed in favour of a high dosage of unwanted comic relief, poor acting and a whole slew of supposedly disturbing/horrific moments which actually turn out to be unintentionally funny.Whereas the first film established a back-to-roots documentary approach, this film in turn goes overboard with the exploitation tactics to appeal to a young audience. One character wanders around naked for much of the film while repeated clips of a bloody murder are shown throughout the film. The one interesting character in this film is the tour's guide, an ex-mental patient who finds his sanity breaking down as the film progresses. Played by Jeffrey Donovan, the acting is spot on and he turns in an excellent portrayal. It's just a shame that the others don't live up to his standards. The actress playing the pregnant woman is forced to do a lot of humiliating things and her acting skills are frequently laughable - of course this is not helped by inane dialogue like when she sprouts about dead children looking up her skirt. Her husband is not much better, being as he is a bland puppet, while the Wiccan character in this film I found to be extremely irritating. Finally, the actress playing the goth shows glimpses of a real talent, but for the most part she's simply obnoxious. And don't get me started on the intrusive music used at every opportunity.While it simply cannot live up to the first film, this is more interesting to watch than your typical mindless slasher or gorefest. The film is based around some real deep-seated fears of madness and chaos and with a better execution, I think this may have been as good as the original. Just enjoy all the general weirdness going on as the film messes with your head and let it suck you in. My favourite parts of this film were when the camera footage was being pieced together and revealing some pretty bizarre stuff. The shock ending is powerful too. As a follow-up, BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2 sucks, but it almost stands on its own as a complex, partially successful piece of psychological horror.

Diane Ruth Director Joe Berlinger does an exemplary job of creating a truly terrifying environment in this film and he keeps the suspense level high from beginning to the very end shot. This is an intense film and the thrills are unrelenting. Haunting imagery and some truly horrific sequences are likely to stay with audiences for many years. The cast is exceptionally good and give some very powerful individual performances. It is, however, Kim Director who stands out and gives the film something very special. She is absolutely mesmerizing in the movie and when she is on screen no one can avert their eyes. She is a magnetic screen presence and the camera loves her. When she isn't in a scene, her absence is sorely missed and upon her return the movie catches fire again. Her role here is essential and casting her was a stroke of genius.

BA_Harrison After the incredible success of indie found-footage horror The Blair Witch Project (1999), it was hardly surprising when a sequel was rushed into production—so quickly, in fact, that the creators of the original weren't quite ready to make another movie, hence the appointment of Joe Berlinger as writer/director. To his credit, Berlinger doesn't go down the obvious route, churning out an uninspired rehash of the first film; instead, he takes a different path through the woods, delivering a self-aware piece revolving around the hysteria created by the original Blair Witch Project. OK, so it doesn't work all that well, but he definitely gets points for trying.Berlinger's film opens in documentary style, with interviews from fans of The Blair Witch Project, as well as the residents of Burkitsville, who have taken to exploiting the film's success by marketing rocks and stick-men as souvenirs, and offering guided tours of the locations. It is one such tour into the Black Hills that provides the basis for Berlinger's movie: local entrepreneur Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan) leads a group of four Blair Witch enthusiasts to the house of infamous child killer Rustin Parr, where they set up camp for the night. When the group wake up in the morning, they are shocked not only to find their equipment trashed, but they have no recollection of the previous evening. Finding Jeff's video cassette's buried in a hole, the gang return to their guide's home—a disused factory—to review the tapes, hoping to piece together the events of the night before. While doing so, they suffer a series of scary supernatural events. Meanwhile, the bodies of a rival tour group are found disembowelled on nearby Coffin Rock…Book of Shadows received quite the critical mauling upon its release, but I think that there is actually a decent idea underneath all of the spooky shenanigans: a group of people suffering from amnesia desperately trying to understand what has happened to them, but horrified by what they discover. What makes the film less than successful for me is its glossy, MTV-style editing and the thoroughly unlikeable characters: I hated the flickery, grainy imagery, but not nearly as much as I disliked every single person in the film, from mentally unstable tour guide Jeff, to tough goth chick Kim (Kim Director), to sexy Wiccan Erica (Erica Leerhsen)—although she at least had the decency to take off all of her clothes.As a rock/metal/alternative music fan, I at least enjoyed the excellent soundtrack, which features Marilyn Manson, Death In Vegas, System Of A Down, P.O.D., Queens Of The Stone Age and Rob Zombie, but I can't help but think that with just a little more care in the character development department, and with a little less of the showy stylisms, this could have been a whole lot better.