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The dreaded curse has returned. No, not the curse of the evil
Blair Witch, but the far scarier curse of the Horribly Bad Sequel.
In 1999, The Blair Witch Project was one of the most frightening
and innovative (not to mention profitable) movies of recent
memory. In contrast, the cryptically named Book of Shadows:
Blair Witch 2 (there is neither a book nor a witch in this movie)
is one of the most ridiculous. In fact, at the time of writing,
it is the lowest rated movie on this site.
The premise of this film is actually mildly interesting. The
movie opens with news footage covering the aftermath of the
release of The Blair Witch Project so is therefore set in a
world that recognises that the first film was a work of fiction.
In an effort to cash in on the success of the first film, an
enterprising young lout, Jeffrey, sets up a business called
The Blair Witch Hunt that takes tourists on hikes through the
Black Hills country that was the site of Heather, Josh, and
Mike's ill fated venture. Joining Tristen on his inaugural Hunt
are Tristen and Stephen, a couple writing a book about the Witch,
Erica, who believes herself to be a witch, and Kim, a supposedly
psychic chain smoking Goth who thought the first movie was kind
of cool.
From this interesting start, the whole thing goes rapidly downhill,
plumbing new depths of a genre that has already had more than
its fair share of dodgy outings. What happens in the rest of
Book of Shadows is difficult to describe because it is mostly
incomprehensible, but basically some weird stuff happens to
them in the woods which results in episodes of gore, death,
and general all round evil-ness.
But the evil encountered by the Jeffrey and co pales in comparison
to the horror of how bad this movie is. For one thing, it is
not even the slightest bit scary. There are no good frights
and very little in the way of suspense. Also, the characters
are so poorly developed that it is difficult to really care
what happens to them. That is, if you can even work out what
is happening to them. All of this nonsense is played out against
a background of loud heavy metal music and is rounded off with
one of the dumbest endings to a movie since the 1978 version
of The Lord of the Rings (which ended halfway through the story).
I guess it was inevitable that a sequel would be made to a
movie as successful as The Blair Witch Project. And I suppose
it was a bit much to ask for that sequel to be as good as the
original. But in my darkest nightmares I did not imagine a movie
as dire as this one.
Excruciatingly bad.
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