Kiddies, today's lesson is: never judge a book before you read it. Or, in this case, a Book of Shadowsbefore you watch it. Obviously a sequel to the break out plague of the Summer of '99, The Blair Witch Project, ook of Shadowswasn't exactly big on anyone's "boy I hope they make a sequel out of this" list. But, as is the rule in Hollywood, any movie that makes cash in excess of its original cost of filming gets a sequel. In the case of a movie like The Blair Witch Fiasco... I mean, Project... that sequel is pumped out at the earliest possible convenience. In the case of a horror movie, this is usually done in a year or less. It's true; just look back at the short spans of time between the Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street movies! Speaking of sequels, how about I get on with this...
Unlike the original Blair Witch, the sequel goes a completely different way. First and foremost, that fucking "home video gone bad" format is dumped in exchange for an actual budget movie. But, whereas the first flick claimed to have really happened, so does this one, chalking up the bid budget format as a "recreation of actual events"... hey, at least it stays in focus and involves dialogue beyond "Fuck you, you fucking bitch assfaced shithead!" and "If you could fuck anyone on 'Gilligan's Island', who would it be? By the way, I hate you both and fucking fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck... shit, what the fuck was I fuck fucking fuck about? Fuck!". Of course, by the time they get to the third or forth movie (which will be something like Lost Souls 2: Blair Witch IV - Bless the Child Harder), they'll be resorting to posting the usual "All events and people in this movie are fictitious and any similarities to any people living or dead is purely coincidental... though it's all real, in that some guy made it up one night while watching the The Blair Witch Project". So, you're probably irritated now and asking yourself, "Well, if it's not fucking about 3 fucking fuckheads in the fucking woods, running around and crying and fucking and shit, then what could it fucking POSSIBLY be about asshole?", so I'll answer you:
In the Summer of '99, following the release of that stupid fucking movie I've already referred to too much, the once quiet town of Burkittsville becomes ground zero for every social reject and rich kid dressed in black fishnets, all following up on the events of the film, hoping to have their own paranormal experiences... too bad they can't all die horribly too, like in the movie. We jump ahead quickly to autumn '99, after the national retardation has died down and Burkittsville's tourist trade too has calmed. Our story follows the tragic exploits of 5 people who take the "Blair Witch-Hunt" guided tour through the woods of Burkittsville Maryland. Our intrepid explorers consist of Jeff - tour guide and resident town nutcase of Burkittsville; Erica - "real" witch who's not keen on the treatment given to Wiccans by BWP. Oh, and she's also really into the sexual aspects of her religion... in other words, she's a slut/tease; Tristen and Steve - girlfriend and boyfriend couple who are studying the more solid and psychological aspects of the legend, each holding a different opinion on the truth behind the movie... that truth being, "we can't afford to make real movies, so we sucker idiots like America's youth into thinking it's all real so as to leach the money from your pockets"; and finally, Kim - a "vampire" who doesn't act all dark and depressed, just rude and self-centered. She's also got some weird psychic power and I think I dated her once... she wanted to bite off my nipple, but when she tried it on the other one too, I had to drop her.
Okay, these are our new friends, so let's get on with the story before I wander off subject.
The gang goes out into the woods of Burektsville to live out their celluloid fantasies of ghosts and living nightmares. Their first day they make a stop at the remains of the cabin of the child murdering hermit alluded to in the first film. Here they set up camp around some kind of evil magic tree that's there one minute, then replaced by a sapling the next... crazy shit, but everyone thinks it's just Jeff's "tomfoolery"… because I guess Jeff’s supernatural “tree switcheroo” powers as given to him in a freak botany accident aren’t as secret as he’d though.
The group basically sits around, drinking brewskies, getting stoned to the point of COMPLETELY shitfaced and waxing intellectual on the subject of the Blair Witch and other such piddling crap. Funny thing #1: our group meets a second group of tourists. Yeah, there's another group of people in the woods, consisting of two American shmucks, two Asian exchange students, and a German chick. Our heroes sucker this second group into camping elsewhere, citing some "strange and scary happenings" they "witnessed" up at Coffin Rock. You'll remember it from The Blair Witch Project... it's just a big rock in a stream where Ellie Kedward (the witch) supposedly disemboweled several people many years ago. After this second group leaves, our cast all pass out due to excessive alcohol consumption. The next day they awaken to a startling development... the sight of all three girls without make-up and without their hair brushed! And everyone's got morning breath!
Those natural horrors aside, they also discover that their equipment has been smashed, Steve and Tristen's notes and documents have all been shredded and scattered to the winds... and they're all out of toilet paper... those pine cones are always a bitch on the rectum... All they find (thanx to Kim's psychic powers) are some videotapes left over from the evening's adventures. The group thinks that the second tourist gang was the cause of the destruction, but they really don't have time to look into it, as the pregnant Tris seems to have had a miscarriage. So, our heroes drive back to town and take Tris to the hospital. Afterwards, everyone heads back to Jeff's secluded home/ abandoned broom factory/ e-Bay merchandise warehouse to check out the videos and see what they missed while they were passed out and vomiting on themselves, choking on their own tongues. Funny thing #2: in true Capitalistic fashion, Jeff has made all shitloads of merchandise bearing the Blair Witch "stick figure" symbol, including his hot/cold 16oz. travel mug... I love the smell of commerce in the morning!
From the videos, our group uncovers a few ghostly images of a naked Erica dancing around a tree, as well as the occasional image of severed heads and some lapses in the film's time code. In addition to these wacky goings-on, EVERYONE in the group either starts acting possessed or seeing freaky hallucinations... looks like there is something to the whole Blair Witch legend... and they brought it back with them. Spooky huh?
Along with this evil presence on their ass, they also each find rune symbols cut into their bodies. Now, I've got no more than a kindergarten education in the field of witchcraft and mystic symbols, but even I recognize rune figures. However, despite being a “real” witch, Erica somehow does not recognize these oddly shaped symbols of power?! She calls herself a friggin' Wiccan and she doesn’t know what the fuck a rune is?! Whether a lapse in the writing or a jab at how fake Erica really is, this little titty twister weighs down my enjoyment of this movie... not a good thing folks, especially since I went into this movie with a bad attitude as it is!
Anyway, bad juju continues for our adventurous lay-abouts, as their van is destroyed, the only bridge in or out of the compound is made impassable, Erica has disappeared, and everyone starts blaming each other for all the evil shit going on. Calls to Erica's supposed parents result in more confusion, as it appears that the couple they're calling have never had a child, let alone a daughter named Erica... could Erica be possessed by the Blair Witch? Could she be the witch's ghost to start with? Could this all be one of those April Fools Day "it was all a joke" scams that pisses me off so?! And what about that second group of tourists? After reviewing what little our heroes know so far, could they still be responsible for the campsite's destruction, or are there mischievous poltergeists at work? Well, since the tourists are found dead, gutted, and strewn about Coffin Rock in the form of a pentagram, I'd say they're not to blame for Jeff's missing camera equipment.
This little mauling also catches the eye of Burkittsville's pillar of authority, Sheriff Cravens, who never did like Jeff, acting as the stereotypical "cop who hates everyone who doesn't follow that hippy stapled to the big wooden 'T'" and trying to pin whatever evil deeds he can on the innocent your entrepreneur, hoping to get him in deeper than another visit to the Burkittsville Asylum. Say, the electric chair? No, I didn’t literally mean for you to say “the electric chair”… come one, stop it now. You’re just making yourself out to be a bigger and bigger ass my friend.
While everyone slinks deeper into their wacky hallucinations, Tristen's dreams reveal to us a little more about Ellie Kedward, such as her abuse and hanging by a group of children with a hobby of old skool finger-painting (that's through the use of bodily fluids for you young whipper snappers of today) and how she was misunderstood and unjustly hated and feared. Our next surprise comes when Kim, while looking for the Yellow Pages, discovers a pile of detailed files in one of Jeff's desks. The files are all about each member of the group, and Jeff has no idea of how they got there... could it be that Jeff's trying to create another scandal to help sell his overstocked Blair Witch merchandise? Everyone's a suspect! Then again, maybe no one is...
And the David Lynchian nightmares and head trips continue... hmmm, this is starting to get old, so let's finish this up. The group finds Erica dead in a closet (pale and naked except for a pair of panties), which causes the accusations to fly like monkeys throwing dung! This is interrupted by the possessed Tristan, who suggests that our arguing friends play the videotapes backwards to discover the truth of that night they all got wasted. Somehow, through the magic of "esrever" (see the movie, I'm not discussing this frightening topic that makes even me shiver in my little pink undies), the truth is revealed: turns out that Tristan, apparently under the control of Ellie, whipped the rest of the group into a Satanic frenzy, urging them to strip butt-nekkid, carve runes into their flesh, smash all their valuables, then run off into the woods and carve up the tourists at Coffin Rock. Then, for no apparent reason but to give the story an excuse to go on, Trist hid the tapes under some rocks while the kids were off playing. After witnessing all of this, the three remaining "sane" members try to force Tristen to confess on camera for making them do bad things... hey she didn't strap the beers to your mouths or blow bong hits in your faces you little shits! People can never take responsibility for their drug abuse anymore.
So, anyway, Tristen turns it around, insulting Steve to no end. Well, actually, there is an end, as Steve pushes the witch bitch off a balcony after she's noosed herself, snapping her neck and killing her on impact. When the cops storm the place and take the remaining trio in, the whole ordeal is blamed on The Blair Witch Project and the evil influence of the media on impressionable young minds. The kids insist that it was all the witch's fault, but there videos prove otherwise. In other words, the videos show COMPLETELY different things than what we've been watching! WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED HERE?! Is it group hypnosis? Mass hysteria? All one of Bob Newhart's bad dreams? We'll never know I guess... unless the third Blair Witch flick tells us that is…
Though slow at some parts and confusing at others, I definitely have to say this movie shocked me, winding up far more impressive than I was afraid it wouldn't be. No brainless teen actors from Fox TV shows were used. The film style was much better than that of the original. The Blair Witch Project was all "new" and "dangerously original" (fuck you Leonard Maltin), but I guess I'm just not ready for something "new" and "dangerously original"... or maybe I just prefer my movies with some actual content. Whatever the reason, I like the Hollywood feel much better than the "Real World in the Woods" motif. Also, some of the characters were actually enjoyable. Kim and Jeff seemed more real than any character played by any of those teen actors or actresses with 3 names, and Sheriff Cravens was so overdone it was hilarious. Whether that was the creators' intent or not doesn’t matter to me, as long as I liked it!
Well, it bombed out compared to the first movie in terms of box office, but hey, BWP was a short-lived fad that outlived its prime. Maybe without the Blair Witch 2 subtitle, Book of Shadows could've been even better, but I guess we'll never know. Despite the bad performance this movie did on the theatre scene, there is still talk of a third Blair Witch film. If it really makes it out, will it resemble the first film or the second? Then again, will it try to take everything in a whole different direction? They could do a prequel installment like From Dusk Till Dawn 3 and show us what really happened to Ellie Kedward! I'd still sit back and wait till it hit video shelves, but who knows, I might wind up liking it... as long as the entire cast of the WB's Sunday night line-up stays FAR, FAR away.
The Moral of the Story: You can't make a sequel to a gimmick movie, especially if you're not going to re-use the gimmick that made people flock to the origial in the first place.
Sequel to:The Blair Witch Project
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- Not a bad little party movie. Crazy happenings, a hot naked chick, a scene stealing cop and some slippery viscera always work for H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S.!
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Stir of Echoes or
Thir13en Ghosts
FEEDBACK
All materials found within this review are the intellectual properties and opinions of the original writer. The Tomb of Anubis claims no responsibility for the views expressed in this review, but we do lay a copyright claim on it beeyotch, so don't steal from this shit or we'll have to go all Farmer Vincent on your silly asses. © March 5th 2006 and beyond, not to be reproduced in any way without the express written consent of the reviewer and the Tomb of Anubis or pain of a physical and legal nature will follow. Touch not lest ye be touched.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
