Young adults become fascinated by the events of the three missing filmmakers in Maryland, so they decide to go into the same woods and find out what really happened.
Book of Shadows shreds its horror pages for a spineless psychological abomination. ‘The Blair Witch Project’ was an incredibly rare case where word-of-mouth propelled it to mass financial success. Nobody would knew if the Black Hills footage was real or not. Despite the stylistic “found footage” technique and “realistic” approach, it was abhorrently boring and yet another inexplicably tedious low-budget feature that garnered far too much success, in my opinion anyway. Immediately, a sequel was commissioned a year later as soon as its predecessor gained traction in popularity. A secondary chapter that revolves around a fanatic tour, fascinated by the original’s mythology, experiencing mass hysteria by watching some tapes in reverse and realising they spent the entire night naked swinging around trees and destroying their own equipment. Whether that’s the truth or illusory hallucinations, remains to be seen.
The most important lesson to take away from Berlinger’s psychological “thriller”, is that nobody cares. Who honestly gives a damn whether these characters encountered supernatural phenomena or not? They are all undoubtedly unlikeable, one-dimensional and emotionless. A tour guide that looks stoned. A naturalist earth witch who strokes the ground. A couple whom experience a miscarriage one second, and then laugh about life a minute later. And a creepy stereotypical goth chick who clearly supplied the film’s soundtrack of Marilyn Manson, System of a Down and...Nickelback? Well, we all have guilty pleasures I guess. All performed by mediocre actors that believe good acting is overacting. Someone going crazy? Shout in their face. Tapes gone missing? Act like Scooby-Doo and repeatedly scan the area for clues.
The narrative constantly references the original, and is initially filmed in a documentarian style with falsified interviews and archival footage. They even included Roger Ebert praising its predecessor! God damn! Berlinger then switches to a more authentic filming style, which coincidentally relinquishes the majority of connections to the first film. There is absolutely nothing that relates these films together, other than the explicit merchandise of stick formations and constant whispering of “...the Blair Witch...”, acting as a friendly reminder that you are indeed watching a sequel. Yet, where is the ornate sense of fear of the unknown? Where is the actual Blair Witch? Where is this so-called “Book of Shadows”? No, seriously? There is no book! Why even call it that!
It’s just an abysmal ambiguous continuation of a “legend” that is illustrated through flashbacks, therefore rendering the final act of psychological explanations and “oh, you’ve been punk’d!” useless. If you’re going to show us which characters survived, why put us through this ordeal in the first place? The “scares”, if you can call them that, consist of a ghostly apparition of a white girl doing her best Miss Vanjie impression before disappearing. That’s it! Oh God, I’m done. This sequel makes the original seem like an indie masterpiece, a film I disliked already! It’s just some edgy, grungy...terrible stuff. No thanks.
