By
Shaun Clayton
Arizona Daily Wildcat
'Book of Shadows' fails to live up to reputation
Grade: D
In America, there is a tendency to take a good idea and run it into the ground. There is also a tendency to take a bad idea and run it into the ground.
"The Blair Witch Project" is the idea - good or bad, depending on personal opinion - and "Blair Witch 2: Book of Shadows" is the running-it-into-the-ground part.
The sequel starts off on the right foot by saying that the "The Blair Witch Project" was only a movie. Then, it transitions to a semi-realistic documentary of some of the events that occurred after the release of the first movie, namely people swarming around Burkittsville, Md. with camcorders making their own shaky, blurry footage.
If only the movie had stayed with that concept, it might have been entertaining. Unfortunately, director Joe Berlinger then drives off the highway of good film and takes the off-ramp to the bad side of town, where most of Hollywood's misguided films go to die a slow death.
The plot of this film concerns a few intrepid adventurers who go on a tour of Maryland's Black Hills, led by local miscreant Jeff Donovan (played by Jeff Donovan). Donovan runs a small racket that sells "Blair Witch" memorabilia and stolen merchandise over the Internet, and has now expanded into "Blair Witch" tours.
Going with Jeff are the researching couple, Stephen Turner (Stephen Turner), and Tristen Skyler (Tristine Skylar), Wiccan girl Erica Leerhsen (Erica Leerhsen) and the angry Goth girl, Kim Director (played by guess who). Apparently, the filmmakers thought it would be neat for all the actors to have the same name as the characters to make it more "realistic."
The group goes out to the ruins of Rustin Parr's house, the legendary murderer from the first movie. The group camps there, drinks a lot and blacks out. They wake in the morning, and that is when stuff starts happening that freaks out the characters. The subsequent events, however, fail to freak out the audience because of their poor execution.
The movie proceeds thusly - a character hears or sees something and goes to investigate. A minute later, whatever that character heard or saw changes to something else, or is nothing at all. Repeat for the next hour.
The visuals only add to the tedium. There are quick jump cuts to violence to creep the audience out, there are the shots from oblique angles to make things seem scary and the shot where the camera moves all over the place to add-well, very little. All of this has been done hundreds of times before and gets less cool every time people see these cheap tricks.
The actors give adequate performances in this film, enough to suit their one-dimensional characters. Director's Goth girl, for instance, is believable performance, but nothing special or anything to write home about.
Further, it should be noted that there is at no point in this movie a "Book of Shadows," as the title would suggest - not even a lesser File Folder of Subtle Contrast. There also is no Blair Witch, as the lame plot could have easily been tacked onto some other random mythos.
At best, "Blair Witch 2" will manage to scare people away from the multiplex, not for fear of their lives, but for fear of losing eight bucks.
