Review of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000) by Matt W — 08 Aug 2012

Bad writing. Bad acting. Pointless movie. Reasonably decent ending, that is extremely flawed. Blair Witch Project was a scary, creepy movie. This is an empty shallow movie... which isn't scary. It doesn't even give any creeps or crawls. It just 'is'. This movie was hyped up upon so much, and then it seems to have been completely forgotten- I can see why. The only way that movie is related to the first is due to the fact that they set it a year after the release of the first Blair Witch Project. Apart from that, this movie isn't filmed in the same style, there isn't really much connection. If it were a good movie then it would've been good as then it would've still been an original movie, and avoided being a rehash. But this film just failed across the board, and was timed so badly, but also had so many talking scenes about the mystery, but it was poorly written and acted, so it was just bad.

This film has so many flaws to it, that you just start wondering why you haven't stopped watching it in the first place, as there are things that no-one would do. If you have a miscarriage, the first thing you do is definitely not go on a horror tour. Is it? There are other flaws that will be big spoilers so I won't give it away, but these are so blatantly obvious that I couldn't let it go. The characters are so thick in this movie that you don't feel any sympathy but just find them annoying, and it drove me crazy on some of the things they will do, ad it will annoy you too, because it is so stupidly ridiculous. You could argue that if they weren't stupid then this movie wouldn't work, well it doesn't work anyway, as this movie didn't need to be made in this way. It could have worked, but it just felt unnecessary, and like I was watching a straight-to-DVD movie instead of something that had a lot of money put into it, especially compared to the last one. The first movie's budget was $60,000, while this one had £15 million.

The performances in this movie are pretty atrocious, with some scenes where one person is possessed, and she just walks around the bed really quickly whilst reciting something like she was from a primary school. Everything was so over the top, that it just didn't work, and also they tried to add humor to this movie, and it just wasn't funny, and it also didn't seem genuine which was a big problem because these movies are made to seem genuine. It never felt like I was really watching a Blair Witch movie.

The way the movie worked wasn't the worst thing, as the way it was filmed was quite clever in the way they made it seem like a documentary, but then I found myself distancing from the characters, as it just didn't feel as real as it would've done, had it been in the 'found-footage' genre. The movie was just messy, with no clear story line or plot, and the structure was all over the place, leaving some stories open, and then just closing them without much explanation.

Another problem I had was that this movie just wasn't scary in the slightest. It had some of the mot lazy attempts at scares I have seen in a long time, as the scares would be things fading in and out, or it would be flashes of something going 'boo', and that would be it. And it happened only a few times, I would probably call this a bad fantasy or thriller than a horror, because it isn't really a horror that much. Also, some of the editing in the movie is so sketchy, as things are coming in and out of the frame, and the way it is edited, and shot, it results in things being missed and misunderstood. When the end neared, I missed a few major plot points, as it just wasn't portrayed in an effective enough way.

This is no Blair Witch, it has a decent ending, but has many flaws to the ending. But by the point of the ending, you don't even care, as the movie has been pretty dull and boring for the most part, as it is just people aimlessly walking around for an hour and a half. There is no fun to be had here. No scares to be had here. But there is poorly written dialogue... all the time. Fun! Fun! Fun!