Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

Review #2309: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

Cast: 

Jeffrey Donovan (Jeffrey Patterson), Erica Leerhsen (Erica Geerson), Stephen Barker Turner (Stephen Ryan Parker), Kim Director (im Diamond), Tristine Skyler (Tristen Ryler), Lanny Flaherty (Sheriff Ronald Cravens), and Lauren Hulsey (Eileen Treacle) Directed by Joe Berlinger.

Review: 

"“My original intent was to make a comment on the dangers of blurring the lines between fiction and reality. Even I didn’t realize how prescient that idea is. We’ve never had more information available at our fingertips yet the truth has never been more elusive.”

Remember The Blair Witch Project? Sure, you probably enjoyed it when it came out 25 years ago in 1999. The film starts with people gushing about the phenomenon of the film and the interest of in how the website apparently really sold folks about the events that supposedly appeared in Burkittsville, Maryland (a town with less than 200 people) as a "documentary". Unfortunately, you are reading the words of someone who thought the original film was an overrated, over-hyped, under-produced fluke. Part of me thought about re-watching the first film before seeing the "sequel", particularly since it had been five years since I saw that film (and three since I saw the 2016 "whatever you want to call it" Blair Witch). But since I had an inkling that this was not going to be a particularly "good" experience, I didn't want to consider watching two mediocre movies back-to-back, so here we are with a curiosity. Artisan Entertainment, wanting to rush out a follow-up as quick as possible, went with Joe Berlinger to direct; he had gone to the studio to pitch a script to the studio that they were more interested in ignoring to instead approach him with scripts they had cobbled together about the Blair Witch (in found footage, again), which he rejected. Amusingly, Berlinger has been on record as saying that he thought the original film that was both effectively done by the filmmakers along with one that "aggravated" him because of its camera work (with relation to reality) along with its marketing hoax that made people really think they were watching a snuff film. At the time, he was noted for his work with Bruce Sinofsky in documentary filmmaking, such as their films chronicling "the West Memphis Three" with the Paradise Lost trilogy (1996-2011).  He co-wrote this film with Dick Beebe. After the film had been shot, Artisan decided, yes, let us change the "ambiguous psychological horror movie" they fast-racked into production to piggyback off the first film to impose more "commercial" elements to the film in post-production, such as seeing brief moments of gore or interrogation that occasionally pop up in the film (for the latter, it was meant to bookend the film as one whole video sequence); Berlinger has been quoted as saying that Artisan did not care for the idea of going for a "Hitchcock-ian" idea of seeing nothing with its violence because in the view of the executive (as quoted by Berlinger), "our audience can barely spell "Hitchcock." The result of spending $15 million was a movie that had a fair audience showing, albeit not one on the level of the original. Berlinger has continued to direct documentaries, although he did return to narrative films once more with Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile (2019). There apparently exist efforts by online people to do an "Artisan Studio Removal Cut" for viewing if you know where to go.

Before I forget, apparently the "book of shadows" involves a witch's book of illusory incantations. That, and the film is a "fictionalized reenactment of events that occurred after the release of The Blair Witch Project [1999] (specifically November 1999)". That's one way to get moving for a film after it gushes about trips to Burkittsville (and TV pundits talking about the first movie like suckers), having a guy get a tube stuck up his nose. Obviously, this is so one can flash back to how things will eventually end up in the "conventional" narrative. It probably is not a great sign that the first 15 minutes has one interesting sight: Director, being first shown lying on a gravestone with a cigarette. The movie may say that people fear what they don't understand but the only thing people should fear here is that the original Blair Witch Project not only managed to trick people into believing the crap spewed out in "found footage" but that people actually thought they could make a follow-up that wasn't just as dumb as before. At least this time one isn't hearing "what was that?" while the camera gets shaken round and round like before...it just merely is a silly movie that has little to no suspense but at least has a narrative worth making fun of to go with some bloodshed, which at least is something tangible. The idea behind the film was yes, the characters we are to follow were the killers and also are blinded by hysteria when it comes to the aforementioned legend. The problem with that is ironically the same problem that happens with cruddy "traditional horror" movies and the aforementioned 1999 movie: I do not like these dorks that much. Director and her attempts at playing "Goth" is at least alluring in ways that Leerhsen just manages to come off as annoying (so anyway, ever heard of a "Wiccan"?). At least Flaherty is meant to be amusingly over-the-top. I shudder to think about the film really would be with the original intent of romp-gone-dour, but what you get is a movie that might as well be thrown up into a toilet. The ideas of trying to be "subversive" for a horror audience at least was handled with some sort of amusement in The Cabin in the Woods (2011; wow, I found a way to compliment that movie in less time than I ever expected). The movie doesnt work for much interest in "what horror fans want" because it doesn't have cohesion in actually making the trip worth shuddering over. All you get is a panicked feeling. As a whole, this compromised mess of a movie is amusing in its monumental mediocrity that shows ideas of interest but flails around just a bit too much (studio or otherwise) to be a worthy winner.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Next up: The sequel to Ring...well, the real one this time with Ring 2.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).

Review #2112: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003).

Cast: 

Jessica Biel (Erin), Jonathan Tucker (Morgan), Erica Leerhsen (Pepper), Mike Vogel (Andy), Eric Balfour (Kemper), Andrew Bryniarski (Thomas Hewitt / Leatherface), R. Lee Ermey (Sheriff Hoyt), David Dorfman (Jedidiah), Lauren German (Teenage Girl), Terrence Evans (Old Monty), Marietta Marich (Luda Mae), Heather Kafka (Henrietta), and Kathy Lamkin (Tea Lady in Trailer) Directed by Marcus Nispel (#2108 - Friday the 13th [2009])

Review: 

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) is an undisputed horror classic, let us get that out of the way. Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel crafted a worthy production that came first from Hooper coming up with a story based on "isolation, the woods, the darkness, and the unknown", one that found elements of news coverage of graphic violence and the exploits of serial murderer Ed Gein to make for a feature film (Henkel also cited killer Elmer Wayne Henley). Of course, one can't stop at one horror film, because everything needed the idea of a sequel to follow up such vaunted interest. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) was a demented riff that saw Hooper return to direct, while the next two films in Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III (1990) and The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1995) reached smaller and smaller audiences. But then comes a new millennium and perhaps a new era in trying to mine audiences for money based on name value, for which one sees the name Platinum Dunes step in (as created by Michael Bay and others with the express purpose of making cheap features). Hooper and Henkel served as producers on this film, and both share the same cinematographer and opening narrator (I'm sure this time around John Larroquette was not paid in marijuana). This was the directorial debut of Marcus Nispel, who had been born in Frankfurt in West Germany. He had worked in advertising before moving abroad to study at Brooklyn College and the New York Institute of Technology before eventually being a director for commercials at the turn of the 21st century. The film was written by Scott Kosar in his feature writing debut (incidentally, he has written a handful of remake scripts but also The Machinist). A prequel, retaining a few cast members from this film, was released with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning (2006). Incidentally, the next film to bear the Chainsaw label in Texas Chainsaw 3D (2013), tried to serve as a follow-up to only the original that saw it have its own prequel a few years later (to throw you for a loop, thanks to 2022, there are now three Texas Chainsaw Massacre films that all have Larroquette as narrator). The film was released on October 17, 2003 (one thing I will give the film credit for, a horror film being shown in the fall season).

It is amusing, in a sense, to touch upon a film that must have seemed vile and horrific if one had never really seen that many horror movies before that one. The fact that the film runs at 98 minutes is the least surprising thing in the history of all things. I don't exactly remember the acting of most of the folks in the 1974 film, but somehow that film had a raw energy to it that was unsettling and unnerving in what you saw and heard. This film, on the other hand, is everything you could see coming in a "Young Adult Horror Trap" movie, one that is somehow grisly in its levels of gore without being at all interesting in any sort of way with doing anything fresh. It is strange to watch another film set in 1973 that has the same narrator as a film made in 1974 that happens to be shot in a cleaner view by the same man as before only to see a movie that is pale in every facet. Biel (perhaps best known previously for starring on 7th Heaven) is decent, even if one knows from nearly the first minute that she is on screen that she is the Final Girl, but at least when Marilyn Burns was in the previous rendition, one got a real sense of fear and terror from her reactions to what was going on. Here you just see the motions. It is Ermey that nearly lifts the film from the doldrums of remake hell when it comes to the ham that arises from an obvious role that he chews with great interest. He slithers with good ol' boy nature that gives one a rise more than any other time in the film, and that includes the parts with Leatherface, who I somehow have forgotten about unlike the times spent in the first two features.

Obviously, one can't just do a shot-by-shot remake of the first but consider that the framing device of the original was a group of young folks were driving back in a van after checking to see if a grave was desecrated - now we see young folks driving to a concert after buying weed. In short, it is like trying to put ice cubes in soda to make it taste better...flat soda. You've got a good deal of the hallmarks present in other horror films with nameless youths, whether that involves the situation where it seems like the dolts should just leave but do not do so, the aforementioned supporting presence more interesting than the main people, the incredibly obvious Final Girl, a set place that seems to loom larger on the inside, a villain of fairly indestructible tenor (lose an arm and get back to me), and blah blah blah it is conventional stuff. The only people who could get into this are either folks who really appreciate having a watered-down version of something already seen before or ones who seem to believe that they really aren't watching a "safe" film of terror. They probably watch it with casual interest with friends. But for folks like me, who aim to watch (and talk about) as many films as possible on their own, this is nothing more than a boring disgrace that surprises in no regard. Perhaps one has better memories of the film when it was fresh two decades ago, but all I see here is mush ready to be pushed away.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Next up: The Undead.