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.
