Submitted by Zane W. Olesen 
(Dec 12, 2002)Book of Shadows:
The Blair Witch 2
A Witch with a Glitch.
First off let me begin by saying that I REALLY enjoyed the original “The Blair Witch Project.” I was so into that flick. Though at the time of me seeing “The Blair Witch Project” I was aware of the very clever way the producers had of hyping the flick and that indeed it was not a true story. Yet I was not in the least bit put off by this and immensely enjoyed the way the movie allowed me use my imagination and the totally cool, creepy, and original ending. Yes I thought The Blair Witch Project totally rocked.
But wait I’m not reviewing the first "Blair Witch" I’m reviewing The Blair Witch 2. Oh well so much for enjoying my job. Once again I will say that every movie has at least one good point to it. And for me the anticipation of this movie and its first fifteen minutes was as good as it got.
I do not want to be to harsh but I cannot understand why the writers and the director decided on such a hard to follow plot line that was dependant on an assortment of fairly high tech video equipment, owned by the character of Jeff, played by Jeff Donovan. It was very difficult to buy into this techno dependant plot centered around the legend of a witch
Jeff is a tour guide that is capitalizing on the phenomena of the “Blair Witch Project”. Jeff has a tour group with him, who all start out interesting enough. You have a couple who are doing a research project on hype and hysteria of legends and specifically the “Blair Witch Project” This couple is played by Tristen Skyler and Stephen Barker Turner, who reminded me a lot of Harrison Ford.
The two other tour members, one a pasty white, mascara painted Gothic type played by Kim Director, who I thought gave the most interesting performance of all, (Not saying much). The second, a good witch type, played by Erica Leerhsen, who was the most visually attractive of the characters, yet not attractive enough to save the movie.
We are treated to a lot of flash back and flash forward sequences in this movie that make it a little difficult to follow. The primary problem comes that these flash sequences interrupt any suspense or creepy momentum the movie begins to develop. And when you’re doing a horror movie or a creepy creature feature you got to have suspense. You have to have those moments when you are almost tempted to close your eyes because you don’t want to see what may pop out. This movie merely hinted at suspense and failed miserably in the creepiness department.
The ending is interesting in that it leaves you wondering how a witch could manipulate all this high tech video equipment. Okay for the first part of the movie it was a buyable notion, the character Jeff, possessing this equipment, and how the tapes could have been the victims of supernatural espionage. Then you get this ending that leaves you wrinkling your brow and scratching your head going “Hey wait a minute how’d she do dat?”
Finally I do want to acknowledge that I know quite few people who hated the first “Blair Witch”. These people may really enjoy this movie. Partly because the director does not really leave anything to the imagination, and so there is quite a few attempts at visuals that are, well attempts at visuals. And as far as standard fare for a scary movie it’s not like a “Friday the 13th part IV” or any number of similar style slasher/scary movies. In other words “not a major bomb.” It’s also not like it’s a hit either. So there are some who will enjoy “Blair Witch 2”,
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(9 ratings)