Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
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| Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 | |
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 DVD Cover |
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| Directed by | Joe Berlinger |
| Produced by | Bill Carraro |
| Written by | Dick Beebe Joe Berlinger |
| Starring | Erica Leerhsen Tristine Skyler Stephen Barker Turner |
| Music by | Carter Burwell |
| Cinematography | Nancy Schreiber |
| Editing by | Sarah Flack |
| Distributed by | Artisan Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | 27 October 2000 |
| Running time | 90 min |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15,000,000 |
| Preceded by | The Blair Witch Project |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is the sequel to the movie The Blair Witch Project. Released on October 27, 2000, it was directed by Joe Berlinger, who previously (and subsequently) had only directed true documentaries.
Although its theatrical release made a profit, it is largely considered a huge failure. Its failure has been blamed, in part, on its R rating, which was strictly enforced by theatres due to contemporary political pressures. Others (including director Joe Berlinger) believe that the incoherence of the film caused its failure. Desiring a more "commercial" film, the studio (Artisan) recut the film and re-shot certain scenes to add more "traditional" horror movie elements. Berlinger repeatedly states on the DVD commentary that he does not like the changes that were made and that they ruin the ambiguous tone of the plot. The film was nominated for five Razzie Awards, including Worst Picture.
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[edit] Plot
The story is presented through a series of flashbacks, as some of the young adults are questioned at a police station about their time spent in the woods.
The story begins in Burkittsville, Maryland, where the release of the original Blair Witch Project has attracted a group of young tourists. They want to find the Blair Witch, and hire Jeff, who has made a business of leading tours into the Blair Witch's woods called the BlairWitch-Hunt. They venture into the woods to camp for the night.
They wake up the next morning with no real memory of the night before, lack memory of five hours, and videotape shot during the night seems unclear. Over the course of the rest of the movie, several of the tourists are murdered, and the remaining individuals are suspected as the killers. It is never made clear whether the murders are caused by witchcraft, the still-never-seen Blair Witch, or some other cause. The people left alive claim to have no memory of most of the deaths, and recall instances of possession or suicide, but videotapes taken during the events all show the living tourists killed their friends.
The movie ends with the observation that memories can lie, but that video always tells the truth, implying that the movie itself (Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2) has lied to the audience, and only the videotape at the end of the film reveals the "true" story: that the remaining tourists are the murderers. The film shows Tristen, who has been "possessed" by the witch, shouting out demonic things and threatening to kill them all, so the other tourists kill her. However, the video reveals that the tourists were actually the ones possessed and what they heard was an auditory hallucination. In reality, Tristen was screaming for her life. A prequel was originally planned but it appears that the project has been dropped due to the sequel's failure.
[edit] Cast
- Kim Director - Kim Diamond
- Jeffrey Donovan - Jeffrey Patterson
- Erica Leerhsen - Erica Geerson
- Tristine Skyler - Tristen Ryler
- Stephen Barker Turner - Stephen Ryan Parker
- Lanny Flaherty - Sheriff Cravens
[edit] Trivia
- The director has said that he wanted to leave the end interpretation up to the viewer.
- The film's theme song is from the album Haunted by singer Poe.
- Erica Leerhsen was so overwhelmed by a witchcraft chant which she performed in one of the scenes in the movie that she almost collapsed after that scene. Later Joe Berlinger, who gave Erica the chaotic chant, told a gullible friend what happened to Erica, and she informed him that Erica was calling up the "god of the underworld" in that chant.
- Ben Rock, production designer for The Blair Witch Project, writer of Sci Fi Channel special Curse of the Blair Witch and writer/director of Showtime special The Burkittsville 7 was brought on to write and direct Shadow of the Blair Witch, a "true-crime" style documentary shot in the style of Joe Berlinger's documentary films, to hype the Blair Witch sequel.
[edit] External links
- Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 at the Internet Movie Database
- Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 at Rotten Tomatoes
- The BlairWitch-Hunt - Fiction or reality?
- The Secret of Esrever - Spoilers
- BBC Interview
