"The 'Witch' and Famous" by Scott Mantz

"Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2"
Jeffrey Donovan, Erica Leerhsen
Directed by Joe Berlinger

"Which witch is which? Not even the cast of 'Book of Shadows' has a clue"

I don't envy you, Amir. Running a film studio is hard enough, but you have the added pressure of trying to turn your studio, Artisan Entertainment, into a major Hollywood player while still staying true to your independent roots. After all, nobody likes a sellout, but let's face it. You can only do so many critically acclaimed (read: unsuccessful) films before you bust the bank. All it takes is one expensive turkey, and a studio like yours is liable to go the way of the 8-track tape.

But last year, Amir, you did the impossible, and with one fell swoop, you made Artisan a force to be reckoned with. Who could have guessed that your $1 million gamble to acquire a micro-budgeted film called "The Blair Witch Project," which allegedly cost a mere $30,000, would pay off and gross more than $141 million at the box office? With a profit margin like that, you could have paid off your debts and given your whole staff bonuses big enough where they would never have to worry about money again.

You were smart, Amir. You took the money, and you put it right back into the business. In the months that followed the incredible success of "Witch," you talked about going IPO with Artisan, and you released films by some of the most innovative and respected filmmakers in the business, including Steven Soderberg ("The Limey") and Robert Altman ("Dr. T & the Women").

More importantly, you didn't waste any time in rushing a "Blair Witch" sequel into production. You had a potential franchise in the making (something that all studio heads would sell their kids and their right arms for), and you even went so far as to pony up $10 million for the budget (that's 333 times that of the original), ensuring that "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" got the star treatment.

This was a very important film, Amir, and guess what--you blew it.

By most accounts, sequels suck, and nobody expected lightning to strike twice. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, so let's backtrack a bit. The fact is, there were many reasons why "The Blair Witch Project" was such a huge success. For one thing, it was fueled by a promotional campaign that was unlike anything the world had ever seen. Using a relatively new device called the Internet, the film's web site, which was set up long before you acquired it, speculated on whether the events depicted within the film were real, and over 6 million web hits later, people just had to see it for themselves.

Budgetary constraints can yield fascinating results, and original "Blair Witch" directors Daniel Mywrick and Eduardo Sanchez found a way around the typically splashy special effects to deliver a film that tapped into the one thing that scares people the most--their imaginations. To put it simply, the film was scary because of what it didn't show you. Mankind has always had a fascination with things that go "bump" in the night, and there was plenty of that to be found in the film. That plus the documentary style that showed the 3 helpless teens succumb to madness only added to its realism.

Once the whole "Blair Witch" phenomenon wore off, and it did pretty fast, people started to ask themselves "what were we thinking?" By then you announced plans for a sequel (as well as a prequel that would predate the events of the first film), but you were faced with the unenviable task of staying true to the spirit of the first film while giving fans something completely different the next time out. As a result, you delivered a film of such shameless proportions, that anyone with even the slightest fascination with "The Blair Witch Project" is liable to call you a sellout. And they'll be right.

On the surface, the concept for "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" sounds pretty interesting. The film takes places a few months after "The Blair Witch Project" was released, and now hoards of thrill seekers have descended on the quaint little town of Burkittsville, MD. Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan), a former mental patient, is ready to cash in on all the excitement by starting the Blair Witch Hunt, a tour that will take visitors to the various sites where the first film took place. His first victims includes a sarcastic Goth queen (Kim Director), an earthly witch-wannabe (Erica Leerhsen), and a couple (Tristen Skyler and Stephen Barker Turner) who are writing a book on the Blair Witch phenomenon.

After a night of wild partying, they wake up to find their possessions have been ramshacked, and nobody can remember how it happened. They go back to Jeff's high-tech lair to watch what was videotaped during the night, and that's when they discover that they brought something "evil" back with them. Strange hallucinations, incessant marijuana and alcohol use, and their inability to piece together the night's events only magnify their growing paranoia to the point where they eventually turn on each other. Will they ever figure out what really happened? What's worse, do we even care? Of course not, but that's only one of the many problems with the film.

Now, Amir, with so much riding on the success of the sequel, what were you thinking when you tapped Joe Berlinger to direct it? He may be an accomplished documentarian (1996's "Paradise Lost"), but he has zero talent when it comes to directing fictional narrative. Where the first film was so scary that it stayed with you long after you turned out the lights, there's not one shred of drama, intensity, or suspense to be found in "Book of Shadows." It shows you too much, sometimes even rubbing your face in it (was it really necessary to show extreme close-ups of graphic stabbings or vicious blows to the head?), and as a result, it leaves nothing to the imagination.

What's worse is Berlinger's claim to have made a film that makes a statement about the relationship between violence and the media. Please. Do us all a favor, and don't insult our intelligence by trying to pass off this ultra-inferior sequel as "art."

The "interviews" conducted in the beginning of "Book of Shadows" recall the glory of what signified the first movie, but once the opening credits roll, we're transplanted into some hokey MTV-style "Scream" ripoff that makes me wonder why it wasn't sent directly to video in the first place (even the main character resembles a descendent of Jamie Kennedy's high tech-geek from the "Scream" movies). Fans of the first movie will no doubt be extremely disappointed, while people who don't even know what a Blair Witch is will have no reason to find out now.

Which brings me back to my original point, Amir. You've been setting up Artisan to be a major player, but in the process, you've taken a brilliant statement of independent artistry, and you've completely destroyed it. In that sense, you've become the ultimate studio head. Where the "Friday the 13th," "Nightmare On Elm Street," and "Halloween" franchises took 5 or 6 films to hit rock-bottom, you did it on only your next time out. You also released a film that effectively knocks "Battlefield Earth" off its perch as Worst Movie of the Year. Congratulations, Amir, and welcome to Hollywood.

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