Movie Defense Force: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2

[SonOfVoorhees]

I liked this movie, especially the ending. But also the 2 disc edition had 2 faux documentaries that add more to the mythos and whats real and fake. People didnt like this movie, but really the original Blair Witch isnt as good as people think it is. Blair Witch 2 is a different movie, fact they hired a documentary film maker to make it shows they wanted a remake and not something new. The director made Paradise Lost 1-3, a great documentary about 3 kids imprisoned for ritural murder of 3 kids that have never been proved.

 

[Darks63]

This movie is a guilty pleasure of mine so im glad you told others to give it a chance.

 

[Trishbot]

My friends and I used to have "bad movie night" and rent a bunch of awful films. Trust me, Blair Witch 2 is DEFINITELY a bad film. Worse, it's actually a fairly boring, confusing, and forgettable film. But, even though we laughed at all the stupid, random, ultimately pointless scenes in it, it wasn't as bad as many people have said. Oh, make no mistake, it's still BAD, but we saw far worse.

Though, that's this movie's biggest problem. I've seen worse films, but they were at least memorable in their badness. Blair Witch 2 is neither good enough nor bad enough to remember or give it a watch. It's just... there. Like, "yeah, this is a movie that exists" but doesn't really do much with its premise.

If it had been a sequel as bizarre and hilarious as Exorcist 2, we'd have a different story, or a sequel as good and innovative as Evil Dead 2 we'd be holding it up to a different standard. It's just a middling, bland horror film that I forgot I watched until this video popped up, and I will promptly forget I saw it again a few hours after posting this message.

 

[Callate]

Mmmmmmmmmeh.

Okay, opinions will differ, YMMV, etc. And much of what Jim says is true. That said, I saw Blair Witch 2, and, no... it really isn't a good movie.

Part of the success of the original "BW", aside from the relative novelty of the whole "found footage/shaky cam" technique at the time, was that it felt like it was united by a certain underlying logic, inviting the viewer to put two and two together and horrify themselves with their conclusions about what didn't need to be explicitly said, their mental images of what didn't need to be explicitly seen.

Remember that shot of whatshisname standing in the corner...? Like that.

Movies like "The Faculty" work to some extent because they know what they've got going for them- in the case of "The Faculty" itself, I would argue that would be a) a recognizable, better-than-typical cast kind of slumming it and b) a certain knowledgeable "wink" of awareness at its own tropes.

"Book of Shadows" essentially traded in that kind of cleverness in favor of the trump card of being connected to "The Blair Witch Project"- and then failed to capitalize at all on what made its predecessor work, spoiling its own hand.

That twist at the end? How do I describe it while trying not to spoil anything... It basically sets up a mass case of "Unreliable Narrator", and pretends that's an explanation. It's a bad sign when your response to a twist is not, "Ah!" but, "Seriously?" The original "BW" spelled out far less of what's going on- and in the process, made more sense.

So, that's the cleverness that was supposed to set it aside from the rest. And it isn't clever.

To say there are worse horror films than "Book of Shadows" is certainly true; there are plenty of horror movies that are incompetently shot, badly lit, make even less cohesive sense and have utterly incompetent actors. But the genre is packed to the gills with dreck, and a barely positive comparison with dreck is faint praise indeed. Even still, there are better offerings in horror, even in the decade of "Book of Shadows"'s release.

 

[Inuprince]

Jim, I love ya, and you make some good points, but I still hate this one. It's still crap in my eyes.

Totally agree with your post, the only good that came from this movie, was the Nostalgia Critic's review of it.

http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/thatguywiththeglasses/nostalgia-critic/32868-blair-witch-2-book-of-shadows

I recommend the review, even to those who haven't seen the sequel and just want to know what happens in it.

 

[Darth Sea Bass]

Holy shit it's Michael Westen!

On that alone i may give it a chance!

 

[Crazy Zaul]

There was a Blair Witch 2? WoW there's actually a film more/as unknown than the Scorpion King 2 and 3.

 

[MrCollins]

I feel like the second episode of Movie Defense force wasn't as strong as the first, the much shorter run-time meant that you didn't go into the same depth as you did with Aliens 3. The first episode felt like a genuine explanation of the film's merits and this one felt more like you were just saying "It was judged to harshly"

 

[PeePantz]

Wasn't the script for this film already written when Blair Witch came out?

Yes sir/ma'am, you are correct. People fail to recognize that this movie was a stand alone piece when written and had nothing to do with the Blair Witch project. Upon the success of the Blair Witch Project, movie executives made a small rewrite happen and loosely tied in Blair Witch elements in order to cash in on the first movie's success.

I personally loved the movie (besides the completely unnecessary tie in to the Blair Witch) and as a big fan of horror movies, was very much blown away when seeing it. Expecting pure crap due to reviews and hatred of the first movie, it was a nice surprise. I feel that executives did this movie a huge disservice and if left alone, tghey would have made much more money.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Now if you ask me the first Blair Witch movie was a terrible movie. Of course I couldn't even get all the way through it without getting quezzy from the way the camera kept bobbing about. As for Blair Witch 2, well I've only seen snatches of it so I can't really pronounce judgment.

 

[Christopher Meeks]

I would just like to say the Book of shadows is by far a better movie than Blair Witch, and had it not been shackled with the burden of being a sequel it probably would have done much better in theaters.

 

[Mr_Terrific]

Aliens 3...yeah. Defensible with good reason. This movie? It's garbage. I can't remember anything about this movie other than the fact that it's garbage. Remove the BW part of it and it's still garbage. It's peers had a hook at least...like Final Destination, which was good. I still remember(despite only seeing it at the movies once)the kid having a dream about the little latch on his tray not working and realizing his dream is happening. I can't remember a single thing from Blair Witch 2 and that is the mark of a bad movie.

1 out of 2 so far for this show....and last week, I said MovieBob should do this. I was wrong because there would be no show. Moviebob would say "yeah...Blair Witch 2 is shit. Good night folks. Seeya next week". So I guess Sterling will do.

 

[Draxz]

I was meant to ask this last week but: isn't this MovieBob's area?

Also, the first movie was honestly horrible. I personally believe the second movie shouldn't be existent like Titanic 2. Just... What the fuck? It's clearly something made (in my opinion) that was published for fan-profiting. I will agree that the whole 'Blair Witch' thing is kind of old (after the first time of watching the first movie) but at the same time, I'm glad they did actually ditch the shitty cam-held view of 90% of the scenery being the ground.

Actually something came across my mind while watching the BWP and that was "Why didn't they just follow the river?" to which I then found out that the camera crew actually filmed in one single park. It kind of also explained why 90% of the time: all you saw were shoes and stones. It's still nice to see they actually tried to make the horror-aspect actually more like horror, especially for that day&age it's pretty awesome, in my opinion. The whole part I found 'scary' was the end (of the first film). Though that's only because it made me think of death and I had to Wikipedia what was actually going on.

EDIT:
Looking back at the comments (which I should've seen earlier), I think it was dull but sad they added 'Blair Witch' to the name. Although I do believe The BWP was mainly the internet's fault for even getting anywhere as popular as it is.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

In some ways, this reminds me a lot of "Grave Encounters" and its sequel. These aren't terribly original movies, they follow the basic structure of Reality shows going terribly wrong in dilapidated buildings thanks to handily placed nightvision cams - but they're not bad by any stretch of the imagination.

Unfortunately, because the first movie was so mediocre (here used as meaning "unremarkable"), the second movie had to be produced with fan drives and a lot of cobbling together of money from various sources. It's a great example of a series' producers finding a reasonably fresh way to revisit their own material and it further sets up narrative levels that could stand to be explored.

Owing that "Grave Encounters 2" can practically only be Netflix-ed, downloaded on iTunes or torrented, however, I don't see that franchise's popularity increasing enough to warrant a third movie.

As for Blair Witch - without it, we wouldn't have Marble Hornets. We also wouldn't have contentious discussions with thesis directors who flat-out reject the term "Found Footage" as fitting of the Slender Man Mythos, when I really don't know what else to call it. Grr.

 

[Tamrin]

So far Movie Defense Force is 2 for 2 in my book. I loved Aliens 3 and I liked Book of Shadows. Certainly not the best movie, but not as bad as people make it out.

Also, I'm not opposed to MovieBob working with Jim, but I wish people would lay off the, "Isn't this MovieBob's turf". I like what Jim is doing here and opinions will as they always have, vary. I don't think Jim is stepping on MovieBob's toes doing this and hope to see more.

 

[Tumedus]

I am kind of in agreement with Jim this week although not all the way. Blair Witch 2 is bad, as in really bad. I couldn't in good conscience even jokingly recommend this to anyone. But what it isn't is the worst, most dreadful film to have hit cinema in an age, which is what a lot of people try and characterize this as. Its dumb, cheap, and not particularly scary, but it's just as good, if not better, than 90% of the other cheap horror that you might find direct to video or on late night SciFi (do they still show cheesy horror, haven't watched since they went SyFy?).

Take away the hype and the Blair Witch tie in and it would probably sit among hundreds of other 2 star B-rate horrors you can find on Netflix.

Fwiw, though, I never bought into the hype of the first one and thought it was garbage too, so never felt let down by this one. To this day, I still laugh at how many people were actually convinced that the original was based on real found footage.

 

[raven47172]

I actually like this movie and still enjoy watching it to this day. Hell I own it on DVD and it is one of the mainstays of horror movies I watch leading up to Halloween.

 

[mattttherman3]

Here are a couple I would love to see: Superman 3 and 4, Batman and Robin, Star Trek 5, Green Lantern. WHY DOES GOD NEED A STARSHIP?!