On paper, it seemed like an interesting idea from a sequel. Deviating from the found-footage style of the first film, this was supposed to be a reenactment of a true event that took place after the success of The Blair Witch Project, with a group of tourists travelling up to the filming site of the film as part of a tour, unwittingly becoming tangled up in the influence of the Blair Witch in new, and significantly gorier, ways.
Unfortunately, it didn't work in practice. First of all, Haxan Films, who made The Blair Witch Project, were not involved. Artisian were eager to make a sequel, but Haxan wanted to wait until the buzz of the first movie had died down. This prompted Artisian to proceed without them, enlisting director Joe Berlinger, who had never directed a horror movie before, and in fact had exclusively worked in Documentaries before this. Not to mention, Artisian made a bunch of changes to the Director's Cut that Berlinger produced from the 45 days worth of film, including adding an entirely new scene, in order to make it a more commercial horror film and break the bank like its predecessor, in direct contrast to Berlinger's wishes to have an ambiguous feel similar to the first movie.
And alas, that commercial edge that Artisian wanted is all over the final product. Book Of Shadows has much less of the charm of the original movie and instead feels much more like a standard horror film from the late 90s and early 2000s, which was precisely what The Blair Witch Project was made to counter. As such, it almost feels cliche and by the books. It didn't help that removing the found-footage style of the original removed much of the realism that had made The Blair Witch Project famous, as a professionally shot and composed film with carefully angled camera work is much harder to trust as fact.
This isn't even mentioning the fact that the movie was rushed into production to capitalise on The Blair Witch Project's success, and as such the plot is unrefined and full of plot holes, with some events and hallucinations the protagonists experience either never being picked up again or never properly explained in a satisfying way, the characters are generally quite unlikable and hard to relate to, and the camera work, despite being a professional production this time around, is sometimes barely an improvement on the first film, with a lot of the movement and post-production editing being fast paced and shaky.
As such, critics and audiences alike hated Book Of Shadows at the time, calling it a terrible example of a by-the-books horror film, although some recent reassessments have begun to argue more to its merits, with some calling it a deconstruction over the dishonesty of The Blair Witch Project. With this in mind, I'll leave the final assessment on this movie up to you.Who knows, you might get a kick out of it, whether or not it's bad. It's also possible that the director's cut still exists out there, and if so, may make the movie a much more enjoyable experience if it's ever unearthed.
As for the more recent sequel, Blair Witch, I'll likely cover that soon, as it's arguably a much more faithful sequel. But that's another story...
You can check out the trailer for Book Of Shadows here. It's kinda cliche, but pretty hilarious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WtrIgbvsWU
The DVD is available here (region 1 only): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Shadows-Blair-Jeffrey-Donovan/dp/B00UGP7CKA
