Matt Greene Book of Shadows benefits from being distinct from the original, shooting to be a meta-comment on the popularity and questions surrounding the found footage classic. Otherwise, there are few words for awful this is. I can't decide what is worse: the insanely stupid script, the collection of terrible actors, the clichéd and bland direction, or the insane choice to edit in a non-linear timeline. Works better as a comedy than a horror, as I audibly laughed way more than I jumped.

luan-penna If you loved the original, you're gonna hate this sequel. It's everything what the original never was: bad, boring, stupid and nonsensical. The performances are OK, but the script is awful. The filmmakers tried not to make a copy of the original, but they made a completely different film!!! If they had called this just Book of Shadows, nobody would ever say this is a sequel to the amazing The Blair Witch Project because there is almost nothing to do with the original. Just like the 1999's film, this is more a psychological horror movie rather than a straight horror, but it's very dumb and poorly made. There is no suspense, the characters are stupid and boring, the ending is laughable, it's not even scary, and the story is terrible. The best thing about Book of Shadows is the beginning that shows the impact that The Blair Witch Project made. That's it. Run away from this sequel! One of the worst movies I've ever seen.

BA_Harrison After the incredible success of indie found-footage horror The Blair Witch Project (1999), it was hardly surprising when a sequel was rushed into production—so quickly, in fact, that the creators of the original weren't quite ready to make another movie, hence the appointment of Joe Berlinger as writer/director. To his credit, Berlinger doesn't go down the obvious route, churning out an uninspired rehash of the first film; instead, he takes a different path through the woods, delivering a self-aware piece revolving around the hysteria created by the original Blair Witch Project. OK, so it doesn't work all that well, but he definitely gets points for trying.Berlinger's film opens in documentary style, with interviews from fans of The Blair Witch Project, as well as the residents of Burkitsville, who have taken to exploiting the film's success by marketing rocks and stick-men as souvenirs, and offering guided tours of the locations. It is one such tour into the Black Hills that provides the basis for Berlinger's movie: local entrepreneur Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan) leads a group of four Blair Witch enthusiasts to the house of infamous child killer Rustin Parr, where they set up camp for the night. When the group wake up in the morning, they are shocked not only to find their equipment trashed, but they have no recollection of the previous evening. Finding Jeff's video cassette's buried in a hole, the gang return to their guide's home—a disused factory—to review the tapes, hoping to piece together the events of the night before. While doing so, they suffer a series of scary supernatural events. Meanwhile, the bodies of a rival tour group are found disembowelled on nearby Coffin Rock…Book of Shadows received quite the critical mauling upon its release, but I think that there is actually a decent idea underneath all of the spooky shenanigans: a group of people suffering from amnesia desperately trying to understand what has happened to them, but horrified by what they discover. What makes the film less than successful for me is its glossy, MTV-style editing and the thoroughly unlikeable characters: I hated the flickery, grainy imagery, but not nearly as much as I disliked every single person in the film, from mentally unstable tour guide Jeff, to tough goth chick Kim (Kim Director), to sexy Wiccan Erica (Erica Leerhsen)—although she at least had the decency to take off all of her clothes.As a rock/metal/alternative music fan, I at least enjoyed the excellent soundtrack, which features Marilyn Manson, Death In Vegas, System Of A Down, P.O.D., Queens Of The Stone Age and Rob Zombie, but I can't help but think that with just a little more care in the character development department, and with a little less of the showy stylisms, this could have been a whole lot better.

begob Yeah, this is entertaining, but it takes on too much and ends in a muddle.The characters are clear, the acting is good - I like the goth particularly - and the mix of satire and parody works great in the first half.But then we switch to a different location, and it becomes a paranoid, haunted house story with a comedy element thrown in. Also too tame and prudish.Add on top of that self-conscious cleverness with cameras and "perception is reality", and it really loses its sting. A couple of laughs, but in a Josh Wheedon way.Overall - all things to all men, but still a dog.