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If you can't believe your eyes, how can you believe what's on tape? Modern technology takes a step backward into the woods where everybody winds up in a frenzied state of manipulation. After the Internet hype and vast marketing success of "The Blair Witch Project," it was obvious that a sequel would eventually make its way into the scene and onto the screen. ("Blair Witch 3," directed by BW1 veterans Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, is due in 2001.) This time around we are introduced to five characters drawn to the tale as well as the Black Hills of Maryland, where events surrounding the Blair Witch took place. In short, this is a sequel with a new beginning solely related to the fringe of the original tale (a so-called "postmodern sequel"). As director Joe Berlinger explains, "The faux documentary conceit worked wonderfully in The Blair Witch Project, but to revisit that approach here would have been derivative and creatively unexciting, both for the moviegoers and myself. Although I made use of mixed media -digital video, Hi-8 video, 16mm, computer graphics -, this is primarily a 35mm film that uses the traditional tools of motion picture production and reflects a conscious directorial decision to evoke classic horror movies in its look and feel."
A bunch of BW groupies gather together beneath a massive tree and unintentionally celebrate Dionysian revelries (what else can you expect when people get so sloshed at night in the woods?) and can't remember much the next morning. (Know the feeling?) Jeff (Jeffrey Donovan), who was recently released from a mental institution, is a local boy who flogs souvenirs (ranging from tacky T-shirts to emblematized caps) to enthusiastic tourists hungering for Blair Witch memorabilia. When he takes four others along for a tour of the Witch's haunts, we become acquainted with white Wiccan Erica (Erica Leerhsen), grad students Tristen (Tristen Skyler) and Stephen (Stephen Baker), and the Elvira-like psychic Kim (Kim Director). The last thing they can vaguely recall about their nocturnal sojourn is an encounter with another club of groupies wandering witlessly through the leaf-ridden Burkitteville woodlands in search of cheap thrills.
What brings these five people together, it would seem (other than the making of this sequel), is an obsessive fascination (and not a fascinating obsession) with BW1. Jeff, a part-time dealer in stolen goods, is lucratively exploiting his new BW enterprise. Stephen and Tristen are a couple writing a book about the original Blair Witch phenomenon, considering it from a point of view as exemplary of mass hysteria. Erica, whose literary interests lean more toward such arcane documents as the witch's diary of incantations and personal musings (more properly known as A Book of Shadows), is busy playing good witch, bad witch with her new found companions. Kim comes along for the ride simply because she liked the movie (Maybe that's also why she likes laying around on tombstones.) What is real and what is not? The blurred line of the original film is transformed here into a glossy B-horror flick that, despite a fascinating, sensual, ceremonial montage of images near the film's conclusion, doesn't manage to build sufficient interest or maintain enough curiosity to carry one along the cumbersome pathway toward the revelation (or non-revelation) of secrets. Use is made of interspersed material such as "MTV News," "Roger Ebert & the Movies," and "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" with interviews including 'real' Burkitteville locals in order to reinforce the associative element of the event to documentary. Mass hysteria, media hype, and dark humanity may all be ingredients that draw us to the moment where consternation finally opens the Pandora's box of truths, but a more interesting interaction might have helped in developing the viewer's concern with the ongoing events. (And I do mean ongoing!) Instead, we merely wind up leaving a decadent nighttime campfire gathering behind us and shifting to a loft-based House Party. The so-called actors all depend on screaming whenever they want to appear "convincing," but this doesn't cut through their unconvincing relationships. Stephen (Baker) is the only one who manages to deliver a believable performance, but even he winds up shouting his lines as the end nears. This vocalization is stranger than the events taking place around them, considering that these young actors have a solid background as performers. Director Berlinger hails from a (prize winning) documentary background and it is safe to assume that he has more affinity dealing with trees, fire, water, dogs, and the comments of local residents than with the delivery of actors or the necessary complexity of analyzing aspects and issues of characterization inherent to their craft. Even the ploy of calling actors by their actual names does not seemed to have helped his approach (whereas it worked nicely in BW1). The intention of the director to show the characters devolve in their psychological state is quickly defeated because the personalities are pretentious and unraveled from the start. (The original film dealt with more interesting characters who were not only realistic, but honestly involved with their research, and, ultimately, dubious about the questionable legend generated by Burkitteville's folklore.) It is only when this new group encounters (or hallucinates about) images derived from other horror films that this movie begins to gather momentum. Unfortunately, the proceedings take too long to arrive at this point. Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
This film is open to interpretation, according to the director. What purports to be a chilling study of group psychology turns out to be nothing more than a boring bunch of strangers tossed together for a psychotherapy session. Of course, a better script with intense, motivationally acceptable, and reasonably comprehensible interaction between the characters might have been of some assistance. The only saving grace found in this film about the dark side of humanity is with DP Nancy Schreiber's cinematography and Sarah Flack's editing. As director Berlinger notes, "This film is a meditation on whether or not movies and the media influence people's actions." Taking that into consideration, you will have to decide for yourself whether or not to watch it. Happy Halloween!
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