Thanks to Rob for holding down the fort this week with his unique blend of gigantic tits and the Mystic Bonaduce. I wish I had a good excuse for my absence, but no matter which way I turn, its always gonna boil down to running off and getting drunk, so let's just skip by that and run into tonight's post. To be completely honest here, I'd be better off running back to the drunken hellpits from which I came, it'd save me the trouble of having to relay the horror that I've just witnessed. I'm telling you, some movies really make you doubt the existence of any religious deity whatsoever, because you'll swear to the day you die that if there was a god, he wouldn't subject the good people to crap like this. So what's tonight's review? That fabulous, tremendous, uncontrollable Blair Witch 2!   Tonight will have marked the second time I've seen Blair Witch II: Book Of Shadows, and if there's one promise I'll put the bank on, its that I'll never watch it again. Believe me, I can deal with bad movies. There's proof of that all over the site. I take great pleasure in watching flicks that had no right being filmed to begin with. Its my own personal shot at witnessing true universal anomales. Its pretty unlikely that I'm ever gonna have a chance to see a black hole form live and in person, so these bad movies are as close as I'm ever gonna get to unwrapping some of the galaxy's biggest mysteries without becoming an astronaut or befriending La Toya Jackson. But there's a difference between a bad movie that makes you laugh, and a bad movie that makes you waste precious cash by smashing television sets in frustration. Unfortunately, the sequel to the highly-successful Blair Witch Project falls under the second category. Now the first movie was met with mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed it. Personally, I find it incredibly stupid to count on the reviews in the papers anyway. Alright, so I should like a movie because Joel Siegel says its good? Here's a tip for you: Joel Siegel thinks every movie, ever made, was the single greatest work of art ever put on film. The guy must really enjoy seeing his name in print on movie ads, because he's managed to call some of the biggest duds ever 'good' movies. And who else, Roger Ebert? C'mon people. Seriously, think about it. I'd say the demographic of this site falls squarely under the wide margin of around 16-35. Despite the big gap, none of us should give a shit about what Roger Ebert likes and doesn't like. I'm pretty sure you're not listening to the same types of music or playing the same video games Ebert likes, so why take note on his movie choices? I'm not ragging on the guy, actually I think he's pretty charming, almost in a Poppin' Fresh sorta way. Point is: you shouldn't take someone's word on what you're gonna enjoy - unless its me telling you it, because I'm always on the mark and we all know Romy & Michelle's High School Reunion was the greatest movie of all time. I will say this though: any critic who claimed Book of Shadows was a good movie should be forced to spend 10 hours in a hidden room watching Katie Couric do crossword puzzles while flossing. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but its seems like a good punishment for saying something so blasphemous. My thoughts on the Blair Witch Project: Liked it. Liked it a lot. Its not the kind of movie you can watch 60 times, since once the suspense is gone, there ain't much left. But let's face it, that scene where the kid starts screaming about how 'dat map was fuggin' useless' and how he 'kicked dat shit in the river!' was about as close as you can possibly get to a wrongful overlook by the Academy's award committee. My friend just told me that, by sheer cost-to-profit margins, its been regarded as the most successful movie of all time. Course, my friend also told me that, given the right tools, he could transform a VW bug into a transformable car a la Bumblebee from the Transformers. Take it with a grain of salt, by my feelings are that the movie was a true experience, and a unique one to boot. It was the kind of movie which such lore and intrigue surrounding it, the only way to kill the buzz would be to create the most unimaginably horrible sequel ever. And with that, here's my review of Blair Witch II! Actually no, fuck that. Damn movie doesn't deserve my usual fare of screencapping every single scene. Its just too dumb, too stupid, and too draining on even the most remotely sane. I'll only give the megareview treatment to flicks that are worth checking out at least once, so in this case, we're only gonna cover the key elements. Conveniently enough, there really aren't any. The movie's one giant clusterfuck of things that may or may not have happened, so just so we're all on the same page, here's an abridged synopsis. Abridged, in that, I'm leaving out all the stuff that makes me want to murder everyone on the staff of Artisan Pictures. Sweet, Sweet Synopsis: The movie presumes that the first flick was 'fake'. Of course, it was fake, but now that its out in the open, it gives them the chance to do a dolled up ridiculous teen slasher flick complete with Mansonite soundtrack and stereotypical Wiccan wizardry under the semi-guise of a 'suspense documentary'. This time around, its clearly announced that we're watching a 're-enactment', so 30 seconds into the movie and they've already killed off all the intrigue. Anyway, the story goes like this: buncha kids who were obsessed or interested in the Blair Witch legend go out into the woods to find some *spooky* stuff. Of course, they get more than they bargained for, as strange shit starts happening, people keep getting naked and having sex dreams, and apparently, a number of folks get their chests sliced up. We're not sure if they're just going crazy, or if THAT BLASTED WITCH is the cause - all we really know is that THANK GOD movie theatres come complete with arcade machines in the main lobby, for if you went to see this with the three people on Earth who might not want to leave immediately, you could get a healthy dosage of Mortal Kombat in for 90 minutes before hightailing home. Let's meet the playa haters! Yessir!   Jeffrey: Former mental patient with a few loose screws and an unhealthy obsession with the Blair Witch. Makes his money by selling Blair Witch stick figures and backyard dirt over the internet...something I'm personally impressed with, but not even capitalism as creative as that could help poor Jeff from falling deep within the bowels of a movie that seems to go out of its way to be impossible to like. Kim: About-ten-pounds-from-svelt goth princess with innate psychic abilities who likes to drink, smoke pot, and wears tons of black. She's along for the trip because she thought 'the movie was cool', which by the way is the only thing explained in the entire flick. Her job: be a rough and tough rebellious vampire who throws around the word 'fuck' so much you'd swear David Chase was scripting this.   Erica: She's Wiccan, and damn proud of it. Actually, I'd bet that even this proud Wiccan served as nothing short of a complete embarassment for any real ones watching this, as I've known enough people who've delved into the more attractive religions to know that even the most devout followers probably wouldn't wear 5" pentagram necklaces from Hot Topic while making circles made out of candles in front of the 'normals'. Eh, who really cares, she was cute, and she got naked. At least the movie did one minor thing to make itself a people pleaser. Now if only it could learn to explode midway through the first viewing, my gradebook wouldn't be so full of red marks. Stephen: Good ol' Stephen and his girlfriend come along because he's writing a book about something that I guess has to do with the Blair Witch. Out of all the characters, he's the most boring and useless, so it should come as no real shock that he's the only one in the movie's climax scene, if I dare call it that. Actually, the movie's ending feels more like the guys making it lost the last half-hour of footage and decided that with some cleverly placed eerie sounds and a HARD ROCKIN' soundtrack, nobody would notice that the movie seemed to be a long way from over. Not that I'm complaining, five more minutes of this shit would've made me the first person to ever have surgery to make myself blind. And now, for my most favorite and lovable character...Stephen's pregnant girlfriend, Tristen!  Tristen: Man, I really hope the girl playing this character doesn't get saddled down by the role when she goes out for her next job, as she didn't seem to make the prerequisite the other actors did by being completely terrible. Unfortunately, I don't think anyone who's seen this character will be able to accept that face in any other role again. Tristen is pregnant, but she loses the baby due to what we in the business call 'witch chicanery'. Amazingly, the loss of the baby and a ton of blood doesn't stop her and her boyfriend from going back to the woods to continue with their witchhunt. I'm not kidding, she's laying in a hospital bed, and in the next scene, they're all in a van on their way back to the woods. She paid for it though - Tristen's the first one to really lose her mind and start talking jibberish, which probably was meant to be scary but came off funnier than George Carlin in his prime. Oops, how could I forget! One more character...one more...very important character...  The Crazy Sheriff!: Jesus, wasn't this movie supposed to take place in Maryland? I guess Maryland is the nation's home to toothless, unshaven, fat, old, redneck hicks - can anyone confirm or deny that? Like in many other flicks, the cops are more of a constant annoyance than the 'good guys', and our crazy sheriff here is so over the top in his role as surly sergeant that I'm 100% positive that the disclaimer about this movie being a 're-enactment' at the beginning of the film was placed in solely because nobody could possibly take this guy seriously anyway. Lanny Flaherty, who played the character, certainly isn't a stranger to films that never should've been made: his most-impressive resume includes appearances in Waterworld and Tom and Huck, both of which are clear cut reasons for the poor old guy to seek out a new line of work. Well thank the lord that's done, let's get down to the flick. Remember, I'm not giving this the full-blown review. I just don't have the patience to annoy everyone with that tonight. Instead, what we'll do is penetrate through the movie's more memorable scenes, and for the (hopefully) many of you that never bothered checking it out, here's your chance to see what all the non-excitement was about!   In this scene, everyone brings Tristen to the hospital after she has a pretty messy miscarriage in the woods. Whomever was in her belly must've been created from the sperm of Hitler himself, since nobody in the movie seems to give a flying fuck that the poor girl just lost her baby. Tristen is under the impression that the Blair Witch mysteriously caused the tragedy, but in truth, the witch is just a scapegoat, since the damn idiot is pregnant, hiking around in the mountains drinking more alcohol than 5 fat Irish guys on a dare. But what's that behind the hospital curtain! Why, its the ghost of a little girl! And...my...MY SWEET LORD NO - SHE'S WALKING BACKWARDS...SLOWLY! HOLY CHRIST, CALL EGON - BACKWARDS WALKING GHOSTS OF TERROR! Was it scary? Depends on your definition. Bill Murray is scary given the right lighting. The fact that Thirtysomething lasted so long was pretty scary too. In other words, you're not frightened here because the ghost is scary...you're frightened that someone out there looked at this and thought you'd be frightened.   Or how bout this? Our players wake to find that all their equipment has been destroyed, and all their work ripped to shreds. The unbridled horror of a surprise tickertape parade is altogether lost on me, but the true scare? They don't know it yet - but it was our loving characters themselves who created the mess! How'd they find out? Well, since they have more cameras set up than Best Buy's stockroom, everything they've done is all on film. And when they watch it backwards, they all see themselves having an orgy and destroying video equipment! Christ, couldn't they just give in and throw some guy in a wolfman mask into the middle of this? Anything, please! See, the whole deal with the movie is that what we're seeing isn't what's really happening - while it looks like all our characters are unfortunate victims of circumstances, like the audience, they're actually the ones doing all the evil crap. An example:   Kim, increasingly upset by the missing persons, demonic possessions, and forced one-dimensional dialogue written by stoned chimpanzees, decides she needs some beer. By the way, all they drink in this movie is Pete's Wicked Ale, so at least they got something right. Anyway, Cashier Peggy gives her a hard time because goths are assuredly the scourge of the south, but Kim remains cool, chucks a 20 in her face, and heads back home. Or does she?! MAUAHAHAHAHAHH! Take a gander, eeef you weeeelll...   At the end of the movie, we and the characters get to see the stock footage to see what really happened, a plot device so inanely stupid that the Motion Picture Association should ban it altogether to save face. Hey, I don't know about you, but there's nothing I enjoy more than spending an hour and a half watching a buncha garbage only to find out that the garbage didn't really happen! Oh, that movie! It got me! I was tricked - its so scary and clever, its an enigma wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in a festering ball of those owl pellets they sell for aspiring dissection enthusiasts. See, Kim didn't really just take the beer and run - instead, she first stabbed Peggy to death with a nail file. She doesn't remember doing it, but there it is! Clear and on film! Who can deny?! Well, WE can deny, because we just saw the freaking movie and the scene in question...I'm all for the suspension of belief for the sake of entertainment, but this movie's already treading on way too thin a sheet of ice to expect anything like that from me.   Here's another brilliant piece of editing for you, which goes to show just how much they rushed out this film without a second glance to cash in on the franchise. To give you an idea - this movie bombed so bad and was so universally slaughtered by even the most passing of critics that the intended plans for a third film in the series was put entirely on hold. You know, they've already killed the legacy with this film...they might as well do a third. Maybe the next film will be about four kids who eat haunted cake from Maryland and start carving Pagan symbols onto bus drivers' foreheads. If they're gonna be silly, they may as well go at it full-force. Anyway, this scene shows Tristen, psychotically possessed, tie a noose around her neck and beg Stephen to push her off the ledge. When that doesn't work, she insults and bullies Stephen into doing it, thus killing her and ending Tristen's role in the flick. But! When Stephen gets picked up by the cops, and is shown the film, its revealed that Tristen was begging him not to hang her! Shocking ending? Not really, but that's where they decided to role the end credits. I'm telling you, it comes from out of nowhere. Not that it matters, because I'm willing to bet that no two people could finish watching this flick without devoting about a half an hour afterwards to making fun of it - maybe they cut the whole shibang off early to allow for the insult time. Course, the ending here is stupid anyway. What does it matter if Tristen asked Stephen to hang her or not? If you walked up to me and asked me to shoot you, I'm pretty sure I'd still go to jail for it. I dunno, you really can't blame the actors for this one, its all in the writing. All the glitz and effects in the world can't help hide a bad flick. I've been trying to figure out how they could've gone about this sequel the right way, but truth is, the Blair Witch Project just isn't the type of movie that should've had a sequel to begin with. In the long run, all this has done is hurt whatever horror legacies the first one made sheerly by accident, but I don't think Artisan or anyone else ever stopped to think about movie legacies. They just wanted their fast cash. Can't say I blame 'em...hard not to capitalize on something so simple. I just wish someone would've looked at this script and realized that it flat out didn't make sense. I mean really...they even managed to get the food wrong...  Look at that box of fried chicken! This movie was set in 1999 - that box of KFC chicken is obsolete by at least 7-8 years! So either Kim's sitting around eating decade-old chicken, or the director felt that those redneck slobs over in Maryland like to keep their chicken in old, out-of-print KFC boxes sheerly for the nostalgia factor. They couldn't even get the damn fried chicken packaging right...what chance did the movie have?! The Pros: Completely out-of-place orgy fantasy sequences, the fact that Kurt Loder got top billing, and Erica's body keep this film from being the worst one ever made. And those are your pros. The Cons: Everything else, right down to the little video they show after the end credits that tells you to watch the whole fucking thing in rewind so you can spell out eerie messages. Right, like I'm gonna sit here for another twenty minutes with the remote in my hand watching a movie in rewind just so I can confirm the spelling of the word 'ghost'. Gimme a break, find a new gimmick. But we shouldn't feel too bad. A bad movie is a bad movie is a bad movie. They help us appreciate the good ones that much more. Hell, right now I could watch something starring Shaq and consider it a masterpiece. Every flick serves a purpose. So no, we're not the victims. In this instance, there's only one true victim...  He kicked dat map in the river for a final payoff like this? Sad state of affairs. To Buy Book of Shadows, assuming you've got a strong bladder and more patience than the mother of a child/alligator mutant hybrid with Tourette's, click here. Or, you can check out the trailer to the movie and see how they did their best to hide the absolute SUCK by clicking here. Enjoy. - Matt matt@x-entertainment.com More Young Witching Stuff: The Worst Witch, Ichabod's Grave, and The Evil Dead! PS - Awhile back, I successfully hunted down a remote-controlled Ivysaur. My friend Aaron, of Arrogancy, and I, have long debated who are the better Pokemon and which deserve idol worship. He's not too fond of the Bulba trio, so he went on a little quest of his own. If you've read the Ivysaur quest, you know the drill. Click the banner below to see Aaron's amazing personal triumph on his quest for the remote-controlled Wartortle! 
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