The Blair Witch Hunt, as it is called, is led by a tour guide ( Jeff Donovan) who, we will learn, is a former mental patient, now cured, apparently. Tourists have descended on the town, locals are on eBay selling twig-sculptures like those in the movie, and the exasperated local sheriff patrols the woods with a bullhorn, shouting, "Get out of these woods and go home! There is no goddamned Blair Witch!" We meet a group of Witch fanciers who have signed up for an overnight tour in the woods. This is not one of Joe Berlinger's proudest days.īut what about the movie itself-apart from Berlinger's involvement? It opens promisingly as a documentary about the effect that the first movie had on the (fictional) town of Burkittsville, Md., where the Blair Witch was rumored to haunt the nearby woods. I can imagine a preacher thundering from his pulpit: "This Berlinger comes down here and makes a couple of propaganda films making us look bad, and then what does he do? Makes a film glorifying black magic and witches." If the film had argued against the mind-set that essentially framed the West Memphis Three, that would be one thing. At the same time, because of loaded characters and dialogue, "BW2" supplies ammunition to those who think the Arkansas prisoners are guilty. It's a muddled, sometimes-atmospheric effort that could have come from many filmmakers.
The movie shows no special insight that made it necessary for Berlinger to direct it. But now that I've seen "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," I'm disturbed. I wondered earlier why Berlinger would want to make a fiction film on witchcraft and black magic, but suspended judgment: He is one of the best documentarians around. The movies are deadly serious because they make the case that injustice is being done.
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