Photos from Artisan Entertainment In the roles of the
misunderstood outcasts, Kim Director, left, and
Erica Geerson play a goth and a Wiccan,
respectively, in the sequel to the successful independent film of
all time, "The Blair Witch Project."
By Emilia Hwang
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
She’s back. In 1785, Elly Kedward was
“banished” from the Blair Township, accused of
practicing witchcraft. In 1999, the mythology surrounding the
supposed witch stirred things up in one of the most successful
independent movies of all time.
The creators of “The Blair Witch Project,” Daniel
Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, are also back, but this time as the
producers of “Book of Shadows: The Blair Witch 2.”
The sequel, however, bears little resemblance to its
predecessor, the faux documentary that chronicled the journey of
three film students into the woods of Maryland.
 Photos from Artisan Entertainment
(Left to right) Erica Leerhsen, Stephen Barker Turner,
Tristen Skyler, and Jeff Donovan star in
“Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2,” the sequel to the
successful 1999 independent film.
With the release of “The Blair Witch Project,”
media-conscious audiences across the nation were bewitched by the
mock documentary about the disappearance of the infamous
camera-toting trio ““ Josh, Heather and Mike. For many
viewers, the lines between invention and reality became blurred as
the fictitious story of the movie was marketed as fact on the
Internet.
In reality, as a result of the film’s success thousands of
moviegoers, convinced that they had seen an actual documentary,
began invading Burkittsville (population 200) on a weekly basis.
And this is where the sequel picks up.
“Basically, we play obsessed fans (in the movie),”
said actor Kim Director in a recent interview. Her character, Kim
,is one of the young-curiosity seekers who returns to Burkittsville
after the release of the original film.
“It’s actually not a sequel to the story of
“˜The Blair Witch Project,'” she said.
“It’s actually a sequel to the phenomenon of the
“˜Blair Witch Project.'”
Actor Jeff Donovan, who plays the deranged tour guide that leads
Kim and three other visitors into the Black Hills, was intrigued by
the unique cultural phenomenon that followed the release of the
first film.
“I was more fascinated with people’s response to the
movie than I was with the movie itself,” Donovan said in a
recent interview. “I couldn’t believe that you paid $9,
you had popcorn on your hand and you actually believed that this
was real. I thought it said more about our culture than anything
else.”
Writer/director Joe Berlinger describes “Book of
Shadows” as the story of five kids who are obsessed with
media imagery and the cultural phenomenon caused by “The
Blair Witch Project.” While camping out in the woods, the
kids experience a blackout in which they go on a delusional
cold-blooded killing spree. Then, stricken with amnesia, they must
piece together the events of the unaccountable hours.
“Book of Shadows” is Berlinger’s first fiction
feature, his prior works including some of the most acclaimed
nonfiction films of the past decade, including
“Brother’s Keeper” and “Paradise Lost: The
Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills.”
“This movie is a poisoned chalice on many levels,”
said Berlinger, acknowledging the difficulties in making a sequel
to a film that provoked such a unique cultural reaction. “No
matter what I chose to do, some people would find something to
criticize.”
He said he knew that if he went with a non-narrated
documentary-style approach, he would be criticized for ripping off
the first movie. Though the award-winning documentary filmmaker is
no stranger to cinéma vérité, he decided to take a
different approach to the sequel by shooting with a script and
focusing on theme.
“To me making a documentary or being a documentarian is
not about shaking the camera around, which is how everyone
predicted I was going to do this movie,” Berlinger said.
“To me, being a documentarian is making a movie that has some
sort of social commentary, and that is what I tried to do with this
movie.”
In other words, Berlinger’s goal was to make the sequel a
movie about ideas.
“It’s about violence in the media; it’s about
how media shapes an event; it’s about the nature of
fanaticism; it’s about the phenomenon of the Blair Witch
Project,” he explained.
The original “Blair Witch Project” was made for only
$30,000 and grossed $140 million. Berlinger said that he wanted to
temper the commercial disposition of the sequel by infusing the
film with certain ideas.
“What could’ve been a purely commercial movie does
make some attempt to be a movie that honors the documentary
tradition that I come from without relying on production
technique,” Berlinger said.
While “The Blair Witch Project” gained momentum
through the Internet and was marketed as a real documentary,
Berlinger did not want to repeat the original film’s
strategy.
“To ask audiences to once again suspend their disbelief, I
just thought was unrealistic,” he said.
Berlinger went on to explain that the best way to honor a
successful independent film like “The Blair Witch
Project,” which came from nowhere and exploded onto the
scene, would be to not compete with or imitate it.
The result is what Berlinger calls an anti-sequel.
“None of the characters from the first movie appear in the
second, the story isn’t continued but rather is commented
upon,” he said. “And at the end of the movie I question
the very validity of the mythology of the Blair Witch.”
With a different cinematic approach and style than the original,
Donovan said that people who see “Book of Shadows” will
be satisfied that it didn’t try to follow in the footsteps of
the first one.
“We want to empower the audience rather than spoon feed
them, so that they walk away with their own fears, which are far
scarier than anything we can give them, and with their own
interpretation of the ending,” Donovan said.
He explained that the ending of the sequel is unexpected and
slightly ambiguous, saying more about “The Blair Witch”
phenomenon than the Blair Witch mythology itself.
“I want you to be able to walk out of this movie theater
and say, “˜Well, is media controlling our perception or are we
perceiving what the media never intends?'” Donovan
said. “Just starting that dialogue is the most important part
of this movie.”
FILM: “Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2″ is now
playing in theaters nationwide.