Whenever I stop and find myself contemplating the original Blair Witch Project (something that doesn't seem to occur all that often), I almost always realize that my thoughts never seem to dwell on the actual movie itself. Because really, what made that novel, dirt-cheap, better-in-concept-than-execution horror film explode into an orgiastic pop culture triumph was all the creativity that went on outside of it. Directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick didn't come close to producing the most starkly terrifying film ever (still Jaws, hands down), yet their marketing campaign and use of the Internet was nothing short of genius. By going beyond the boundaries of the theater, by creating an entire web of fact and fiction that blurred the lines of reality, by making more than just a movie, Sanchez and Myrick truly delivered the first piece of 21st century filmmaking.

Blair Witch Project may have been riddled with flaws, but it was still one of the most unique films in years, so how can Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 possibly match that level of inventiveness? Well, the simple answer is that it doesn't even attempt to. Packaged and shipped barely a year after the original, BW2 is a painfully mediocre, decidedly unimaginative horror movie that does little more than ride the first Blair Witch's coattails and proves every bit as derivative as its predecessor was clever. The first mistake was in thinking that a workable sequel could even be produced-copying the "documentary" format of the original would simply be redundant and doing anything else would destroy the entire spirit of Blair Witch. But hey, when you can potentially make $30 million in a single weekend, why let something like quality stop you?

The producers, to their credit, made an intriguing move in selecting documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost) to helm the project. On paper, the choice is inspired-who better to tackle the pseudo-reality of the Blair Witch than a man who's spent his entire career grappling with the constructs of the non-fictional? But whatever documentary instincts Berlinger may have honed over the years can't help his script, co-written with Dick Beebe, which unfolds with all the imagination and genre-challenging of a "Tales From the Crypt" episode. The premise at least taps nicely into the vein of last summer's Blair Witch hysteria as a quintet of twentysomethings journey into the infamous woods of Burkitsville on a kind of "Blair Witch Reality Tour." The jolly crew includes Jeff, scruffy leader and ex-mental patient; Kim, resident goth chick; Stephen, aspiring writer on all things Blair Witch; Tristen, girlfriend of Stephen; and Erica, self-proclaimed witch.

Initially, Berlinger seems to understand that his best course of action is to straddle the thin line of hip irony and ride it until it breaks. The early scenes of BW2 are entirely self-aware and play like a wicked little horror satire, from the inspired opening montage to, even better, a group of awestruck foreign tourists that stare at the trees with wide-eyed wonder while babbling about Coffin Rock and little stick figures. These are the glimmers of the film I dearly wish Berlinger decided to pursue. Instead, he has his troupe camp out in the woods and, after a night of drunken revelry, awake to find their memory of the last five hours blank and their campsite, not to mention the movie, in complete disarray. The rest of the film degenerates into nonsensical hocus pocus as the rattled group retreats to Jeff's abandoned-factory-turned-electronic-haven and, one-by-one, succumb to delusion and paranoia. By this point, BW2 has long since abandoned any perceptible connection with its predecessor and has become closer in spirit to Sam Raimi's blood-spattered cult classic Evil Dead, minus the kinetic over-the-top flair that made that film such a guilty pleasure.

Like in the original Blair Witch Project, the characters share the same name as the actors who play them, but since there is no pretense that any of this is "real," then what's the point of the device? But then that's the main problem with Blair Witch 2-Berlinger wants to have his cake and eat it too. He tries too hard to force the aura of the first film into a regular narrative structure. The sequel tries to be like the first Blair Witch by not bothering to provide anything in the way of answers for what happened, but while the "found footage" gimmick in the original made the lack of explanation not only acceptable but chilling, in BW2 it just seems like lazy, frustrating storytelling. And for all the shots of bloody wounds and knives piercing flesh that are randomly spliced into the film, the proceedings aren't half as scary as the $5.25 the theater currently charges for a pepperoni pizza. The only thing the saves Blair Witch 2, besides Berlinger's admittedly handsome visuals, is the presence of Donovan and Leerhausen, two actors who seem to be playing characters in a cooler, scarier, and all around more clever movie than this one. Kim's astutely rendered, down-to-earth gothic gal and Jeff's laid-back techno slacker keep the lurching story afloat long after it should have sunk-it's just too bad that this uninspired sequel basically arrived D.O.A.

BOOK OF SHADOWS

directed by

Joe Berlinger

starring

Jeffrey Donovan

Erica Leerhausen

Artisan