Here's my proviso: I saw this movie twice. As I was walking out of the theatre the first time, I heard a couple of rednecks say, "That movie sucked." What they missed was that the movie was a joke at their expense. And that's what makes it so great in my eyes.
Released in October of 2000, Book of Shadows is, of course, the sequel to The Blair Witch Project, but it's a completely different kind of movie. It is shot like a traditional horror movie, without the gritty realism of the shaky camera or the hysterical Heather Donahue. No, there are other factors at work in this movie.
The more I think about it, the more I think this movie is comedy genius. But note that this review may spoil the movie for you if you haven't seen it, and even if you don't think you want to see it, I recommend that you go anyway.
The movie opens as an obvious parody of The Blair Witch Project, with a documentary crew filming residents of Burkittsville, MD talking about the town's newfound popularity. Then it switches to some really creepy scenes of Jeff, one of the main characters, and his experience in an asylum.
(Although not explained within the movie, Jeff was in the "hospital" because he had abducted a little girl and took her into the Black Hills for a few days, for no apparent reason. These Blair Witch movies are so cool because a lot of work was done to develop backgrounds for the characters.)
After the asylum scenes, there are some really cheesy "getting-to-know-you" scenes where all of the main characters meet each other. There's Jeff, of course, owner and operator of "The Blair Witch Hunt," a tour of the Black Woods. There's Steve and his girlfriend Tristen, the scholars who are researching the Blair Witch hysteria. Then there's Erica, the "Wiccan," who's taking the tour so that she can commune with the spirit of Elly Kedwards, the Blair Witch, who was "really an Earth Child," like Erica. And there's Kim, the goth hottie, who's taking the tour because she "thought the movie was cool." Oh, and by the way: Kim's a psychic.
Now, that's the lamest part of the movie. After that, there are some pretty creepy parts, with mediocre acting and a conventional horror movie structure, until the end, which has some really good acting. But most people will not like this movie. However, I think it's either a pretty lame movie (if it was made lame by accident) or an incredibly ingenious satire of the moviegoers themselves.
Let me explain.
The movie openly makes fun of the popularity of the original Blair Witch Project, and all the marketing opportunities which that film produced. Although Book of Shadows has different writers and directors than the original Blair Witch Project, it has the same producers and the go-ahead to invoke the original; so in effect, what they are saying to the moviegoers is, "You are a bunch of rubes, giving us the chance to capitalize on a low-budget indie film."
And then they make a sequel.
The sequel is, traditionally, the ultimate marketing ploy. The appearance of a sequel means that the producers have decided that they can still milk a little more revenue out of a premise. Now, if Book of Shadows is, in part at least, a satire of consumerism and the marketing hype which the first movie created, what better way to punch home the satire than by making a cheesy sequel to a movie whose memory would be tarnished by a sequel?
I mean, if you went to a movie called "Blair Witch 2" and you expected anything comparable to the original, you deserve to be disappointed.
And that kind of forethought is what made this movie great. The end of the movie actually has some pretty good acting, and not in spite of the eerily childish lines ("Steve, I'm not the witch!" "Yeah you are."). So it's not like the actors couldn't act – they can act pretty well, actually. It wasn't like the director didn't know what he was doing, either – some of the cinematography is quite good (like the shot of Kim eating the chicken wing, or the opening scenes of Jeff in the asylum). It's not like the movie was poorly written, either, because at the very beginning, and increasingly towards the end of the movie, it's pretty well-written ("Fucking witch.") Although it used special effects, they were pretty weird, and weren't laid on too thick.
Book of Shadows (Blair Witch 2) is too self-aware, too ironic to be a mere grab for sequel profits, and too carefully organized. It begins with a satirical commentary on the consumer of post-release pop kitsch (licensed or otherwise). It segues into a more conventional horror narrative; and then uses that narrative as set-up for a burlesque ending.
It's a paradox: A lot of thought went into making it look like no thought went into it, and it shows! So why was this movie so cheesy?
Because you asked for it. | 
