Al Weisel
The Witch Is Back: Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2
By Al Weisel
Premiere, November 2000, pp. 65-68
How do you follow up a movie that was both the highest-grossing independent film in history and the victim of a backlash from moviegoers who thought it didn't live up to its hype? And should you even bother trying?
Those were the questions facing Artisan Entertainment after The Blair Witch Project, made for $30,000 and bought at Sundance for $1 million, unexpectedly raked in $41 million at the box office in the summer of '99. The film's "found footage," depicting the disappearance of three filmmakers in the woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland-along with an ingenious marketing campaign that included a website and cable "documentary" treating the movie's events as a true story-turned the no-budget thriller into a sensation. But after hearing from critics that The Blair Witch Project was "the scariest movie ever made," some left the theater suffering not only from motion sickness (due to the shaky handheld photography) but also from acute disappointment that the film lacked a traditionally terrifying payoff.
So a sequel could well be a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't affair. Those who loved the original's stripped-down, character-driven suspense might feel it was impossible to repeat that kind of serendipity. And those who left the theater underwhelmed might not be lining up again. "There's a challenge out there for us because of the success of the first one," Artisan CEO Amir Malin says. "The key is getting people who said 'I came out of there dizzy' or 'It was a letdown at the end' to come back to see Blair Witch 2 and understand that it is a unique experience."
Artisan felt that the sequel had to be released in 2000 to "capture the moment," Malin says, but the directors of the original, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, were otherwise committed to a romantic comedy, of all things, called Heart of Love. So with their blessing, the studio asked Joe Berlinger, co-director (with Bruce Sinofsky) of the documentaries Brother's Keeper and Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills, to helm the sequel to their faux documentary. Although Berlinger had never directed a fictional film before, his selection was particularly apt because he and Sinofsky are known for employing dramatic techniques (and it has even been alleged that they have manipulated some of their facts and interview subjects). "From a stylistic point of view," Malin says, "when you look at Joe's other films, they are documentaries, but they're told in a storytelling, fictionalized style. [Myrick and Sanchez] thought he was an inspired choice."
For his part, Berlinger says he felt strongly that "everything [in the sequel] had to be different from the first film. I didn't think America would be fooled twice." He rejected the three scripts Artisan sent him and wrote one of his own, with Dick Beebe (House on Haunted Hill). As with the original film, unknown actors (Jeff Donovan, Erica Leerhsen, Kim Director, Tristen Skyler, and Stephen Barker Turner, all of whom use their own first names in the movie) were hired to give the project a certain freshness, but otherwise, the sequel is a big departure, both visually and thematically. "I wanted to make this a beautifully shot film and blur fiction and reality in the themes," Berlinger says. "My way of [doing that] was to make a movie about the impact of the first film, instead of continuing the story and shaking the camera around."
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is the story of five people who were all affected by the first film in some way: Erica is a Wiccan who felt the movie disparaged witches; Stephen and Tristen are a couple writing a book about the Blair Witch; Kim is an obsessed goth fan of the first film; and Jeff is a Burkittsville resident who sees the phenomenon as a chance to make a quick buck. Jeff takes the other four on a tour to the house (now razed to its foundation) where the footage that constituted the first film was found. They all black out and wake up five hours later. As they struggle to learn what transpired during those lost hours, bits and pieces of which have been caught on videotape, frightening things begin to happen to them.
The film's title draws a connection to the Berlinger-Sinofsky documentary Paradise Lost, which is about three heavy metal-loving teens in a Bible-thumping Arkansas town who were accused of murdering three young boys in what appeared to be a satanic ritual. Book of Shadows the name of a tome about witchcraft that Damien Echols, one of the accused, had in his possession, and it was used against him in his trial. "Erica and Kim are [both loosely based on] Damien Echols," the director says.
Before shooting, Berlinger rehearsed for two weeks with the actors, all of whom had little experience (with the exception of Donovan, who appeared in Bait, with Jamie Foxx). "Joe has an interesting way of directing," Leerhsen says. "He doesn't care what you are pretending to do—he only wants to see the real thing. He treated me like I was a real witch. He would say, 'Erica, can you do something Wiccan here?'" Not only did Leerhsen have to bone up on witchcraft so that she could perform incantations on call, she had to jettison her modesty for the film's nude scenes. "I was very wary of doing them, but I knew they were essential to my character because she was the sort of person who would think nothing of dancing naked in the moonlight," she says. "I want that to be the way women feel about their bodies. But I don't, completely." It's difficult to watch those scenes, she says; "The nudity is used in such a creepy way. But I think it really works."
As filming progressed, Donovan says, relationships between the actors began to unravel, mirroring the situation in the movie. "It scared us. We were at each other's throats between takes." His attempt to lighten the mood at one point only made matters worse. "I tossed my keys to Tristen, and they almost hit her head and she lost it," he says. "And then I lost it. A beast came out." What was happening on the set was only part of the actors' stress. "Toward the end we were under such intense pressure, not just because of the roles but [because] we knew the film was coming to a climax and that the whole franchise rested on us," Donovan says.
Berlinger relied on his documentary roots to get him through the ups and downs, as well as the occasional moments of improv. (Unlike the first film, this production followed a script quite closely.) "A verité filmmaker has to show up in a situation and assess what to cover, and go with the flow. Because I am used to that, spontaneity and changeability don't freak me out." One area where his experience didn't give him the boost he'd expected was in dealing with the citizens of Burkittsville, many of whom were upset with the notoriety the first film brought to their burg. "With my background of coming to small towns and winning people over, I assumed I could go in holding an olive branch and convince people to let us film there," Berlinger says. He ended up shooting most of the film nearby, outside the town.
The movie "plays with the idea of whether the contents of video are real or manipulated," Berlinger says. "We as a culture embrace amateur video as truth, and I think there's a danger to that." (This, of course, is exactly why the shaky-cam video of the first Blair Witch struck a nerve with viewers, some of whom thought the story was real. "Even if they thought it was fake," Berlinger notes, "people went to Burkittsville because they thought there must be some truth to the legend.")
From the beginning, the director was acutely aware of the backlash against the original film. "I didn't think it was all that scary, either," he says, although he found it "disturbing." Whether the sequel would provide the thrills some found missing from the first has been the subject of "a lot of discussion," Berlinger admits. "I don't think this is a jump-out-of-your-seat horror movie. It's more of a psychological thriller that's very disturbing and edgy. One of the issues I've had with the studio is that I'm concerned that if it's marketed as a jump-out-of-your-seat horror movie, people will be disappointed." He points to an optical effect of a demonic girl suddenly popping up and then disappearing, a visual that was added to a rough assemblage of sequel scenes Artisan showed early on to the press. "I have no idea why they chose to do that," he says. "That is not in my footage. When I saw it, I was really upset." Amorette Jones, Artisan's executive vice-president of worldwide marketing, says the unfinished visual was included "to reveal some special effects to the press. Joe signed off on it with the caveat that we make it clear it wouldn't look like this in the final version." But she adds that in the final cut the scene "doesn't look [any] more or less horrific. The image alone is horrific. The film Joe delivered has psychological terror elements but also very scary components."
"We didn't sit down and say, 'Hey, the first wasn't horrific enough and we've got to address that in the second,'" Malin says. "Once you go down that path, you are creating a derivative product. [Then] the audience is in control, and to a great extent, moviegoers can't explain what they want to see. They can only explain what they like after they've experienced it."
Of course, both Artisan and the original filmmakers, Myrick and Sanchez, have a lot riding on the public's liking Book of Shadows. Artisan is planning an initial public offering in November, shortly after the sequel's release. And Myrick and Sanchez, who are executive-producing the sequel (and who "kept a respectful distance," Berlinger says), are on board to eventually direct a prequel based on one of the legends referred to in the first film. But, Malin admits, "Obviously Blair Witch 2 has to be successful for us to continue with this franchise. Right now our plans are to do the prequel, but a lot will be told with the reaction to Blair Witch 2." Thus Artisan is revving up its mighty hype machine again, hoping to cast the same spell over moviegoers with the film's website (which delves further into the backstory), two documentaries, three books, computer games, and even action figures designed by Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. "You always have people in the business saying that independents can't get a film to $50 or $70 or $100 million, and I think we proved that we can," Malin says. "We're probably better than most people at getting to a certain audience."
Still, he knows that "Blair Witch is not a traditional genre film. It does not fit into the model of Scream or Friday the 13th." And while this may make it "refreshing," it probably makes a sequel harder to sell. Berlinger himself harbors no illusions that the studio's job will be easy. "I think as many people will hate [Book of Shadows] as will love it," he says. "I hope people who liked the first movie will find something in this to enjoy, and I hope the people who were disappointed with the first movie will take a second chance. But I don't think it's going to be universally loved."■
Al Weisel is the co-author, with Larry Frascella, of Live Fast, Die Young: The Wild Ride of Making Rebel Without a Cause, being published in October 2005.