Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is not a great movie, but I recently re-watched it and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
It helps a lot that I was growing up in the mid 90s to the mid 2000s and I actually saw this in cinema on release (convinced my parents to let me go to the cinema at the mall so I wouldn’t bug them while they were shopping).
I would say Book of Shadows is better than the 2016 reboot. It adds its own take on the formula.
Blair Witch 2 was the unfortunate victim of studio interference. I watched this fan edit years ago that brings it more in line with the director’s intentions, and the result was a very solid horror movie. Looks like there are some newer attempts on that site now I may need to try and find.
I’ve had great experiences with some fanedits (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant) to the point where I consider the fanedits to the canocial versions.
That being said, I thought the theatrical version of Book of Shadows was entertaining. Some of it is nostalgia bias, but I also watch a lot of new horror movies that many would consider unacceptablely low quality and I think they all right.
I remember watching Siskel and Ebert talking about DVDs when they first came out. They were fired up and saw a future where the raw media would come on the DVD and the version you watched could be influenced by an overlay. Like you could have “studio release”, “director’s cut” on the same disk, and even download fan edits (just directions for what to play in what order. A small text file) and watch those versions. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, but of course it didn’t take long for DVDs to get locked down and start forcing people to watch unskippable ads on the DVDs you bought.
Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is not a great movie, but I recently re-watched it and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.
It helps a lot that I was growing up in the mid 90s to the mid 2000s and I actually saw this in cinema on release (convinced my parents to let me go to the cinema at the mall so I wouldn’t bug them while they were shopping).
I would say Book of Shadows is better than the 2016 reboot. It adds its own take on the formula.
Blair Witch 2 was the unfortunate victim of studio interference. I watched this fan edit years ago that brings it more in line with the director’s intentions, and the result was a very solid horror movie. Looks like there are some newer attempts on that site now I may need to try and find.
Well have to check this out.
I’ve had great experiences with some fanedits (Prometheus, Alien: Covenant) to the point where I consider the fanedits to the canocial versions.
That being said, I thought the theatrical version of Book of Shadows was entertaining. Some of it is nostalgia bias, but I also watch a lot of new horror movies that many would consider unacceptablely low quality and I think they all right.
I remember watching Siskel and Ebert talking about DVDs when they first came out. They were fired up and saw a future where the raw media would come on the DVD and the version you watched could be influenced by an overlay. Like you could have “studio release”, “director’s cut” on the same disk, and even download fan edits (just directions for what to play in what order. A small text file) and watch those versions. I thought that was a pretty cool idea, but of course it didn’t take long for DVDs to get locked down and start forcing people to watch unskippable ads on the DVDs you bought.