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So I actually watched Blair Witch 2 last night, partly because I've always been meaning to in the back of my mind, and mostly because this thread reminded me of my desire to see it.
In all honesty, I was disappointed. I actually thought that the movie started off strong, showing "interviews" and clips from Conan and Leno talking about the Blair Witch phenomenon. I thought that going in the direction of Life After Blair Witch The Movie was a really brilliant idea. I really liked how the people in the town were capitalizing on the movie's success by selling rocks from their yards and giving fake Blair Witch tours and the whatnot. I thought that it was an interesting angle to take it.
Actually, I thought that the plot and characters were all fine (even the contrived "twist" at the end); I just think that there was a huge - HUGE flaw in the direction, editing, and sound choices. While some of you have mentioned that this movie was atmospheric, I felt as though it somehow sucked all of the mood out of any potentially creepy scene that there was. It was baffling to me; it's been a while since I've sat down at a film thinking, "I SHOULD feel this way, but this movie is just not successfully driving me to it."
Example: One of the "scarier" parts should be when the troop started to roll the footage they found from the site. I think that the footing was rolled back and forth so quickly, that there was no sense of dread built up as the audience is watching it played back. This should be a horrifying part of the film, but the dread did not impact me at all.
The acting wasn't that bad, though, and it was interesting to see Jeffrey Donovan (now of Burn Notice fame) portray the young filmmaker. That being said, the characters were definitely more caricatures ("The Witch," "The Goth"), and I think that they were more stereotypes than anything else, which bothered me, but I chose to ignore eventually.
So, honestly, I don't think that it's necessarily its tie to Blair Witch that really disappointed me in this film; if it had been pitched independent of BW, I would have feel the same way; it failed on a mood level and it failed in terms of creating characters that I actually cared about. This one gets a 2.5/5 from me.
It's interesting to hear from people who liked the film, though. Thanks for starting this thread, Flayed. Glad I finally got to see it. And I certainly hope that the original BW directors will be able to get around to another sequel, as they hope to at some point. I don't think that the BW myth is dead yet.
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