Instead the respected documentary filmmaker has made a horror film of his own. And despite his background, he's chosen to use little of the faux-documentary style of the first movie. Book of Shadows is more conventional than its predecessor, in both film technique and storytelling. But it's laced with just enough intelligence and originality to modestly recommend it. Book of Shadows opens in Burkittsville, Md., nearly overrun with tourists who've come to view the sites explored in the original Blair Witch Project .
Tours are available, along with T-shirts, miniature twig sculptures and other memorabilia.
They're distracted, because Tristen is expecting a baby. As part of the tour, the five spend a night together in the much-feared Black Hills, where the original murders occurred. Eventually, they apparently go to sleep or pass out, for none has a memory of five hours of the night. And in those five hours, horrors apparently happened that eventually trigger three murders. The latter half of the film takes place in an abandoned old warehouse that Jeff has taken over as an apartment and editing room.