Shadow of the Blair Witch (2000)

Excellent but underrated film

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

This is the companion piece to CURSE OF THE BLAIR WITCH, another Sci-Fi channel "documentary" that was used to stir publicity about THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. This film was used to help promote BLAIR WITCH 2: BOOK OF SHADOWS. Like everything else in Blair Witch myth-making, this TV show uses verisimilitude to tease the audience into thinking that there is some fact behind what we are shown in the two movies.The boundaries between reality and fiction are blurred once again, and we have one of the "experts" telling us that this time, it's the "real thing." The myth-makers even poke fun at their own process of manufacturing reality by having character point out how we can be induced to believe what we want to believe.The reality of the Blair Witch herself is an issue disputed in this show, thus making the viewer want to believe all the more that she not only exists but also has a significant role to play in what happens.BOOK OF SHADOWS, which is included in the title of the second movie, was supposedly a movie that chief suspect Jeff wanted to make. The number of murders and the identities of the other suspects are not revealed, thus teasing the viewer into seeing BLAIR WITCH 2 to find out who did what to whom. We get a play within a play within a play by having the supposedly real people appear and then showing the viewer the actors who play these people in BLAIR WITCH 2.This show is an interesting comment on "cyber-stalking" and the madness of a society that produces mass suicides like Heaven's Gate and mass murderers like Hitler, Son of Sam, and Charles Manson. Once again I was reminded of Orson Welles' point in his famous WAR OF THE WORLDS broadcast -- namely, to illustrate how powerful and dangerous the media are. The principle is the same, but now instead of radio, we have the internet, TV, and movies to create myths that people begin to believe or want to believe.

The Sci-Fi Channel's SHADOW OF THE BLAIR WITCH purports to delve into the "true" case that inspired the film BOOK OF SHADOWS: BLAIR WITCH 2. Using convincingly faked police file footage and interviews with "experts," "law enforcement officials," and even "families of the victims," SOTBW looks at how accused killer Jeff Patterson became obsessed with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999). Footage from both films enhance the show's realism, as does the use of different actors for the "real" characters. I'm sure that SOTBW has fooled almost as many people as 1999's CURSE OF THE BLAIR WITCH (also first aired on SFC).