Unreleased director’s cuts have long been sought after by film enthusiasts, with the most recent success story being the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut campaign, which allowed Zack Snyder to finally finish his version of Justice League. This development encouraged fans to launch similar campaigns for other films, most notably director David Ayer’s cut of Suicide Squad (though no such release is planned). That said, quite possibly the holy grail of long-lost director’s cuts is Joe Berlinger’s original vision for Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.
Directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez, 1999’s The Blair Witch Project was a watershed moment for post-modern cinema. The film not only redefined the found-footage horror genre but set the bar for guerrilla marketing. In fact, part of what made Blair Witch such a cultural phenomenon was how it blurred the line between fiction and reality.
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Documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger wanted to deconstruct this aspect of The Blair Witch Project when he was tapped by Artisan Entertainment (now Lionsgate) to direct a sequel shortly after the release of the first film. However, the Blair Witch 2 that Artisan released in 2000 was very different from the one Berlinger initially set out to make, with the director discussing the various changes at length in the eventual DVD commentary.
Blair Witch 2 (not to be confused with 2016’s Blair Witch) is fairly bold in its premise, taking place in a world where the original Blair Witch Project is nothing more than a movie. It follows a group of people who are all interested in the film — albeit for different reasons — as they venture into the fabled Burkittsville woods. Following a booze and pot-induced blackout, the gang wakes up with no memory of the previous night and must consult their video footage in order to piece together its evidently horrific events.
Blair Witch 2 aimed to serve as a meta-commentary on the first film, acting as a cautionary tale of what can happen when blurring the line between fact and fiction goes too far. Berlinger originally envisioned the sequel as a descent into insanity that would begin with a jovial tone before progressively becoming more sinister as the story unfolds.
The film was also supposed to be deliberately nebulous, so the audience would be left wondering if the characters’ experience was solely the result of their shared delusion, or if something else was at work (as the infamous “Secret of Esrever” seemed to imply). However, the studio was unhappy with Berlinger’s original cut. In turn, it practically butchered the film before putting it back together with its own preferences in mind, creating a proverbial Frankenstein’s monster of conflicting ideas.
Artisan disliked the vagueness of Berlinger’s Blair Witch 2, as well as the film’s overall lack of blood and guts. So, it forced the director to shoot additional scenes to make the movie more marketable to horror fans, including a sequence where the main crew violently murders another tour group. This scene is fairly antithetical to everything Berlinger was trying to convey, and the additional photography as a whole highlights the rash nature of Artisan’s meddling, as it took place mere weeks before the film was scheduled to premiere.
Artisan also undercut Berlinger’s idea of a psychological horror film that lulls viewers into a false sense of security with an initially lighthearted tone. This is evident in the opening title sequence alone, in which the song “Witchcraft” by Frank Sinatra was replaced by “Disposable Teens” by Marilyn Manson.
Far more egregious, however, is the way the studio recut the film following the reshoots, eschewing the director’s linear narrative in favor of an anachronic approach. Scenes that were supposed to be saved for the movie’s final minutes were now spliced throughout its runtime, once again contradicting Berlinger’s vision of a slow and ambiguous spiral into madness. Non-linear movies can be effective, but Blair Witch 2 was intended to play out chronologically, so this new edit just made the final product needlessly confusing.
Had Berlinger’s version of Blair Witch 2 been released, the sequel could have been equally as daring as its predecessor. But by trying too hard to emulate The Blair Witch Project‘s commercial success, Artisan turned Book of Shadows into just another generic horror sequel. And seeing as how it came out in 2000, there weren’t exactly any viral Twitter campaigns to “#ReleaseTheBerlingerCut.” Meanwhile, more recent attempts on the director’s part to finally get his cut out there have unfortunately fallen on deaf ears.
The existing version of Blair Witch 2 isn’t entirely without merit. Berlinger’s expert direction and commentary on mass hysteria do shine through. One can definitely see a great movie buried beneath the surface, desperately trying to claw its way out. In fact, while Blair Witch 2 was initially panned upon its release, contemporary reviews look at it more favorably, often describing it as an underappreciated sequel. But while the movie is somewhat passable as is, it could — and should — have been so much more.
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