In this movie the first movie was fake, and a local huckster is cashing in on the Blair Witch movie craze by selling tours to the credulous. Some of them bring - can you stand it - video cameras! But wait this time it's NOT fake. There probably really is a witch, and man does she dig messing with their tapes.

For those of you with hate issues against handheld found footage stuff I should mention that for the most part this is a regular camera-on-tripod movie, but they do look at one hell of a lot of video.

WHAT WAS THAT ON THE TAPE! YOU'RE THE WITCH! WHAT'S GOING ON! AAAAH! Yeah I know everybody hates it but I found its frantic attempts to be scary rather entertaining. I mean wow, this is like the most spine chilling schtick ever sledge-hammered into one movie. We have ghost witches, real witches, creepy fast-walking dead girl, phantom hounds, bloody nekkid group violence, drowned baby, traumatic flashbacks, flash forwards, flash sidewayses, weird stuff you see one minute and is gone when you look back, and of course every scary videotape gag you could possibly imagine in a hundred lifetimes. It basically busts the original movie up in a bag and beats you over the head with it. In fact the only horror prop not used here is a damn book of shadows. No idea what that's referring to.

I'm saying it's not exactly the most subtle or understated of films, but in spite of its reputation I think you could do a lot worse on a rummy all night horror binge. People who say this is one of the worst movies of all time have obviously not plumbed the murky depths of horror cinema. Hell this isn't even one of the worst sequels of all time.

I think folks hate it more for what it's not than what it is. The original was widely considered a triumph of low budget independent filmmaking that pulled off something new, whereas this is just another horror movie. It also commits the sin of voiding the original, which probably pissed off a lot of fans. I reckon you can't make a fake documentary about a fake documentary and be taken too seriously.

This movie was done by a whole different team than the original, which immediately screams cash grab. I have to wonder though how different the first movie would have been with a bigger budget. Would it have been better, or would it have been this? I'm of the cynical opinion that a lot of low budget movies seem better simply because the filmmakers didn't have the money to ruin them with big CG ghost boxing matches and such.

Which to be fair, do not occur in this movie. It's not stupid looking, and some of the characters are almost sort of likeable, and like I said, there's more scary stuff going on here than at a witch convention in Transylvania on Halloween. There's nothing to be hating all the hell out of in this movie. Give it a chance I say. Or don't, it's not that great.

In the special features we're invited to discover the secret of "esrever" (hint: use your Blair Witch Project fan club decoder ring to see what the mystery word is). I guess there are clues to some mind blowing secret that are only visible when viewed in reverse. I think I'll take a pass on watching the whole movie backward ten times looking for them, but y'all knock yourselves out.