Joe Berlinger is a month away from the release of his first dramatic feature film, but he's not gearing up for the usual round of film festival screenings and promotional hustles. Instead, he's bracing for an onslaught of criticism.
"It seems like everyone is predisposed to hate this movie," says the 37-year-old director. "No matter what this ends up being, it seems like a good portion of the population is ready to complain about it."
Such is the dilemma when your first big movie happens to be the sequel to one of the most hyped and profitable horror hits in movie history. "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2," which opens Oct. 27, has already ignited a furious debate among movie buffs, who have unloaded on Internet bulletin boards with a torrent of snap judgments, furious rants and cries of sellout. Meanwhile, a teaser trailer released in theaters in June was reportedly greeted with scattered boos and popcorn pitched at screens.
Never mind that no one has actually seen the movie. "There's a huge backlash brewing," he concedes. "It's like coming out with 'Rocky Horror 2.' Following up on a cultural phenomenon is a very tricky business."
Some of that sourness is simply spillover from the original, the jittery little stunt of a picture that became a pop culture event, grossing $250 million worldwide, landing the creators and stars on the covers of Time and Newsweek, and inspiring a wave of lampoons and Digital-Beta imitators. While fans praised "The Blair Witch Project" for its originality, refreshing lack of gore and visceral depiction of fear, many moviegoers emerged feeling baffled, queasy or just plain ripped-off.
"I hear 'Blair Witch' was made with $30,000," Chris Rock joked at the MTV Movie Awards. "Someone's walking around with $29,000 in his pocket."
Even as they reveled in the receipts from the original, executives at Artisan Entertainment took those complaints to heart. When directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick bowed out of the sequel--the two are credited as executive producers on "Book of Shadows" while they work on a comedy titled "Heart of Love"--Artisan executives pondered several scenarios for the follow-up, most employing the same low-tech, shaky-cam trickery that made "Blair Witch" so startling.
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But in a choice typical of the inside-out logic that has guided the sequel, Artisan elected to be original by being conventional.
