In order to research a book called Blair Witch: Hysteria Or History, five 'teenagers' in a van go looking for ghosts in the woods near Burkittsville. The group includes a tall, attractive redhead, a short, unattractive brunette, a handsome hero/leader and a scruffy beatnik, but it's not just the characters who bring Mystery Incorporated to mind. When Cartoon Network commissioned a 10-minute parody called The Scooby Doo Project in 1999, nobody expected to see the 'joke' expanded to feature length, but that's what Book Of Shadow sets out to do. When our heroes arrive in Burkittsville, a Sinister Town With A Dark Past, they immediately meet some Creepy Locals as well as Sheriff Cravens, one of those yee-haw caricatures whose idea of law enforcement is telling damn fool kids to mind their business. When the group goes into the woods to tell campfire stories, the filmmakers missed a trick by not having Cravens jump out at them dressed as the Blair Witch, which would've made more narrative sense than the climactic revelation that they each committed a murder they don't remember - just like a character in L. Ron Hubbard's novel Fear, in fact. Stealing your main characters and setting from Scooby Doo is one thing, but plagiarising the father of Scientology? That's just desperate.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
