The original Blair Witch Project was mainly a marketing triumph and remarkable as a film only because it was different, new.

The Blair Witch Project was heralded by an amazingly successful internet site which painted the movie as a documentary based on the found video tapes of three students who had been murdered in a forest by the mysterious Blair Witch.

It had its mostly young audience queuing for tickets. And then there was the buzz about the film's writers, two arse out of their pants film students. There were rumblings about the birth of a viable, alternative, film production culture.

It was wildly trumpeted that now you didn't need sixty million dollars minimum to make a hit film anymore. Move over big money and boring, big studio megaflops. A couple of kids with a few video cameras can do the job.

And then there were the millions of gullible people who believed for a while that the events in the film actually happened. They didn't manage to notice that the actors did still live, and hadn't been murdered by that nasty witch. It was pretty funny really.

But BW 1 wasn't that good. It was just different. There was a memorable feel and look about the movie, but hey it was boring.

Book Of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 is more ambitious, it's far from boring, and unlike BW 1, it actually has a script. But you have to go with the weirdness because BW 2 is all about perception, about how video can be manipulated and about how a Blair Witch can really stuff up your life.

Heaps of tortured souls and wounds appear and then without any logical explanation, whoof they're gone! And that's not the half of it. Blair Witch 2 becomes an indulgence for those amongst you who might enjoy allowing their imaginations to be manipulated; for shallow, cheap, exploitative visual tricks to trick your mind- sometimes that's great.

It's a bit strange, not scary, but hey, if you're touched up by a witch, well what would you expect. I'd stay out of that forest.

2 And A Half Distorted, Distressed Flys.