Dick Beebe Movies

One of the most financially successful independent films of all time spawns a sequel that at once honors and confronts the pseudo-documentary style of the original in this follow-up to The Blair Witch Project. After The Blair Witch Project becomes a box-office smash, tourists begin to descend upon the small town of Burkittsville, MD, wanting to learn more about the truth and legend of the Blair Witch. Jeff Patterson is a local resident with a checkered past who sees a chance to make some fast money; he inaugurates "The Blair Witch Hunt," offering a tour of the woods where the ill-starred student filmmakers were lost. Four students from Boston sign up for the witch hunt, and end up spending the night camping near the home of notorious child murderer Rustin Parr. The next morning, they discover that they have no memory of a five-hour stretch of the previous night; as the day wears on, they realize they encountered something profoundly evil during their lost night in the woods, which has begun to manifest itself with a vengeance. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was the first dramatic feature directed by Joe Berlinger, who previously helmed the award-winning documentaries Brother's Keeper and Paradise Lost. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this remake of William Castle's campy 1958 classic, an eccentric millionaire named Steven Price invites a diverse group of people to a reputedly haunted mansion that was formerly the site of an insane asylum. Steven offers his guests $1,000,000 each if they can spend the entire night at the old house without fleeing in terror. It sounds simple enough, but when those stories about ghosts haunting the mansion turn out to be true, the guests may no longer opt to stick around. In this version, Steven is played by Geoffrey Rush, and his guests include Jeffrey Combs, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, and Bridgette Wilson; Famke Janssen plays Evelyn Price. Sadly, this remake does not feature the original's memorable special-effects gimmick, "Emergo," an inflatable plastic skeleton that rolled on wires through the theater during showings. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide