into madness film'" and noted the studio's intervention in post-production: "In Book of Shadows, Berlinger took his hatred of the first movie's dishonesty and made an entire film out of it, commenting on the danger of blurring the line between fiction and reality. Had Artisan stayed out of the edit bay and let the man do his job, perhaps Book of Shadows could have been something truly special". Another retrospective published by Collider noted: "One can see interesting ideas about possession, filmmaking, and belief littered throughout, but the [film's] narrative is overworked to the point that no concept or storyline really gains much momentum". Accolades Home media Artisan Home Entertainment released Book of Shadows on VHS on February 20, 2001. Also on March 13, a double-sided DVD+CD package was released; the disc was marketed as being the "first ever DVD+CD". Side one (DVD) included the feature film along with audio commentaries, production notes, a live music video, and the "Secret of Esrever" featurette as bonus materials. Side 2 (CD) featured three tracks from the official soundtrack, as well as Carter Burwell's full musical score. Additionally, Artisan released a media package called "The Blair Witch Experience", which included the original film on DVD, the Book of Shadows DVD+CD, the three-piece Blair Witch PC game series, and a necklace of the stickman figures featured in the films. A Blu-ray version of the film has yet to be released in the United States. It has only received one in Spain, in a double feature with the first film. The disc debuted on September 30, 2020 in a VHS retro package. The disc only contains a handful of the extras found on the DVD. "The Secret of Esrever" Much like the first Blair Witch, Book of Shadows also featured a marketing gimmick, although this one centered on the film's video release, fully exploiting video technology. Both the DVD and VHS releases came with a featurette detailing "The Secret of Esrever" ("Esrever" is the word reverse spelled backwards), a number of near-subliminal messages in the form of hidden words and images that were placed throughout the film. The featurette encouraged viewers to watch certain scenes in reverse and/or frame-by-frame in order to decode the "secret", and, through scrambled letters flashed throughout the program, offered five clues to where they could be found: "door", "water", "mirror", "rug" and "grave". These images were not included in the