I was unimpressed with BoS when it was new, but I can appreciate for what it is now
When I first watched this movie, my initial impression was that it was a cheap, Hollywood cash grab sequel, quickly cobbled together to bank off the success of the first movie. I didn't know who Joe Berlinger was (although I would really come to appreciate his work with the Metallica doc) and I didn't know enough about the mythology to understand the subtle references to the first movie and subsequent documentaries. For example, I didn't know that the hospital scenes where Jeff is getting fed some liquid through is nose was a reference to the documentary about Kyle Brody. I just thought it was a gross out shock moment. I didn't catch the reference to Rustin Parr when Kim is in the store and the old guy looks at her and says "I'm finally finished" or later when she swerves off the road after seeing the seven children. When I first watched the movie, all of those moments just went over my head and I just shrugged all of it off as being pointless, "jump scare" moments.
Now when I watch the movie, I still don't think its great but I enjoy it a lot more now for what it is. It might be one of the most "meta" movies ever made, before people started using that term. I remember watching the Joe Berlinger commentary over the movie and him lamenting about how the producers ruined his vision for the film. He hated the random violence being spliced into the earlier parts of the movie, and I don't blame him. Those parts are really annoying. He had a really cool idea to make a movie that was self-referential but not copying of the first movie and that's not what Artisan/Lionsgate wanted. They wanted a movie like what we got in 2016. I'll get to that movie later down the line, but for now I'm interested in hearing what the group here has to say about BoS.