Thanks to its revolutionary use of found-footage camera work, The Blair Witch Project is one of the most influential and spine-chilling horror films. It is said to be one of the first films to use this technique, skyrocketing a now almost overused subgenre in horror, as seen in films such as the Paranormal Activity franchise, Creep (2014), and Host (2020). Director and writers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez were groundbreaking in creating a genuinely terrifying classic. The Blair Witch Project’s ending shocked audiences; the protagonists screaming in terror from what they see, seemingly the Blair Witch, yet the audience never sees her face.
Who is the witch, and what type of monster is she? She is said to be the ghost of Elly Kedward, a woman who was banished from a small town in Maryland for being a witch in 1785. When three ambitious film students, Heather (Heather Donahue), Mike (Michael C. Williams), and Josh (Joshua Leonard), go to the small town to make a documentary on the urban legend, they get lost in the woods. The film’s infamous ending happens with the camera falling to the ground, focused on Mike standing in the corner with his back to the camera, before completely turning off.
Did the Blair Witch kill them? Is she the spirit of Keeward? Maybe it's Rustin Parr, a man whom the filmmakers learned about while interviewing the townspeople. He was known for kidnapping and killing children on the so-called “instructions” of the witch. So, is the witch an undeniable force somehow controlling the minds of people in the woods? A more petrifying thought is that maybe the monster is one of the students themselves.
The Blair Witch Project was released in a midnight screening on Saturday, January 23rd, 1999, at the Sundance Film Festival. The film is essential in horror cinematic history. It is said to be one of the first films to use the found-footage technique and market online. The marketing included a fabricated website with news reports, fake “Missing” advertisements, and listing the cast on the IMDB page as “missing; presumed dead.” Going into the screening, many believed this film was a true story, and everything they were about to see was factual.
The film begins with Heather, a young student just beyond excited to go into the woods to document this fun experiment. She has everything she needs: a book on how to survive the woods, a map of the woods, and a book on the witch. The three of them embark on a journey to a small town in Maryland called Burkittsville to interview the townspeople. They learn that 1. No one goes into those woods, and 2. Most of them believe that something sinister is happening there.
During the interviews, the students learn about a man named Rustin Parr who lived in those same woods in the 1940s. He claimed that the witch used mind-controlling abilities to force him to kidnap and kill seven children. Instead of taking this as a lesson to not go into the woods, this makes the students more enthralled.
The whole film is about these students trying to report on the Blair Witch, and at the end, when they are seemingly killed, all points to the witch who did the killing. The audience never sees the witch’s face, or who did the killing, so was the witch the monster of the film, or was it somebody else?
Throughout the film, Heather is behind the camera, documenting everything. After getting lost in the woods for days, unable to escape, they lose Josh. One night, Heather and Mike wake up to Josh’s piercing screams from a distance, begging for help.
Still holding the camera, Heather and Mike run through the woods in the middle of the night, with the audience and students not seeing anything besides the blinding lights flashing in the camera. Eventually, they stumble across a house. Who’s house is it? That is never explained, but the children’s handprints on the wall may indicate it is Parr's home. As they enter the house, the screams get excruciating, and Heather is screaming Josh’s name. At some point, and this is where the mystery lies, the camera changes perspective. Now Heather’s screams are in the distance, and the camera faces Mike, standing in the corner. As the screams get more blaring and deafening, the camera suddenly shuts off. While at first watch, the first thought that may cross one's mind is it has to be the Blair Witch committing the murders, right? This might not be the case.
Is the killer Josh? He’s the only one who isn’t seen or heard at the end. Mike is in the corner, and only Heather’s screams are heard. Was Mike in on this the whole time? Or was he innocent until entering the woods, getting controlled by the spirit of the witch, told to kill his friends? With Mike standing in the corner, almost dazed, it may suggest that he, too, is now being controlled by the Blair Witch.
The directors claimed that they were initially going to show the witch when interviewed for Bloody Disgusting in 2014: “​​so we were thinking maybe we could show somebody levitating or have arms coming out of the walls. I mean, we had no idea, but we didn’t want to betray the rest of the movie.” Would the film be as terrifying to viewers if this was the case? Maybe not.
Although we may never know who the actual killer is in The Blair Witch Project, many theories point to Josh. Maybe, the entire message of the film is to say that the monster is usually those we trust the most. Or, it could just be a film to scare people from going into the woods. Either way, the mystery of the Blair Witch remains.