Purporting to be genuine – and terrifying – discovered footage of three missing filmmakers, The Blair Witch Project took the world by storm.Ģ0 years on, The Blair Witch Project sits with a somewhat complicated legacy. Two Child’s Plays, two Elm Streets, a pair of Halloweens and a third Alien had all come and gone by the time a strange little horror film made its earth-shattering debut in 1999. It was largely dominated by teen slasher flicks and their sequels ( The Faculty, Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer) or ropey followups to ‘80s horror classics. Horror in the 1990s wasn’t really the place to look for innovation. Two years later, their footage was released… and horror cinema changed forever… Either way, the mystery of the Blair Witch remains.In 1997, actors Heather Donaghue, Mike Williams, and Josh Leonard ventured into the woods of Burkittsville, Maryland to film a fake documentary about the legend of the Blair Witch. Or, it could just be a film to scare people from going into the woods.

Maybe, the entire message of the film is to say that the monster is usually those we trust the most. 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.Īlthough we may never know who the actual killer is in The Blair Witch Project, many theories point to Josh. 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. 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. Mike is in the corner, and only Heather’s screams are heard. Is the killer Josh? He’s the only one who isn’t seen or heard at the end. 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. As the screams get more blaring and deafening, the camera suddenly shuts off. Now Heather’s screams are in the distance, and the camera faces Mike, standing in the corner. At some point, and this is where the mystery lies, the camera changes perspective. As they enter the house, the screams get excruciating, and Heather is screaming Josh’s name. Who’s house is it? That is never explained, but the children’s handprints on the wall may indicate it is Parr's home. 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. One night, Heather and Mike wake up to Josh’s piercing screams from a distance, begging for help. After getting lost in the woods for days, unable to escape, they lose Josh. Throughout the film, Heather is behind the camera, documenting everything. 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? 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.

Blair witch project ending explained