The Blair Witch Project

Hi,

This is part of my ongoing Fright Fest 2026 series. You can find all my previous reviews here and the full list of upcoming films here. A reminder that I am discussing spoilers!

This is going out later than I intended because I've been caring for a pair of kittens, one of whom is a little sick at the moment. Say hello to the newest members of the household, Tillie and Zoe (formerly Right Twix and Left Twix, both fostered by the good folks at Stray By The Bay):

We adopted them yesterday, and they've been at my house for less than 24 hours but I already love them so much.

Okay back to talking about horror movies:

• I had an intrusive thought while watching The Blair Witch Project and it's probably going to sound stupid but I wanna just run with it and see where it goes. Namely: This film is about the impulse to vlog before vlogging ever existed.
• The film's conceit is that the characters (Heather, Mike and Josh) are shooting a documentary about the Blair Witch and inadvertently become the targets of an unseen supernatural evil (presumably the witch herself though the film leaves that ambiguous). At some point — and I don't know if I can even identify the exact spot — the footage changes from being about the external world to being about the filmmakers' own feelings, insecurities and paranoia. A "normal" person, upon realizing that things aren't quite right in the woods, would probably shut off the cameras, focus on survival and not engage in this kind of self-reflexive filmmaking. But Heather's need to record, capture and filter all her experiences through the camera means the film keeps rolling. As she says at one point: "It's all I fucking have left!" It makes some sense that she'd keep shooting, given that this documentary was her idea and she feels the need to justify putting herself and her friends in danger. But this is also what I imagine a traumatized livestreamer would say and do in her position: Keep recording, keep finding ways to create content, keep the camera on at all times because without that footage, who are you? Do you even really exist?
• Because of this, one of the ugliest and best moments of the film is when Josh, who is frustrated and tired of constantly being filmed, turns the camera back on Heather. It's an act of cruelty, not just because of his verbal taunting, but also because her fragile sense of self is premised on being the one behind the camera, the one who is in control of the situation (even though she's clearly not). Taking her camera away and forcing her to become merely the subject of someone else's film is brutal. (It's hard to feel very bad for her though.)
• I think it's easy for modern viewers to dismiss The Blair Witch Project as "not scary." (Oh, just some piles of rocks and bundles of sticks? How horrifying! The screen sometimes goes black and you hear weird noises? Yawn.) But what's eerie about the film doesn't really come from the "scares." I found the disintegration of the friend group, already fragile at the outset of their project, genuinely unnerving. You think you know someone but put them in the worst situation they've ever encountered and maybe you'll learn things about them you wish you didn't know.
• Then again maybe this is just what average film students are like.
• There's something unnerving about the film's sense of atmosphere that really gets inside your head — or at least, it got inside mine. I saw it last night and then woke up at 3 am, low-key freaked out by random noises in the house which were probably just the new kittens. (That doesn't normally happen to me and I absolutely attribute it to The Blair Witch Project.) Again, the film isn't really interested in trying to frighten you with scary images; it's here to stoke your paranoia about the things you can't see (and, crucially for the characters, can't capture on camera).
• I'd never seen the movie before. But it's so deeply embedded in pop culture that I had the ending, including the final shot in the basement, ruined for me a long time ago. I don't know if "ruined" is even the right word, but I've seen that image referenced and parodied to the point where I couldn't really enjoy the finale because I was anticipating "that shot." I liked almost everything else though.
• Fright level: 6/10
• Enjoyment level: 8/10

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