The Blair Witch Project Was Secretly A Time Travel Story, Says One Theory
There's a video making the rounds on TikTok that posits "The Blair Witch Project" was secretly a time travel movie, and some of the arguments it makes are pretty convincing. The clip, which comes from an episode of The Confused Breakfast podcast, suggests that the movie's titular witch is essentially able to transport student filmmakers Heather (Rei Hance), Mike (Michael C. Williams), and Josh (Joshua Leonard) decades into the past once they enter the forests surrounding Burkittsville, Maryland.
"Many speculate the Blair Witch can actually manipulate time inside those woods," one of the hosts explains. "Once Josh, Mike, and Heather park their car and enter the woods, they're taken back in time to when Rustin Parr was still alive." According to Burkittsville legend, Parr was a hermit who murdered children in the 1940s under the Blair Witch's spell.
The theory would explain how the group was so easily lost. Upon entering the woods, despite their preparations, they can't find any sign of civilization. Not only can they not locate their car, they can't even find a road. A trip back in time would explain why their maps were no longer accurate and why they could never backtrack. We never see any clear signs of time hijinks in the movie, but as the podcasters point out, possibly the most compelling piece of evidence supporting this theory wasn't in the movie at all.
Where were the tapes found?
Not only was "The Blair Witch Project" a trailblazer in the modern found footage horror genre, but it was also a pioneer when it came to viral marketing. Before the film's release, a website was set up to plant the seed that the events of the film actually took place. The website stated that the resulting footage was found somehow buried "under the foundation of a 100-year-old cabin." The podcast offers this as further proof that temporal displacement is at play. "This can help support that they were basically back in time when the house was still intact," one of the hosts says.
However, this part of the theory falls apart a bit when you consider the already dilapidated state of the cabin at the movie's end. The house looks like it's already been abandoned for decades. And even if they were sent back in time and this is Parr's residence as it stood years ago, there's still the question as to how the crew's footage and belongings ended up underneath its foundations as opposed to within its ruins. But potential plotholes aside, the Witch's ability to bend time was basically confirmed in a 2016 sequel, simply titled "Blair Witch," which sees characters experiencing the passage of time at different rates once they enter the woods.
So while the time-travel theory is never explicitly confirmed in "The Blair Witch Project," its marketing material and sequel definitely imply that the Blair Witch can do a lot more than make spooky dolls out of sticks.