Film Theory: Blair Witch's SECRET KILLERS! (Blair Witch Project)

I just want to apologize and say that I'm so so sorry for all of these theories I never meant to hurt anyone I never meant to offend anyone didn't mean to scare anyone so sorry I'm also really sorry that I didn't bring any Kleenex because my nose is running like a mofo right now so anyone who I've ever offended what was that hello Internet welcome to film theory the show that's like unsolved mysteries for the 21st century of things people haven't thought about since the late 90s let's talk about the Blair Witch Project since the 2016 sequel to the movie is currently either in theaters or has been forgotten by history as a bland horror cash-in by the time that you watch this video but the original was something special because it was one of the first movies that took advantage of the Internet as a viral marketing tool Blair which came out the age before you could use Snopes to reveal that all those memes Uncle Joe posts up on Facebook are made up so when Buzz started going around that this found footage movie was real found footage a lot of people were fooled some of the family members of the actors even got sympathy cards in the mail and you can't really blame them for being cool either the makers of the movie made a fake documentary about the disappearance of the actors and set up websites with information about the names and places they made up for the movie I'm here today to clear things up once and for all tell you that not only is the Blair Witch Project to work of fiction but that the Blair Witch herself is a fiction within that fiction Thrones movie were led to believe that these young filmmakers Josh Heather and Mike are being terrorized by some evil force in the woods bazoom ibly the Blair Witch but after studying the evidence it becomes clear that none of the events are actually supernatural nope the whole thing is just a setup for the two guys Josh and Mike to murder Heather I know I know that is a huge claim to make and I'm sure that a lot of you don't believe me but let me lay down the evidence so you can judge for yourself it's been a couple years since you've seen the Blair Witch Project here's a refresher Heather is film maker looking to do a documentary on the mysterious urban legends surrounding the town of Burkittsville Maryland formerly named Blair she recruits her friend Josh to run the camera Josh brings along his friend Mike to handle sound now Heather and Mike have never met before as evidenced by Heather saying I guess when we see the first shots of him leaving his house this is confirmed by Heather's journal released in its entirety online as part of that viral marketing campaign we're on page 2 she mentions not knowing him meanwhile were never quite clear on the relationship between Josh and Heather sure the movie reveals that Josh and Heather definitely know each other but there's a little more to it than that the initial concept for the movie had Josh as Heather's ex-boyfriend and even though that didn't really make it into the events that we see on-screen Heather's diary does give us some hints about their history on page 13 as they prep to go into the woods she writes quote Josh doesn't listen to me at all and he's supposed to be my friend Mike is more respectful and I don't know dick about him a few days later early on in their trip into the woods she writes on page 16 Josh well josh is always a surprise so displayed thinking their friends clearly Josh isn't agonistic to Heather even before they're out to the woods and things start to go wrong and to make matters stranger neither Mike nor Josh is getting paid for their work on the movie it's never mentioned in the movie itself but Heather's diary fills in the details on both page 12 and on page 20 these guys are working for free on a movie that will have them hiking deep into the wilderness in the cold and rain all while carrying heavy film equipment remember this was set in 1994 faint filming this thing on their iPhones and it's not like Heather is some brilliant director many of whom remain either on this hill or in the town below maybe josh is doing it because he's a friend but Mike spending a week with a stranger pro bono it's just odd because some of the things Josh says on the first day of the shoot are just uncomfortable so we all like cut our fingers open and bleed on it ha ha ha cool joke bro yeah let's let's all bleed on the clapboard but assume for a minute josh did want to kill Heather for some reason Heather says on tape so this project definitely gives them the opportunity and in order to pull it off without getting caught he enlists Mike for help but obviously that's speculation we need some evidence to incriminate Mike and Josh and their behavior on tape gives us some pretty big red flags first Heather is the one who plans the whole excursion and based off Mike's admission that the map looks like Greek to him this is Greek to me we would expect Heather to be leading the way but in almost every shot Mike and Josh are walking ahead of her guiding the group as if they already know where they're going and that's just the tip of the iceberg a huge chunk in the middle of the movie is dedicated to arguing over their map Matt Matt Matt Matt man a sequence that gets made fun of by everyone from cinemasins to honest trailers because of how long it goes on however if you track the chain of events in the map hand offs you see that something here is definitely not right let me walk you through it the group is successfully filmed that their to desired location Xander headed back to the car Heather begins to use the map to guide them along the shortest possible route back to where they parked however Mike and Josh start to cause a commotion over nothing looking the same as when they first hiked out I don't remember a portion of this one as Heather correctly explains that was the most direct way to hit our two locations now this is the most draft way back to the car and it makes logical sense it's simple geometry point one point two hypotenuse according to Heather they're about two hours away from the car and she remains confident that they can get there yet it's the guys who are unsatisfied outright refusing to walk Josh then demands to see the math now we don't see the handoff as they cut to them camping for the night but the next morning the map has gone missing with Heather convinced that she gave it to Josh saying it over and over I gave you back the map Heather I gave you back the map josh of course denies it and yet based on the footage we saw from the night before josh was the most likely person to last have it based on him demanding to see it over and over give me the map after give me the map but the map gone tensions are obviously high and despite Heather trying to get them to continue moving in the direction they were headed it's a Mike mr. it's all Greek to me who determines which way they'll walk I who up to this point has shown no enthusiasm for guiding the team it's another odd decision so now consider the following you're lost in the woods for days with strange noises happening at night and no map despite all of this shortly after the map blow up Mike and Josh start joking around like nothing happened can we keep going please an emotional shift so unwarranted and so abrupt Heather takes notice and get suspicious specifically calling out not you learn to get to the car and this just seems like you guys are having just a little bit too much fun tonight they jump forward a few minutes and we have Mike revealing that he kicked the map into the creek what what but will everyone in the movie and in the audience are thinking what a dumb move that it's the logistics of this that are really telling Mike is not the map guy as we hear repeatedly through the movie it's heather who keeps the map in her back pocket at all times not too much happier than have to wait a second so there are only two ways he could have gotten the map one stolen it from Heather's back pocket in the middle of the night where she keeps it or two gotten it from Josh after he knowingly kept it during the last map check option one comes with a bunch of implications we'll talk about in a minute an option two would mean that Heather was right the map was in Josh's possession and Josh is just lying to her face about it it also means that Josh is complicit in losing the map but there are two last huge details from this section before we move on as soon as the map goes missing Heather demands the compass who has the compass right and before Heather can hold on to it Josh immediately demands it away from her in other words their only other navigational tool is constantly controlled by and manipulated by the two guys and not Heather and has one last nail in the coffin the three had also decided to just head south following the creek until they hit something if years of watching man vs. wild has taught me anything it's a good plan it's probably one that Heather got out of the survivalist book that she had read prior to this trip the book that we see at the beginning of the movie and yet despite everyone agreeing to this plan that surely would work at a certain point at 40 to 22 in the movie the guys just stopped an alter course Heather asks why they changed up the plan and gets literally no response they just decided to and Heather has to be along for the ride again what we're seeing is the two guys subtly manipulating Heather to go in the direction that they want to go to lead her around the woods and scare her for a few days eventually leading her to the murder house hold on you might say sure Josh and Mike might be behaving strangely but what about all those supernatural things that are happening to them out in the woods and it's a good question except for one thing there aren't any supernatural things that happen out there in the woods one of the first big ones is the tent being surrounded by piles of stones when the group wakes up and breaks camp mouki rock piles but Heather herself admits after the first night that she sleeps so what's to prevent one of the guys from building a couple of stone piles in the night I mean later in the movie Josh full-on disappears without anyone in the tent noticing proving that someone can come and go at will in the middle of the night without much trouble speaking of leaving the tent in the middle of the night when else would Mike have gotten the opportunity to take the map and kick it into the creek the period between us knowing the map exists and the map going missing is a short window that takes place overnight what about that bundle of sticks that shows up later well it's just a bunch of sticks that you can build at home and sure it contains some hair clothes and teeth that are implied to be Josh's but it's not like they're doing DNA testing out there in the forests of Maryland if this was indeed a premeditated murder one of the guys could easily have brought those things along fun fact even for the movie itself all the production team did was ask for a few spare pulled teeth from a dentist it's just not that hard to get your hands on human teeth is what I'm saying heck I got a collection in my own house for reasons and how about those sounds at nights hello well it's worth mentioning that josh is the first to hear noises during night one one of them could have possibly been an Al but the other one was like a cackling yet does nothing to document them and no one else hears them it's also worth noting that at no point in the movie to the sounds remotely sound like a cackle and seriously if he had legitimately heard a cackle just outside of the tent in a haunted forest you think he'd be that chill I heard in my pants there's no way he's planting the idea of scary sounds into Heather's head for the sounds in the forest bleeder in the film remember that mike is the sound engineer so he'd definitely have the skills necessary to rig up a couple audio devices outside the tent even the compass could be tampered with if they had a few neodymium magnets and go figure what's commonly found in audio equipment like speakers and headphones neodymium magnets and who's the sound guy again oh yeah Mike the guy holding the compass not the only one who thinks something weird is going on here again Heather is suspicious of their behavior flames are looking alike the devil their job in her diary on pages 18 21 and 23 three times specifically calls out either how she doesn't believe that they're sleeping through the night or how surprised she is that they're able to sleep in the middle of all this scary life-threatening ghost stuff and she's 100% right it would be weird for anyone to sleep like that when their lives are on the line but they know it's not their lives on the line it's hers so unless they have to react to some spooky stuff to keep the illusion alive who can their Z's on she even gets so close to the truth making the important observation in her diary that the strange things only start to happen when she falls asleep what a coincidence that is still there probably some skeptics out there who don't believe that Josh and Mike killed Heather and for you I turn to the most damning evidence of all the ending it's pretty ambiguous so let's piece it together beat by beat Josh goes missing in a few nights later Heather and Mike here Josh's screams deep into the woods Mike who earlier has shown himself to avoid chasing after noises in the dark and has the strongest self-preservation instinct Michael are you saying you're not coming down I go down leads the charge out of the tent pushing Heather to hurry up and follow in in the pitch-black of the woods again it's Mike who sees the house and then a few seconds later goes inside without hesitating would Heather show some trepidation about going inside he yells at her come on in the house once inside he hears Josh's cries and Mike loudly shouts that he's headed upstairs to find him with Heather shortly behind at the top of the steps he stands there waiting it's only once Heather's upstairs that Mike quickly changes his mind determining that the sounds he's hearing are apparently from the basement and not the second floor loudly shouts out again that he's coming down the stairs then Russia's down this time without waiting for Heather and remember this is all happening in a completely dark house that mike has allegedly never seen before yet he finds the cellar staircase easily we see Mike go down into the basement and then the handheld camera is dropped as most people assume Mike is attacked by the witch from there Heather catches up sees Mike standing in the corner gets attacked her cell and drops her camera end of movie now this whole sequence is suspicious for a couple reasons Mike leading the charge at night is so outside of his character at this point especially charging into what is obviously a murder house hidden inside the forest he also seems very comfortable with the layout of said house even though it's completely dark and how could Mike mistake sounds coming from the basement as coming from the top floor and also why shout where you're going before you go there unless you're trying to signal where you're going to someone else but perhaps most suspicious of all if he truly got hit by something in the basement causing him to drop his camera why would he be well enough to stand in the corner and not respond when Heather calls his name in fact after decades of being tight-lipped about the end of the movie it's a detail one of the directors Eduardo Sanchez called out when he did an AMA on reddit when asked what really happened at the end Sanchez doesn't give a clear answer but remarks about Mike quote why wouldn't he turn to Heather screams seeming to imply that he has the ability to turn around and just chooses not to and it's a decision that would be difficult to explain until you consider it was part of Mike and Josh's plan they would lure Heather to the house get her to the top floor as far from the cellar as possible then Mike would create some separation by running away that buys them time where Mike can go stand in a corner that Heather can see from the bottom of the stairs distracting her and leaving her vulnerable to an attack from behind an attack by Josh blaming it on a supernatural force that uses Josh's voice to lure people around the house brings Mike downstairs hits him on the head possesses him to put him into the corner and stand there well it goes around to hide from Heather so it can hit her on the head murdering her and then going back and then killing Mike again is actually harder to believe a murder plot where the two guys are complicit is actually the simplest solution here but there is one final piece of evidence that points to not being supernatural forces and that's the existence of the movie itself the fact that the trio's footage was found indicates that people made it into the woods found the murder house and got back home safely without being accosted by any supernatural beings Blair which seems oddly selective about protecting her forest no no she was an excuse for two young men to team up scare and eventually kill a girl and be thought dead giving them the perfect escape for the perfect plan but hey that's just a theory a film theory and cuts I dare you to click on the Blair Witch stick man hanging in front of you to subscribe for more creepy theories just in time for October I'm working on everything from the ring salad fingers so prepare your pumpkin spiced flavored food curl up under a good blanket next to the fire and get ready for a scary holiday season click now bot you know what else is scary stupidity that's why you should also click right here to visit the wisecrack channel they've used education with humor to kill off the Blair Witch of stupidity alright so that's a really force metaphor just go and check them out they'll be research a lot of episodes that you see here so if you like film theory there's a good likelihood that you're gonna have a scary good time over on their channel if you haven't checked them out yet carpe that diem my friends seize the day so if you'll excuse me we've had a lot of serious theories lately it's time to do something fun for a change more on that in a week

Channel: The Film Theorists

Views: 9,954,001

Rating: 4.9183068 out of 5

Keywords: Blair Witch, blair witch project, the blair witch, the blair witch project, blair witch sequel, horror, horror film, film theory, film theorists, film theory matpat, matpat, matthew Patrick, matpatgt, secret, hidden, uncovered, killer, killers

Id: YASj8IuQ_Yw

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 16 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Jontino]

This is definitely one of the better theories that MatPat has made. My only issue is how overly complicated the whole murder situation is. Heather makes it very clear that "Nobody knows we're out here", why not just kill her early within the trip? Why go through all the trouble to set up an elaborate scheme just to kill her and even so, why not destroy all the footage after killing her?

My theory is this, Heather introduces her idea of the film to Josh who seemingly agrees to help her. When Josh talks to Mike, he tells him the idea for the film and the two scheme to steal the film concept and claim the project as their own. To prevent Heather telling the truth about the project to everyone, they kill her throughout filming, whilst everyone else is believing she's just an actor.

Think about it, a lot of the actions they take are oddly overdramatic for the situation at hand. Not responding at all when asked why they changed the plan is just one example. Some would say that this is a result of the witch "corrupting them", but it's not hard to believe they're adding extra drama to the film they plan on stealing.

[u/ZepherusYT]

Hey, this is pretty damn good! Pleasantly surprised.

[u/Mads_K_R]

This is really good and gives a great spin to the movie and it's quite convincing. Keep up the good work matpat

[u/Oster]

It's hard getting friends to help you MOVE. It's much harder to convince a friend to kill an ex-girlfriend in an overly elaborate and dramatic way.

If you're Mike, how do you know that Josh isn't going to kill you in order to leave no witnesses?

What was the duo's plan afterwards? Remember the premise of the film is that none of these people were ever seen again. Did Josh convincingly have the resources to not only pay off Mike, but provide him with escape and the requisite paperwork to establish a new life? A proposal so alluring that Mike was willing to cut off all contact with his family forever and leave them grief-stricken, convinced he died in the woods for the rest of their lives?

And if Josh has such good underworld connections that he can get a fake passport, drivers license, birth certificate and millions of dollars for Mike: Why doesn't he just pay an underworld hitman to murder her? Or shit, find a tweaker to ice her for 10k and a case of beer?

And of course neither Josh nor Mike could ever again use the skills they were trained for: the film industry. Because after all, people in the film business would've heard about the death of film students and would recognize them. They're agreeing to reset their lives hard.

Furthermore if Josh did have that kind of money, did he realistically have the means to squirrel away enough money for himself after he disappeared? He certainly isn't going to be near his hypothetically rich family anytime afterward.

And why risk doing it where Heather can escape? Say she woke up early one morning after the boys had crashed from setting up spooky props around the camp. Heather says to herself: "Fuck it," And walks away to find safety. What then? Why not kill her immediately?

Or what if Heather escaped after she knew they wanted to kill her? There were only two 90's camera lights in that basement. It was poorly lit. Josh could've easily missed his swing, or only hit her arm, leaving her free to run up the stairs and disappear into the night. Those old camera lights didn't exactly light up the forest. She could have run away to civilization. She could've run away at any point that the house was in play.

And why do it at the place people knew they were going? Everyone in town knew they were investigating the Blair Witch, and therefore had enough knowledge to find the poorly buried cameras and film.

[u/SandtheB]

That... that.... or a wizard did it... which I think is far more senceable.

[u/Lord_Parbr]

Now this is the kind of game/film theory I like to see. For one thing, it isn't a question that the source material ALREADY brought up and discussed, itself(Neville is the Chosen One.), all the facts fit, there's actually a mystery to solve, and it makes the film better.