What Does The Ending Of Blair Witch Really Mean?

What's The Deal With The Witch?

In the original film, all that was really known about the Blair Witch was that she was a 1700s myth of dubious believability. There was little elaboration and absolutely nothing shown.

Blair Witch gives a lot more. Turns out the Witch was indeed tormenting the people of Blair centuries ago, until the townspeople revolted and hung her on a makeshift rack. Her spirit lived on, however, and after she murdered several townsfolk people fled, leaving a deserted settlement that was later repurposed as Burkittsville.

She now haunts the woods, a naked, gangly, heart-stopping presence barely glimpsed between the trees ensnaring anybody who dares stay the night in a deadly trap, with stick voodoo dolls, self-looping trails, strange infections, a transporting building and other telekinetic powers like toppling trees as if by lightening (there's also time travel, but that's so big it needs looking at by itself later). Biggest of all, she's so horrifically grotesque that simply looking at her will kill you instantaneously. This is how she gets Lisa and James at the end, playing on their fears to get them to turn around from that corner.

Crucially, she's also able to control victims into doing her bidding, something we see in the movie with Lane. What this means in context of the Coffin Rock massacre (where bodies were trussed up in a strange structure, then moved before officials arrived), is unclear, but it's likely it was her doing, either directly or by a controlled disciple.