Summary

• The Watchers explains the mysteries of the forest, trapping Mina and others, offering a satisfying explanation.
• The Watchers movie draws similarities to The Blair Witch Project with forest settings and supernatural elements.
• The concept of The Blair Witch being a Changeling like those in The Watchers would have changed the film drastically.

The Watchers fully explained the mysteries of the forest and why Mina (Dakota Fanning) and the rest couldn’t escape, and this could offer a satisfying explanation for the biggest mystery of a 25-year-old horror classic. 2024 has a variety of horror movies coming up, and among them is The Watchers, directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan in her directorial debut. The Watchers is based on the 2022 novel of the same name by A.M. Shine and follows American immigrant Mina, who works in a pet shop in Ireland. One day, she’s asked to deliver a bird, but she becomes stranded in a vast forest.

Mina goes into the forest to find help but soon realizes she’s trapped and there’s a lot more to the forest than it seems. Mina comes across an old woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouéré) who takes her to her bunker-like shelter with two other occupants. There, Mina learns there’s a dangerous group of creatures they call “Watchers” in the forest who come out at night and observe them through the bunker’s mirrored glass. Despite being its own story, The Watchers is very similar to a horror classic from the 1990s, and could even explain its biggest mystery.

The Watchers Has Similarities To The Blair Witch Project

The Watchers Is Reminiscent Of The Blair Witch Project In Different Ways

In 1999, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez took the world by surprise with legend of the Blair Witch. However, it didn’t take long for the group to get lost in the woods and for tensions to rise as more and more strange things happened around them, culminating with their disappearance.

Both movies have their protagonists entering a forest where they can’t find the way out and seem to be trapped in some sort of loop, and it all gets worse at night.

The Blair Witch Project was a critical and commercial success, reviving the “found footage” style in horror and becoming a prime example of how the marketing of a movie can directly impact its success. The Blair Witch Project left a couple of questions that the audience has tried to answer for years, such as what truly happened to Heather, Mike, and Josh since they got lost and until their deaths, and what was truly in the woods haunting them. Now, despite their different stories, The Blair Witch Project and The Watchers have more in common than it might seem.

The main characters in both movies are haunted by a supernatural presence in the forest, which can replicate other people’s voices.

Both movies have their protagonists entering a forest where they can’t find the way out and seem to be trapped in some sort of loop, and it all gets worse at night. The main characters in both movies are haunted by a supernatural presence in the forest, which can replicate other people’s voices. In The Watchers, the Changelings or Faeries imitate humans, though not to perfection yet, and often imitate other people’s voices to lure their victims in. The same happened in The Blair Witch Project, especially when Mike and Heather heard Josh’s voice calling for help days after his mysterious disappearance.

The Blair Witch Might Have Not Been Real At All

The Witch’s Existence Has Been Debated

The witch might not have been real in The Blair Witch Project and, instead, it might have been a completely different creature, such as a Changeling/Faerie.

One of the biggest questions left by The Blair Witch Project is whether the witch was real or not. The witch is never shown in The Blair Witch Project, which has led to a variety of theories. Some of them suggest The Blair Witch Project showed the witch in its first minutes, while other popular theories claim that there was no witch at all, and Mike and Josh planned everything to get rid of Heather – however, that doesn’t explain some details, such as them seemingly being trapped in a geographical loop they couldn’t get out of.

The witch might not have been real in The Blair Witch Project and, instead, it might have been a completely different creature, such as a Changeling/Faerie. Surely, The Watchers’ creatures come from Irish folklore, but the ones in The Blair Witch Project can have their own background story while keeping the same powers and abilities as their Irish relatives.

How The Blair Witch Being A Changeling Changes The Movie

A Changeling Would Completely Change The Blair Witch Project

The Blair Witch being a Changeling would mean that Heather, Mike, and Josh had no way of making it out of the woods alive.

The Blair Witch being a Changeling like those in The Watchers would completely change The Blair Witch Project. First off, Heather, Mike, and Josh would have had absolutely no idea of the dangers they were about to face, and they would have been in even greater danger every night. The Blair Witch being a Changeling would also mean that Heather, Mike, and Josh had no way of making it out of the woods alive, and the fact that the Changelings can imitate other humans makes the whole experience more terrifying, as they wouldn’t have known who could be trusted and who was a Faerie in disguise.

This would also mean that Mike facing the wall might have actually been a Changeling who took Mike’s form, and had he turned around to face Heather and the camera, his face would’ve been terrifying to look at. The Blair Witch being a Changeling would actually make her stronger and more powerful, making the whole experience in The Blair Witch Project a lot more terrifying.