Do Any of the Original Characters Come Back For Blair Witch? Well, It's Complicated

Warning: spoiler alert.

This month marks the official release of Blair Witch, a quite belated (but welcome) follow-up to 1999's The Blair Witch Project. You likely know the original story: legend tells of an old witch who haunts the woods near a small Maryland town called Burkittsville. A group of film students heads into the woods to learn the truth about the Blair Witch, and they're never seen again. All that remains is the disturbing footage of their journey. The sequel shares a similar story, except the main character, James, isn't really all that interested in finding the Blair Witch . . . he wants to find his sister, Heather, who helmed the original group in 1999. The question is, does he find her? If you're trying to avoid spoilers, this is the point where you might want to turn back.

Before we go into the encounter, let's establish everything that we've learned about that awful, nightmarish house that seems to be the witch's domain. The house of the Blair Witch seems to exist in another realm entirely. We know this because law enforcement officials were never able to locate the property, despite their best attempts and multiple meticulous combings of the Blake Hills Forest. Both teams only encounter the house after hours of lost wandering in the woods, after the power of the witch has manifested sharp and in wretched ways. At this point, it seems like the dreaded building materializes after all shreds of sanity have been abandoned. That's why, when James believes he sees his sister, Heather, wandering the rotting hallways, there's a good chance his experience is not real.

What happens, exactly? James approaches the house in pouring rain and believes he hears the shouts of his sister. He runs inside, frantically searching for her, and catches spare glimpses of a figure roaming the halls. He follows her upstairs and into a bedroom, where she seems to have vanished. Abruptly, his flashlight goes out. In the fleeting flashes of lightning, James sees her: a bedraggled woman who seems to hobble around and lunge at him intermittently. He seems to believe it's Heather.

We know this figure is not the witch as soon as the scene cuts back to the outside, where another character, Lisa, waits. She quickly realizes she's not alone, and as she turns her flashlight to the trees, we catch our first glimpse ever of the Blair Witch. The witch appears to be completely nude: her limbs are long, almost too long. Her skin is stark white. She lets out some sort of inhuman screech, and Lisa runs inside.

It begs the question: if the witch is outside with Lisa, who's on the second floor with James? Could it really be Heather?

The answer comes at the very end of the film. In the sequel, the witch's lore seems to have changed slightly, especially when it comes to the significance of corners. We learn that, if you stand in the corner and don't look at the witch, she won't kill you. She doesn't rip you to shreds until you turn around. In the final sequence, James stands in the corner, trying not to look. The witch imitates Heather's voice, though, in an attempt to make him look, and it works: he turns and suffers a grisly death seconds later.

Has Heather been trapped in this strange dimension all these years, slowly losing her humanity? I guess it's possible. What's more probable, though, is that James has already lost his mind by the time he enters the house. The Blair Witch seems to wield great power, and once you're under her spell, anything can happen. I, like James, was hoping Heather had somehow survived. But Heather Donahue (the original actress) doesn't even show up in the credits. And even if that woman in the bedroom is some strange, subhuman version of James's sister, she has to be an apparition at best. I think it's clear that the Blair Witch is not the kind of entity to spare a life. She shows no mercy.