SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.Joshua is probably the first one attacked because he touches the rocks which serve as a warning to the crew to not proceed. It’s almost like the witch has told them they’ve gotten enough footage and that they can’t “prove” or assuage their concerns with even more knowledge. By trying to get that knowledge, the group pay for it with their lives. This is why the whole crew ends up suffering the price. They’re all complicit with Joshua. But Joshua gets his stuff slimed as a form of targeting due to this direct contact with the rocks.

This leads me to think that the group would be spared if they chose not to go past the rocks. If they had chosen to leave, they would get no more footage and would be unable to assuage any concerns about the supernatural. Technology would be unable able to solve and domesticate the mystical wild. By choosing to press forward, they’ve antagonized the uncivilized forces and suffer the ultimate penalty: they die and don’t even get meaningful knowledge as to the nature of what they were dealing with. In other words, their pursuits are literally meaningless. If they had just left, they would have gotten the same amount of knowledge.

This is why the last shot in the film is insult to injury. Heather just goes into the room, screams, and then she’s gone. The camera gives no information as to what has actually happened. The nature of the ending isn’t even related to the Blair Witch directly; it’s related to the story of another man who killed people in pairs. Because the worldbuilding is so ambiguous, the final sequence of events gives absolutely no coherent answer to build a full theory on. It’s a complete enigma. It’s just the “Blair Witch”, whatever that be, messing with us.