The ‘Blair Witch’ Gets In Your Head Thanks To A New Mystery Box (The NoPro Review)

Hunt A Killer Horror brings the “legend” home

In 1994, three college students filming a documentary disappeared in the woods outside of Burkittsville, Maryland.

In 1999, their footage was shared with the public at large, along with a host of forgotten legends surrounding the Black Hills Forest and the so-called “Blair Witch.”

None of this, of course, is real.

And, yet, despite two film sequels that failed to live up to the legacy of the original The Blair Witch Project and its groundbreaking marketing campaign, one which summoned an American folk tale out of whole cloth, the allure of the Blair Witch “legend” remains.

I should know. I was one of those people who was entranced by the initial appearance of the Blair Witch and its attendant books, TV special, and seemingly endless twisting mysteries, which seemed to have been waiting for us all to discover them. In the years since, I’ve kept an arm’s length distance from the attempted revivals until I’ve heard others’ reactions. The later movies are still unwatched. It’s a different relationship than what I have to, say Batman or Star Wars. I’ll dive right into the worst versions of those things on day one without a moment’s hesitation. I love it all.

But the Blair Witch mythology has this fragile sheen to it, a creepy glamour that I never want dispelled. To borrow a line from another 90’s paranormal standard: “I want to believe.”

Because Blair Witch isn’t just about three missing college kids, a woman named Elly Kedward, and a backwoods loner named Rustin Parr. It’s a tone. It’s the unshakable knowledge that something is out there, in the treeline, calling to those who can almost make out the words. It’s the feeling that something wrong is watching you because you don’t belong here. A doom that ensorcels the innocent and naive. That preys on whatever innocence and naivety is left in you.

Call it the Curse of the Blair Witch, if you will. It’s a feeling that the stewards of the storyworld keep chasing and, for the most part, keep not getting right.

And, yet, here on my desk, next to what some people would say are too many Baby Yoda’s and Westworld’s Man in Black, is a simple cardboard box that has trapped the spirit of the Blair Witch in its narrow confines. A collection of interview transcripts, publishing ephemera, and a high schooler’s unfinished journal. This is the first episode of Hunt A Killer’s Blair Witch series.

For those not familiar with Hunt A Killer — and this is my first go round — it is a subscription service that offers up episodic mysteries in the from of thin portfolios which arrive monthly. Each installment is around $30, a little less if you commit to the whole series at once. Inside the portfolio is a large manilla envelope worth of stuff. Mostly paper. Usually an object or two. It’s somewhat like getting part of an escape room shipped to you.

When I finally cracked open Blair Witch, I wasn’t disappointed. Sure, it was mostly paper-based — a pen and a charm bracelet were the attendant objects — but the graphic design was on point and the different paper stocks and sizes made it feel more like it was stuff, even if everything was freshly printed and didn’t have the kind of weathering that a high-end escape room would have gone to the trouble of doing — or had managed to achieve through lots of handling.

What sealed the deal was that the contents had a logic to them. There was an intro letter that laid out the details of the case and who I was in relation to them. Rosemary Kent has hired me to help find her missing son Liam. This is all she’s got to go on. The big get is Liam’s journal, but there are large gaps in the text. She’s a desperate widow in a small town trying to find her son at the edge of a notoriously haunted forrest. With that letter in hand, I knew what was expected of me and even cared a bit about Rosemary’s plight. That right there is more than I’ve gotten out of some online mysteries of late, and it goes to show that it doesn’t take much if you execute the details well enough.

Without giving anything away about the puzzle design, which likely wouldn’t shock those familiar with these boxes or mysteries in general, I will note that the designers of this first episode pull off a neat feat. Each time I peeled back a layer of the central puzzle, a little bit more of the supernatural element was folded into the mix. Much like the original Blair Witch Project, I found myself getting slowly creeped out by what I was uncovering. At points I would solve a [redacted] and groan out a little “oh no,” or find myself hoping that what I was [redacting] wasn’t going say what I thought it was going to say. And then it did and… here come the willies.

All in my head. All from words on a page. A dance between two messed up imaginations at a distance through a medium of cryptic codes.

Is there a better way to spend an October night? No. No, there isn’t.

Okay, maybe. But this year? No.

So, now you’re thinking: well, that all sounds amazing, but is it worth $30 or committing to the full $165 for the six month season or are you being hyperbolic with the whole “no better way to spend an October night” thing?

Let’s get down to it. This type of thing is clearly targeted to the “play an escape room a week” set. If you’re reading this, chances are you either know, or are, the kind of person who used to do that in the Before Times.

Hunt A Killer’s Blair Witch can provide part of that kind of thrill, at roughly the price for one player at a room, but obviously can’t bring the whole package a room does. As an experience for one, $30 is fairly pricey. It gets a little bit more sensible for two — there’s a reason why one of the onboarding questions (before you can try and buy into this service) is if you’re doing this as a “date night” thing, working out to $15 a head. You’ll plow through the puzzles faster, but some things certainly felt like they were made for someone with three hands.

The time I spent with the kit was some of the most focused and centered I’ve been all quarantine. That 95% of the experience is analog is a big part of that. Centering on something other than a screen for chunks of time spread out over two days and a couple of hours (you set your own pace) was a welcome relief. And while I was pulled away by other obligations, at no point did I find myself feeling the siren call of Twitter beckoning me into its cursed woods. Which happens all the time when I’m dealing with content delivered via laptop and mobile screens.

One thing is for sure: my fascination with the Blair Witch is back. Whether that manifests as more episodes of the Hunt A Killer series, a dive into the VR version of the recent indie game which comes to Quest this month, or time with that vidoe game on Game Pass I don’t yet know.

But something is waiting for us in those woods. I can feel it.

Just keep telling ourselves it isn’t real.

Hunt A Killer Horror: Blair Witch Episode One is now available. Monthly memberships are $30/month plus shipping. A pre-paid seasonal six-month membership is $165, and includes free shipping in the continental U.S.

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