Curse of the Blair Witch (1999) is what writers refer to as "telling instead of showing." The point of this hour-long film is to blatantly tell the secret of the Blair witch's power: time travel.
This is also confirmed in the two later films; "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" and "Blair Witch (2016)." Even the titles of these subsequent films relates to time, where the subtitle "Book of Shadows" comes before the main title "Blair Witch 2" and "Blair Witch (2016)" intentionally lacks a chronological indicator.
Specific mentions of time travel from "Curse of the Blair Witch(1999):"
I'm not sure why it took me twenty-five years to realize "Curse of the Blair Witch(1999)" exists, but I'll take any shred of Blair witch lore I can get.
This is also confirmed in the two later films; "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" and "Blair Witch (2016)." Even the titles of these subsequent films relates to time, where the subtitle "Book of Shadows" comes before the main title "Blair Witch 2" and "Blair Witch (2016)" intentionally lacks a chronological indicator.
Specific mentions of time travel from "Curse of the Blair Witch(1999):"
- "Ellie is not very far from any of us at any time, and she chooses her time to appear."
- When describing the corpses found at Coffin Rock by the second search team, it was said that the smell of death remained in the air regardless that someone had removed the corpses. In reality, the corpses were still there, but Blair witch was manipulating time to hide the corpses from view.
- Finally we have the most blatant evidence of time travel: the backpack and associated gear belonging to Heather, Mike, and Josh hidden under two-hundred year old ruins. Also in this sequence, we see the timeless burned tree which exists in all of the films at all time periods.
I'm not sure why it took me twenty-five years to realize "Curse of the Blair Witch(1999)" exists, but I'll take any shred of Blair witch lore I can get.