2024 was our first Halloween on the road as full-time RVers, so we knew we wanted to do something special. For a few years now I’ve celebrated the whole month of October as Spooky Season and tried to do something fall or Halloween themed each day. This year, Halloween fell during our stay in northern Virginia near Washington DC. We had heard that DC is really into Halloween, but we’re not really party people. So we ended up deciding to head across the state line to Maryland to visit some of the most iconic horror film locations- the Blair Witch woods.
The Blair Witch Project was filmed in Maryland in two main places. The town of Burkittsville in the movie is a real town and that’s where they filmed the opening scenes and the cemetery. Most of the rest of the movie, the scenes in the fictional Black Hills Forest were shot in the real-life Seneca Creek State Park about an hour north.
I actually didn’t watch The Blair Witch Project for the first time until well into adulthood, but I remember the hype and how there were rumors of it being real. By modern horror standards, it’s definitely not scary, but I was able to put myself into the mindset of someone in 1999, seeing this in theatres after hearing that it was real found footage… and it would have been terrifying. The Blair Witch is truly a cornerstone of the horror genre and its influence is obvious in so many modern movies.
The Blair Witch filming locations aren’t actually in the main part of the state park, but are in a sub-unit at Black Rock Mill. It took some digging to find the best instructions for finding these spots. The state park actually does a yearly tour of the film sites, but we missed it. I did find a recorded video from when they skipped the tour for COVID, and that was really helpful. We found three identifiable sites from the Blair Witch Project- the red shed they drive by, where they interview the fishermen near the bridge, and coffin rock.
How to Find the Seneca Creek State Park Blair Witch Project Filming Locations
The parking area you’ll want to use is on Google Maps as “Seneca Ridge Trail at Black Rock Mill.” Black Rock Mill is an abandoned 1815 grist mill. Today, there are partial ruins of the mill still remaining. You can walk inside and there are some interpretive signs, so it’s definitely worth checking out while you’re here.
Just north of the parking area on Black Rock Road is the red shed that the crew drives past in the movie and across the street and a couple yards down is the area where they park their car.
Once you’ve parked, walk across the street and north over the bridge to reach the spot where Heather interviews the local fishermen. When we visited, the bridge was being worked on and covered with a tarp, but it’s still easily recognizable.
The hardest spot here to find was coffin rock. When we visited, we navigated to it using written directions, but apparently it’s now marked on Google Maps. To get to it, you’ll head across the street from the parking lot onto Seneca Ridge Trail. At some point, you’ll see an unofficial fisherman’s trail towards the creek. It’s pretty well-worn along the creek, so follow the creek until you get to Coffin Rock.
Even though we couldn’t identify any other spots in the woods as being from the movie, just knowing we were in the Blair Witch woods alone on Halloween gave the trip the perfect creepy atmosphere. We didn’t see anyone else there that day, and tromping through the woods alone off trail definitely had our senses heightened. This ended up being a really fun and unique Halloween afternoon and totally different than how we usually spend the holiday. Before RV life, we created a small home haunt every year and Halloween was a full month of working up to it and then a busy evening with sometimes over 100 people visiting. Spending the holiday with just the two of us was definitely weird, but I’m glad we found a special place to spend it.
Blair Witch Woods Video Tour
I also made a video of our Blair Witch adventure, filmed in an homage style, of course.
