10 Found Footage Movies That Are Actually Worth Your Time

While it wasn't the movie that started the found footage genre - that distinction belongs to the disturbing and nauseatingly exploitative Cannibal Holocaust - The Blair Witch Project pushed this concept further into the mainstream.

The story is simple: A trio of college students venture out into the backwoods of Maryland to research the legend of "Blair Witch", which has been named the source of many mysterious kidnappings and murders over dozens of years.

Although the acting is downright abysmal for the first two-thirds of the movie - which is exactly what you should expect when you cast a group of unknown actors and try to sell folks on this being a real documentary - if you can get past the awkward sarcasm and painful ad libbing, there's an atmospheric tension that's as disorienting as it is terrifying.

You feel their fear. It's palpable and constant, and whatever flaws the movie has outside of that, they're not enough to diminish how genuinely terrifying the back third of the movie turns out to be.