10 Horror Movies That Changed The Industry Forever

3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Love it or hate it, The Blair Witch Project had a huge impact on both horror and the film industry as a whole. Nowadays, online marketing is key to building up hype for a movie and is integral to the films overall success, but The Blair Witch Project is widely thought to be the first film that was marketed primarily through the internet. By using fake police reports and interviews on The Blair Witch Project's official web site, the movies distributors managed to convince some audiences that the film was an actual documentary depicting real events. This generated widespread discussion online that increased the movies profile tenfold, far beyond what its small budget could have hoped for had it been marketed through more traditional means. The Blair Witch Project's found-footage style lent credibility to the film's promotion, but while many releases since have been inspired by the movie's success, not all of them have managed to convince audiences that the characters would actually film every single event happening around them. The found-footage style lends itself particularly well to the horror genre, but the influence of The Blair Witch Project's success has since extended to science fiction (Chronicle, Cloverfield), fantasy (Troll Hunter) and even comedy (Project X).