10 Horror Movies That Use Your Imagination Against You
3. The Blair Witch Project (1999)
Though it was by no means the first of its kind, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s The Blair Witch Project nevertheless popularised the found footage subgenre for the mainstream, paving the way for the likes of the Paranormal Activity series that would soon follow.
Bolstered by a clever marketing campaign that blurred the line between fact and fiction, the flick follows three student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael Williams) venture into the Black Hills Forest to document the titular witch said to inhabit the area.
Made on a budget of next to nothing, Myrick and Sanchez doubled down on the verisimilitude of their project by having the small cast film the scenes themselves. Consequently, the strange events depicted have a sense of believability to them which makes watching this film so unnerving – even if nothing particularly “scary” happens.
Rather, the terror resides in the unknown: what is leaving the ungodly artefacts outside their tents? What happens to Josh? And what is it that Heather runs from? Originally, we were supposed to see the figure of the witch in the latter example, but the camera didn’t get her in shot and viewers are left with all these unanswered questions.