10 Movies Everyone Remembers For The Stupidest Reasons

People in the past were dumb. They thought a train was coming at them in Train Pulling Into A Station. They ran fainting into the aisle during The Exorcist. And they actually believed The Blair Witch Project was real. We can't suggest the former is a tabloid-elaborated urban myth either (like that one about Charlie Chaplin losing a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest); the proof is out there on the internet, with people buying the then-novel viral marketing and thinking Artisan had actually released the most unshowy snuff film ever.

So much chatter about the film still centres on the hype around release, in fact - how it popularised found footage, the 20,000% profit, the realisation that you don't actually see anything - which is very emblematic of the internet age to come, although does somewhat underserve the film.

You see, The Blair Witch Project is actually really effective even without all that ephemera. It's a scrappy, rough movie that cuts away from much of the action, meaning that, more so than any imitator, it feels like a genuine piece of found footage, with creative choices that reduce in-the-moment terror but build up the realism. Maybe that's why it was so enduring.