10 Terrifying Low Budget Horror Movies

There has been a lot written about The Blair Witch Project over the years. People have maligned it for what it did to the horror genre, ushering in a new age (if not pioneering it, strictly speaking) of cheaply made found footage flicks that would just as soon have you blowing chunks because of how erratic the camera moved instead of engrossing you with a story or well thought out scares.

People have talked about how much money it made, a student film budgeted for an initial $200,000 that managed to strike it rich and make nearly $250 million at the box office. They talk about half-written scripts, devious director tactics that probably wouldn’t be viable today without either a good lawyer or the funds to weather the ensuing lawsuit, and just how ludicrous it was to release a soundtrack to a film that only had a partially heard clip of a single song throughout its entire length.

People have also talked about snot bubbles.

It’s normally these things that we think about nowadays when anybody mentions The Blair Witch Project, but I urge you nonbelievers to look a little more closely. Try and rub away the 21 years of parodies and snide remarks that run synonymously with the title in the veins of pop culture, and take another look.

If you can do this, if you can manage to clear your head before you journey into the Burkittsville woods, you will see what a triumph of a nightmare it is. Realistic to the point of being uncomfortable to watch, filled with the type of encroaching darkness that you only ever see in the wildest of wildernesses, and utterly leaking in the most base forms of all fear: the unknown.

Having defended The Blair Witch Project a thousand times before, I would defend it a thousand times again. It is a hill that I would happily die on, so long as it wasn’t surrounded by trees…

…and there wasn’t a corner to stand in.