12 Incredible Horror Movies With No Jump Scares

With more recent films such as Paranormal Activity and V/H/S having normalized the genre, it might be hard for some younger horror fans to believe that found-footage films were ever considered scary. In 1999, however, The Blair Witch Project utilized its core premise in a way few films have pulled off since. Through viral marketing tactics, including a fake documentary entitled Curse Of The Blair Witch, the filmmakers managed to convince a decent number of moviegoers that The Blair Witch Project was 100% real.

The film hasn't aged wonderfully, although there are evidently still some who believe the film to be real footage discovered in the woods of Maryland. Today, the fact that you're watching an 82-minute improvisation of a 35-page script is immediately obvious, with most of the film consisting of repetitive arguments about whose fault it was that the main characters got lost in the woods. Most of the real horror moments don't occur until halfway through the film's runtime, and they're almost always followed by verbal acknowledgements of how ridiculous it is that the protagonist always has her camera on.

Nonetheless, certain aspects of The Blair Witch Project may still hit home. The ending never technically confirms the fictional legend at the heart of the film's premise, and the protagonists spend most of the film believing their antagonist to merely be a group of locals. Even then, the notion that there's anything truly threatening their safety isn't confirmed until 15 minutes from the end of the film.

From the perspective of The Blair Witch Project as a typical horror movie, these will strike some as terrible pacing choices. On the other hand, as a film that attempts to mimic real documentaries, these same choices are what made the film so convincing in the late '90s. You may not be one of the few who believes the legend of the Blair Witch, but that doesn't mean she won't cross your mind the next time you find yourself lost in the woods.