8 Films That Destroyed Your Childhood

5. The Blair Witch Project

Horror films have a strange allure to kids €“ their older siblings and parents watch them, but forbid them to do so as well. Such a state of affairs will naturally build curiosity, and as we all know, the best way to deal with curiosity is to indulge it. This especially applies to children, who are renowned for having poor impulse control. As such, whenever a kid gets a chance to watch a horror film they€™ll usually take it, because watching your first horror film is a huge rite of passage in any movie-goer's life. But the problem comes with which horror films they choose to watch €“ they could choose something relatively harmless like a Friday The 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street knockoff, all schlock and no chills. But occasionally, a kid might just choose wrong, and end up with something altogether more terrifying. One such film was The Blair Witch Project. Granted, I know not everyone finds this film scary, but for a moment, just consider what children are. As Doctor Who keeps telling us, there€™s nothing more powerful than a child€™s imagination, and there€™s a reason for this €“ kids are uniquely unfettered by the responsibilities that befall adults and teenagers. Their job is to be kids, and that involves imagining things. Unfortunately, films such as The Blair Witch Project took that gift and twisted it into a nightmare. Uniquely psychological in its scares and realistic-looking to boot, the film relied on you to use your imagination. For adults, this was bad enough, but when witnessed by an impressionable kid who had stumbled across it or been shown it by a particularly sadistic older sibling, it played havoc. What are they going to do when their already unchained imagination turns on them? Be scared, that€™s what, and if you have an older sibling, they'd usually give you the bonus of telling you it wasn't found footage, but real. After all, how were you to know?