Three student filmmakers – Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard – set off to the Black Hills of Burkittsville in Maryland, armed with a 16mm camera, handheld camcorder and sound recording equipment to unveil the mystery surrounding a local legend known as the Blair Witch.
Thrilled with their new documentary venture, they conduct interviews with the residents of Burkittsville, who speak of an unfathomable evil, occult practices, missing children and ritualistic killings. Failing to heed the local mythology as a warning, the trio take to the woods and soon their project descends into a fully-fledged waking nightmare, as they are tormented by an unseen presence lurking in the surrounding darkness.
Capitalising on the rise of internet culture and reality TV, The Blair Witch Project’s ingenious low-tech aesthetic and extensive viral marketing campaign – featuring fake websites, TV reports and newspaper clippings – sparked a cultural hysteria, with many believing the footage to be real. It remains today one of the most terrifying and influential found footage horrors that changed the landscape of horror as we knew it.