The Blair Witch Project (Directed by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick) 1999

Probably one of the only relatively modern movies to make it into my 'top 100', 'The Blair Witch Project' is a cult film which you'll either love or hate. At the time of its release the hype surrounding the movie was incredible, with many people falling for the whole internet adverts and whispers, with some not quite sure if the incidents being mentioned were actually real or not. Others argued that when it was released that the film lacked the gore, or appalling nu-metal soundtrack to really work in todays climate, but how wrong were they. Finally here was a modern American horror film that exactly like 'The Legend of Boggy Creek' decades previously, had crept out of the stalls like a shaky home movie, and hit at exactly the right time. Suddenly here was a low-budget film that reeked of that low-budget quality that made '...Boggy Creek' so eerie, and once again it was original in that it didn't rely on a bunch of irritating actors (who you didn't care if they died or not) to showcase the fear.

'The Blair Witch Project' runs like some docu-drama, and to cut a long story short revolves around three students who go missing after they take to the woods of Burkittsville (Maryland), to document folklore - in an attempt to separate fact from fiction in their pursuit of the 'Blair Witch,' an alleged entity that appears to be a sum of many terrifying parts. Admittedly, 'The Blair Witch...' is just a case of following a bunch of students around the woods but there's so much more to it that a number of critics quite simply didn't get. It's home-movie style seemed to work far better on VHS/DVD rather than cinema, and whilst it certainly spawned a million imitators, including the awful 'Most Haunted' tv series in the UK, it was a perfect of example as to how bumps in the night are far scarier than actually seeing the face of bogeyman. 'The Blair Witch...' left literally everything to the imagination, and also left us wondering just what the 'Blair Witch' actually was - serial killer, ghost, demon, witch, monster or hoax? The fact that the decision was up to us left us all the more vulnerable to those creepy woods that we once thought were so innocent.

'The Blair Witch...' worked because its horrors were subtle - the jumpy camera, the distant screams, the rustling of the leaves, and flickering shadows but the big questions is, what came first, this movie or 'The Last Broadcast'? Either way, 'The Blair Witch..' plays on our fear of the encroaching woods, and at being lost among those trees, and like those old antiquarian ghost stories of a bygone era, there was no need to slap the viewer in the face with the bogeyman. A great film considering it's budget, and certainly one of the biggest money makers in history, and although rather dated now, the frights it caused at the time were second to none, as was the promotion. Nothing beats suggestive horror.