5 contemporary horror films you need to see this October

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

It’s hard to properly convey to people who grew up in the early 2000s just what a cultural juggernaut The Blair Witch Project was. A film that could have only ever benefited from a lack of social media, the found footage horror feature about a trio of college kids who get lost in the woods would push us off the cliff into a new world of horror, with the internet taking over to spread awareness of it.

The Blair Witch Project was a small, independent feature whose marketing was incredibly inventive, think J.J. Abrams-level. Missing posters were dispersed featuring the actors involved in the project, all three of whom stayed out of the public eye until the film was screened. Being unable to search Wikipedia or IMDB for them helped, and even to this day conspiracy theories exist that the actors really were involved in something horrific caught on-film. The film came with a litany of manufactured history, with books and documentaries on the “real” Blair Witch and serial killer Rustin Parr being created in the wake of the film’s release. The line between fact and fiction became hopelessly blurred and endures today. Quite a surprise for a movie with a budget of $60,000.

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