“Blair Witch Project” (1999)
Before it inexplicably became cool to hate it, “The Blair Witch Project” was crowned the new king of horror during the summer of 1999, when the scrappy DIY Sundance hit ended up grossing more than $248 million worldwide on a budget of, like, a hundred bucks. The “found footage” aesthetic has since been done to death – and, for the record, “Cannibal Holocaust” beat “Blair Witch” to that punch by almost 20 years – but what was truly undeniably groundbreaking was the marketing campaign that presented the film (via the then still-newfangled Internet) as a true-life chronicle of real horrific events. Soon, the world was wondering what happened to Heather, Mike and Josh out there in the woods – and lined up in droves to find out.