As a ’90s Kid, I Still Think This Is the Scariest Horror Movie Ever

If you’re a die-hard horror fanatic as an adult, there’s a good chance that you once snuck into a showing of a movie that you had no business seeing as a kid. Almost as a rite of passage, watching your first R-rated movie without an adult to stop you just seems to always lock in your obsession to chase that cinematic high for the rest of your life. As one of my first acts of rebellion, I once slipped into a theater and saw The Blair Witch Project at an early age, and the experience had me hooked on horror right from the start. For months I was convinced that I just watched three people filming the moments before their actual deaths. That’s why as a ’90s kid, I will always think that The Blair Witch Project is the scariest horror movie ever.

Every age group will say this, but life as a kid in the 1990s was unlike anything that kids go through today. We had just about everything a growing kid could desire. We saw a flourish of technological advances in gaming, computers, and TVs – was there anything better than heading to your local video store and renting any movie you wanted? But there was one thing that we didn’t have: basic internet literacy. When The Blair Witch Project was released in 1999, a Blair Witch website was created as a promotional tool to help market the movie. The website included photographic “evidence” and even had crime scene photos with supposed real life police officers. Not only did this website trick people (especially me) into thinking The Blair Witch Project was based on real events, but it helped turn the film into a massive hit and one of the classic ’90s movies that changed Hollywood forever.

Don’t Go Into the Woods

With a production budget between $35,000 and $60,000, filmmakers Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez didn’t exactly have a lot of creative freedom. The duo first came up with the idea for The Blair Witch Project back in 1993 when they were film students at the University of Central Florida. After a lengthy pre-production process, principal photography began in October 1997. The film follows three students (Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard) who set out to make a documentary about a local myth known as the Blair Witch. They travel to Burkittsville, Maryland, where they interview the locals about the creepy urban legend. After getting the information that they came for, the trio hikes into the woods of the Black Hills in search of any trace of the Blair Witch.

The Blair Witch Project wasn’t the first entry into the found-footage sub-genre of horror, but it certainly became the poster child for it. The shaky camera is enough to make almost any horror fan feel sick. The movie is filmed from the perspective of the three students as they slowly begin to realize that they have become turned around in the unfamiliar woods. The more they desperately try to escape, the deeper they seem to embed themselves into the woods. With unseen forces seemingly all around them, each character starts to unravel mentally before meeting their cruel and brutal fates.

[RELATED: 10 Movies ‘90s Kids Love That Actually Hold Up Now]

Creating an Urban Legend

I think it’s safe to say that just about every small town in the world has their own version of a spooky witch, ghost, or ghoul story – an urban legend that permeates through every nook and cranny of the town, or a terror-filled tale that every one of the townsfolk has heard at least 100 times. And while small details of the story might change from person to person, the basics always remain the same. That’s why The Blair Witch Project is so good: the movie is wrapped up in this sprawling lore that we never quite got to the bottom of, and it only ramps up the tension. Do we ever see the alleged witch? No. But do we feel the effects of that witch? Hell yeah.

As a kid, The Blair Witch Project stayed with me for a very long time. With one of the most iconic endings to any horror movie out there, the film was the perfect example of less is more. We never get an explanation as to what exactly happened in those woods, but we all have a pretty good idea. From the heart-stopping fear of disembodied children laughing in the pitch black woods to bizarre runes scattered in the treeline, The Blair Witch Project absolutely raised the stakes on anytime I have gone camping. When I hear a twig snap in the distance or a pile of rocks tumble on top of each other, in the back of my mind, there can be only one possible explanation. It might sound silly, but as a ’90s kid, it’s why I will always consider The Blair Witch Project as the scariest movie ever.

You can get lost in that nostalgic horror and watch The Blair Witch Project on Amazon Prime.