The Blair Witch Project

Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez shot their film in eight days in a Maryland wood in October 1997, with the directors mostly absent. The three walked to points fixed by satellite receivers, found a milk crate flying a bicycle flag, and pulled that day’s personal instructions from the film cans inside. They were forbidden to tell each other what they had read, and their food was rationed down. The actors ran the cameras, Joshua Leonard working a CP-16 he had never touched and Heather Donahue learning hers on a two day crash course. There was a thirty five page outline but the lines were improvised, so a question asked on camera is a real one. Michael C. Williams knew only that he would hear something and follow it all the way up; nobody had told him there would be a house. The site went live in June 1998, before Sundance, written as though the disappearance had happened, and the actors were listed as missing, their families fielding calls of condolence. The film passed 248 million dollars worldwide. A good fit if you can watch knowing the arguments were never written and three hungry, tired people are genuinely shouting at each other. Not for anyone who needs the wood explained, a creature shown, or an ending that closes.