The Blair Witch Project (1999) review

A student filmmaker (Heather Donahue) and her two assistants (Michael C. Williams and Joshua Leonard) head out to Burkittsville, Maryland to investigate the myth of the Blair Witch: they interview locals about it, lose their way, find some strange rock formations, fight amongst themselves, one of them goes missing ... and all that remains of any of them is the footage they recorded.  I recall seeing this in a jam-packed theatre on opening weekend fully expecting to watch "the scariest movie ever made" and then being hugely disappointed by the result (friends were equally unimpressed) ... but revisiting it over two decades later, it does do a lot of things right with its smallish budget: the acting is surprisingly solid, Heather's screaming is unforgettable and it tries to tap into that primal fear of getting "lost in the woods."  I still have a few issues with it - the in-fighting becomes tedious and not much actually happens (so it's basically a 80 minute tease) - but it would be foolish to totally dismiss what has turned out to be one of the most influential and important horror movies from the last twenty-five years.  It was also a massive box-office success, so both directors were essentially able to retire in their thirties.