The 6 Best Ghost Stories Ever Told On Film

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

This is a great ghost story that is largely overshadowed by its groundbreaking marketing campaign, which transformed it from being a low budget feature made by ‘unknown’ filmmakers, to being a worldwide phenomenon that invented a new type of horror movie. It worked thanks to the fact that the main cast – Heather Donohue, Michael C Williams and Joshua Leonard – were essentially unheard of before this film, so the writer-directors (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez) could pretend that they were actually missing, presumed dead.

Presented as something of a documentary, the central conceit is contained in the tagline for the film.

“In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland, while making a documentary… A year later their footage was found.”

This play on the ‘found footage’ device, tied in so closely with the viral marketing campaign, made The Blair Witch Project one of the most disturbing films ever made. Being comprised solely of the footage shot by the three filmmakers, the first few scenes of the movie are easy enough to watch – showing discussions between the three about their project, and interviews with local people about the spooky legend they are there to investigate. They hear about townsfolk being afraid to go too far into the woods that surround the town, and of the spate of disappearances and murders that marred the area during the 1940s – specifically of children.

It is when the team moves into the woods that the film becomes almost unbearable. The hand-held camera work immediately causes physical discomfort in the audience, and the use of sound becomes a focal point. As the three students camp out in the woods, they are increasingly terrorised by unseen forces. Piles of stones begin to appear, as do stick figures. The team realize they are lost, and they hear children’s voices amongst the trees at night. Their tents are violently shaken in the dark and eventually, Joshua Leonard vanishes.

His teammates, Heather and Mike, set out to find him and stumble upon an old, derelict building, deep in the woods. Inside, they find markings on the walls, including children’s handprints. They hear Josh’s voice and search for him – and the final reel plays out with such horrifying simplicity that it cannot be shaken from the viewer for days.

It is the gradual build of terror, coupled with the fact that we know these students are going to meet a scary end, that makes The Blair Witch Project so effective. It hinges entirely on the principle that the human imagination is the scariest place in the universe. We never see The Blair Witch, or any of the other ghostly bogeymen that the local townsfolk tell the students about in the first few scenes. Like the students themselves, we hear noises and see artefacts left behind – and fill in the blanks ourselves. It is then the reactions of the doomed students that is the nail in the coffin, as it were, because their imaginations are doing exactly the same thing as ours – but with the added atmosphere of actually being in those woods.