Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez direct Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard and Michael C. Williams in this seminal found footage horror.

One of the greatest horror film ever made (I still remember being freaked out after a Halloween screening when I lived on the outskirts of town and then had to walk up an unlit farm path to get home) which does rely on your ability to imagine what is occurring in out of frame and get over just how annoying its threesome of filmmaking slackers are. Only really a satisfying experience if your mind fills in the blanks but the darkness and VHS grain add plenty of blanks to fill. Horror inception takes place in the slow build of the first act as ghost stories told by vox pop interviewees (credit due to BBC’s Ghostwatch), as does the fact a dozen viewings later I’m still not sure what was in that parcel left out side the tent… but I do know I still don’t like it one little bit. The ending is a PHD in subtle terror, the build up is what you make of it. Smartly conceived and finely executed. An inspiration to low budget filmmakers everywhere.

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