Directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez tell us how they started a found footage frenzy with their pivotal 1999 horror, The Blair Witch Project.

In 1999, a tiny indie film changed the face of horror. Its viral marketing campaign was soon adopted by bigger Hollywood movies like Cloverfield (2008). Other filmmakers rushed to make their own documentary-style shockers – most notably writer-director Oren Peli’s Paranormal Activity (2007), which helped turn Blumhouse Productions into the horror powerhouse it is today.

The Blair Witch Project was the work of first-time directors (and former University of Centaal Florida film students) Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, who in the early 1990s came up with their initial concept: the movie would essentially be a faux documentary, cut together from the film and video material left behind by three investigators who vanished while investigating the legend of a witch. On an initial budget of at most $60,000, The Blair Witch Project...