The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Reported budget: $60K. For that, you get three people lost in the woods, yelling about a map for most of 81 minutes, on a camera that shakes like a wet dog. You never see a witch. You barely see anything. Heather keeps filming long after anyone sane would stop, and the bickering gets repetitive before the trip goes truly bad. And yet. The sounds in the dark outside the tent, the little piles of rocks, the stick figures hanging in the trees, all of it works on the part of your brain that fills in blanks, and your brain is way scarier than any effect. Heather’s tearful apology into the camera is one of the most famous close-ups in horror for a reason. It made $248.6 million worldwide, and a C plus CinemaScore says plenty of people walked out furious. A 7.2 because it changed how horror gets made and still can’t fully escape its own gimmick. $719.57 says you spot a little stack of rocks on a trail someday and give it a very wide berth.

What works: It scares you with sounds, rocks and stick figures instead of effects, and the raw footage feels uncomfortably real.

What doesn’t: The shaky camera can be hard to watch, and a lot of the runtime is the same argument about the map.

Who it’s for: Horror fans who love slow dread, campfire legends and scares built entirely on what you don’t see.