In 1994, three film students on a documentary film project went out into the woods of Maryland in search of the “Blair witch” and then disappeared without a trace. Recovered by the police some time later, the video footage they recorded shows their final days. In 1999, The Blair Witch Project burst into a horror film culture that had unraveled into a mess of post-modernism and become one big meta joke, leading the genre back to its roots through its minimalistically simplified form as a crescendo of primal fear. Produced for just a few thousand bucks, this genuinely scary enterprise and apex of found-footage horror cinema was propelled to global success by a very early form of viral internet-campaign. A pop-culture milestone. (mk)