Twenty years ago today, I first saw “The Blair Witch Project”. You've probably seen it too. I went into the theatre knowing just enough about the movie to spark my interest, and yes, I was fully aware it was all fabrication. It turned out to be a nerve jangling experience from which I never fully recovered. Seeing the film wasn't exactly enjoyable in the general sense – 'exhausting' is a better way to describe it. Movies didn't usually shake me this way, and I left the theatre with a huge admiration for what I just saw.

My admiration steadily grew into an obsession after discovering that “The Blair Witch Project” was part of a much bigger story, all of it meticulously pieced together before the theatrical release was even concocted. More than a year before anyone took a camera into Seneca Creek State Park, these eight minutes were all the Blair Witch Project was. At that time, the movie that would come to unnerve the world was no more than a suggestion, but the story that it was a part of was already there.

Like other stories of unexplained disappearances and ghostly apparitions, the witch mythology that the creators dreamt up is haunting in itself, more so because it doesn't provide any answers. The lengths to which they went to convincingly execute upon this story is astounding to this day. I mean, they so not broke character that in a faux documentary about their faux documentary, the creators referenced the entirety of the Blair Witch theatrical release as just “some scary noises in the woods at night, and a few examples of that”.

What caught me the most about this story is the steady pace in which the centuries-old witch mythology crept ever closer, then suddenly took a leap into the present day. Allowing for the just the tiniest notion that mysteries do exist in this world.