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With Halloween this week, found footage “documentaries” are making their annual comeback. So, we wanted to take a minute to highlight five of these fictional movies that come a little too close to being real. We highly recommend watching any of these wonderful films on this hallowed week, but don’t get tricked into thinking they’re true stories.

• 5. The Blair Witch Project

  Let’s start this list with the mother of all found footage movies, The Blair Witch Project. Three young adults go into the Maryland woods to investigate the more than strange activity being attributed to a 17th century witch. Will any of them make it out alive? You’re just going to have to watch for yourself… and probably invest in a nightlight. All I know is that this writer lives just a little too close to Burkittsville, MD to enjoy how realistic the movie was.

• 4. The Bay

  Another town in Maryland, another disaster too close to home. This doozy of a movie combines different sources of footage to tell the story of a small town ravaged by the rise of a real life parasite. Unlike its realistic behavior, the movie parasite feeds on humans, controlling their every move. The interstitial footage in this bizarre film brings the whole thing to life, and makes it just a little too real.

• 3. The Sacrament

  Telling the tale of a crazy cult leader gathering his followers for a mass suicide, The Sacrament has an air of truth about it that is just plain unsettling. This movie isn’t exactly about Jonestown, but Father Gene Jones bears a striking resemblance to the real life cult leader, Jim Jones. The found footage aspect of this film makes the entire experience that much more intense, because you know exactly what’s about to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

• 2. The Borderlands

  This traditional paranormal found footage experience reminds us that there’s always a new way to tell a story you’ve heard 1,000 times. Investigators intent on discovering traces of the beyond investigate a church on the English countryside, and it may or may not be haunted. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Wrong, the nightmares acquired from this flick will have you wondering if it actually came from real found footage.

• 1. Europa Report

  Space, hidden oceans on one of Jupiter’s moons, and single-celled life. So deep into the unknown that it’s pretty scary just to think about. This movie almost didn’t make the list, but the recent discovery of ice flows on Mars and water on Pluto reminded me of just how real this thing could be. Easily the best sci-fi found footage film in my humble opinion, Europa Report will have you clutching the arms of your chair, and maybe doubling that nightlight purchase from when you watched The Blair Witch Project.