Life after The Blair Witch Project

When you make one of the most profitable and talked-about movies of all time – laying the foundations for a new sub-genre of cinema in the process – you don’t necessarily expect to spend the next 13 years toiling away in relative obscurity.

That, however, is what happened to Eduardo Sánchez after co-directing The Blair Witch Project, the micro-budget “found footage” movie that went on to become a $250 million-grossing worldwide phenomenon back in 1999.

“We kind of just slinked away and almost semi-retired,” says Sánchez of his and co-director Daniel Myrick’s subsequent disappearance from the film scene. “I was 30 and suddenly had a lot of money and so I just tried to live my life a little.”

This isn’t to say he wasn’t interested in pursuing a film career. He may have been too “shell-shocked” by the success of Blair Witch to make the sequel that the studio rushed into production (especially when it became clear they weren’t interested in listening to the ideas he and Myrick had for it) – but there were plenty of other offers on the table.

“We could have made any film we wanted – as long as it was a horror movie. But Dan and I didn’t really consider ourselves horror film-makers. Blair Witch was just the best idea we had for making a movie on our credit cards.”

Instead, they tried to make a comedy, but when it didn’t work out they decided to go their separate ways and Sánchez ended up making a couple of straight-to-DVD horror movies - just as other filmmakers, most notably Paranormal Activity’s Oren Peli, were finding profitable ways to capitalise on The Blair Witch Project’s “found footage” device.

For the record, Sánchez likes Paranormal Activity and respects the way Peli has managed to turn it into a successful franchise. He’s also more comfortable with making horror films himself these days - as evidenced by his new movie Lovely Molly, a creepy tale of demonic possession set against the backdrop of America’s current economic woes.

Mixing home video footage with a more traditional narrative to maintain a pleasing air of ambiguity over whether its eponymous heroine (brilliantly played by newcomer Gretchen Lodge) is losing her mind or being subjected to more sinister forces, the film feels almost like a social realist horror movie.

“I was always interested in a doing a sort of low-budget version of The Exorcist,” nods Sánchez. “I wanted to explore what would happen if the characters are the working poor and can’t afford to get the professional help they need.”

Making its British debut last week at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (much like The Blair Witch Project before it), Lovely Molly certainly appears to have energised Sánchez: he’s currently completing a Big Foot movie called Existence that will not only feature effects work by Peter Jackson’s company WETA, but will mark Sánchez’s return to the “found footage” format he helped pioneer.

“It’s the kind of Bigfoot movie I’ve wanted to see since I was 12 years old. It’s actually the third Bigfoot film I’ve been involved with. The budgets just kept getting lower and lower.” Is that, perhaps, the real curse of having all that success with The Blair Witch Project? That people expect him to be able to make something successful for no money? “Yeah, but that’s not a terrible place to be. At least somebody’s knocking on my door.”

• Lovely Molly is in cinemas from Friday.