I was in my first month at University when The Blair Witch Project came out. We avoided the first few nights and went a week after opening, shockingly relinquishing the £1.95 student night in favour of booking tickets. We were right to do so - it turned out we wouldn't have got in for weeks just turning up - but the hike in admission was unprecedented for cheapskates like us who were already brandishing our Snapfaxes with pride to knock a pound off.

There was a perhaps understandable trepidation. It didn't help that one of the party was still harbouring a grudge over having to watch The Haunting a week previously, having turned up for a screening of Go which turned out to be full. She was instead dragged into a horror film whilst screaming, "I do don't do horror films!" (The Haunting, of course turned out to be anything but horrific, but the same principle applied).

We pitched up at the Oxford Road Odeon at a time we felt to be unnecessarily early. Everyone else had got there first. Our seats were towards the very back, in a dark corner, which nobody was happy to be in. There was an overriding feeling that someone, or something, might sneak up behind us and cause a Scream 2-type moment despite the physical impossibility of them needing to walk through a wall to do it. The position was almost identical to where I'd been in the audience for The Woman In Black, making me convinced beyond all reasonable doubt that there would be loud scream right in my ear at some point in the proceedings. It was all very unsettling.

There was little to report during the film itself, other than a somewhat unusual lack of talking, ringtones and Mr Witty-Student giving a running commentary of every movement (the gasp of "IT'S A NOSE!" was collective). The fun started afterwards.

We all made our way out of the cinema and back onto the road to walk home. We didn't speak to each other for several moments. When we did, the score read:

Blasé nonchalance: 1

Pretending not to be absolutely flippin' petrified: 3

Somewhat amazingly, the 25% seemingly unaffected by the whole experience turned out to be the one person who had promised unreservedly that she would be found cowering under the seat when the lights came up. Instead, she was the one person not to be found furtively looking over her shoulder even though we were in a busy, well-lit area and there's no such thing as the Blair Witch anyway (and if there was it wouldn't be on Oxford bloody Road, would it? And would you please stop grabbing onto me like that before I deck you?).

The next day we were forced to reconvene at the kitchen table in our hall of residence to make some telling confessions. One person had spent the night dreaming about being chased. Another had woken up at 3am believing there was someone in her room. I had spent pretty much the whole afternoon glued to the Internet trying to put all the pieces together - and the other two wanted to know about it. Pretending we hadn't been affected wasn't going to cut it any more.

I believe that The Blair Witch Project is the only film to this day that I have gone out and bought on video immediately on full-price release. Yet, here's the thing - I could not bring myself to watch it. And when I could bring myself to watch it, I couldn't really bring myself to watch it. I put the tape in the player and turned the TV on, but that's where my involvement mostly ended. I think I looked up occasionally, the rest of the time I was telling myself that doing anything else at the same time constituted watching the film and congratulating myself on my bravery for managing to put myself through it again. What I was actually doing, of course, was being a total wuss-face.

There is something very strange about Blair Witch - you never actually see anything. At all. It's not a Paranormal Activity type of ‘seeing nothing', where you might not actually see what's banging the door and moving the sheets but you sure as hell see the result. You quite literally see nothing. The biggest ‘action' is some kids finding some rocks. Oh, and a tent shakes.

It begs the question, what were we so afraid of? And why would this not fade during a repeat viewing, when any worries about jump-scares or disturbing imagery been abated (and, for those convinced, when all the alleged ‘truth' had been debunked)?

There is only one answer: we were afraid of nothing. Because there was nothing to fear but fear itself. And that's why this film really impressed me, and continues to impress me ten years on. Why waste money on CGI effects, fake blood and ever-more-revolting torture devices when you can spend bugger-all and have me shrinking into my sofa?

Less is more. And nothing, it seems, is everything.

• Our interview with Blair Witch co-director Daniel Myrick