Research

I think the main source of our inspiration, if you can call it that, came from the Saw films and the Hostel films. Both of these films contain elements of things that we want to incorperate in our thriller. However, the setting is very blair-witchesque.

SAW
A young man, David, is in an interrogation room talking to an unnamed, unsympathetic police officer. David is in handcuffs, and he has blood on his face and shirt. He is smoking a cigarette. He tells the officer that after he finished his work as an orderly at the hospital, he was knocked unconscious and taken to a large room.
Inside the room, David was strapped to a chair with a large, rusty metal device locked onto his head. To his left was a small television, which began playing a video showing a frightening puppet, named Billy, that tells him that the device on his head is a "reverse beartrap", which is hooked into his jaws and will pry his face open with great force if he does not unlock it in time. The puppet tells David that the only key to unlock the device is in the stomach of his dead cellmate (Dean Francis).
David is able to break free of his bonds, but by doing so he sets off a timer on the back of the device. Across the room, he finds the body that the puppet mentioned, but also finds that the man is actually alive but under paralysis. David panics and slices into the man's stomach anyway. After finding the key, David unlocks the device and throws it to the ground, just as it snaps open. David escapes death from the device.
David begins screaming and weeping in horror. At the entrance to the room, the puppet from the video appears on a tricycle. He congratulates David on surviving, and tells him that he has proven he is no longer ungrateful for being alive.
The movie ends with the police officer asking "Are you grateful, David?" causing the young man to again break down. As the end credits begin to roll, a CGI replica of the bathroom used later in the full Saw film is shown, although with some differences. A small peephole is shown with an eye visible behind it, which was a concept reused in another trap in Saw.
The Blair Witch Project
In 1994, film students Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams and Joashua Leonard set out to produce a documentary about the fabled Blair Witch. They travel to Burkittsville (formerly Blair), Maryland and interview locals about the legend of the Blair Witch. The locals tell them of a hermit named Rustin Parr that kidnapped seven children and brought them to his house in the woods. Parr brought the children into his basement in twos. He felt that their eyes were staring into his soul when he was being watched, so he would kill one child while the other faced a corner. He would then kill the corner child. Parr eventually turned himself in to the police, later pleading insanity, saying that the spirit of a witch killed in the 18th century had convinced him to kill the seven children. The trio also interviews Mary Brown, an eccentric older woman who tells them that she had an encounter with the Blair Witch as a young girl.
The next day, the students begin to explore the woods near Burkittsville to look for evidence of the Blair Witch. Along the way, a fisherman warns them that the woods are haunted. The students hike to Coffin Rock, where five men were found ritually murdered in the nineteenth century, and then camp for the night. The next day they move deeper into the woods, despite being uncertain of their exact location on the map. They eventually locate what appears to be an old cemetery with seven small cairns. They set up camp nearby and then return to the cemetery after dark. One of the students accidentally disturbs a cairn, and Heather hastily repairs it. Later, they hear strange cracking sounds in the darkness but cannot locate the source. The following day they attempt to return to their vehicle, but fail to find it before darkness falls and are forced to set camp. That night, they again hear cracking noises, but cannot see anything. The next morning they find three small cairns have been built around their tent during the night. As they continue to try and find their way out of the woods, Heather realizes that her map is missing, and Mike later reveals that he kicked it into a creek out of frustration the previous day. Josh and Heather attack Mike out of a fit of intense rage. They then realize they are now thoroughly lost, and decide to simply head south. Soon, they discover a multitude of humanoid stick figures made of woven sticks and branches suspended from trees. Unknown to the others, Heather takes one before they leave. That night, they hear more strange noises, including the sounds of children, and unknown entities brush against the sides of their tent. They flee their tent in panic and hide in the dark woods until dawn. Upon returning to their tent, they find that their possessions have been rifled through, and Josh's equipment is covered with slime. As the day wears on, they realize that they are completely disoriented and going in circles, and again set camp.
The next morning, Josh has disappeared. After trying in vain to find him, Mike and Heather eventually break camp and slowly move on. That night, they hear Josh's screams in the darkness, but are not able to find him. The next morning, Heather finds a bundle of sticks and fabric outside their tent. Later inspection reveals it to contain blood-soaked scraps of clothing and what appears to be bloody human teeth and tissue, but she does not mention this to Mike.
That night, Heather makes a tape of herself apologizing to the others and her family and breaks down crying while she says, "we're gonna die out here tonight...". Later, they hear Josh's agonized cries for help again, but this time they follow them to an abandoned house in the woods. Mike races throughout the house while Heather tries to follow, and claims he hears Josh in the basement. He follows the sound and after what seems to be a struggle, goes silent and drops his camera to the floor. Heather then catches up and notices he is not answering her calls. She then enters the basement looking for both men, and her camera sees a glimpse of Mike facing the corner. Then Heather drops her camera, and her screams suddenly fall silent.