From an interview-
CH: The most surprising insight I found was in terms of examining the concept of ‘conspiracy’ itself. I was pretty heavily researching things like ‘Ong’s Hat,’ which was one of the first well-known internet-based conspiracy theories.
Invention On MUBI
Love this from the AMA:
Callie: Fun Fact — no one knew it was a Blair Witch remake until we were already attached. To be honest, I did not understand how we were supposed to recreate one of the most conspiratorial films of all time, especially since such a huge part of why the original was so terrifying was due to the fact that there was all this folklore around it. Ong’s Hat was a reference for INVENTION when we first started to explore the conspiratorial themes in the film. I weirdly feel like there are a lot of similarities between Ong’s Hat and the origin stories of how the original Blair Witch came to be…
https://www.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/1lx8haf/comment/n2lq9st/