The box office has always been dominated by movies that cost an awful lot of money - Hollywood blockbusters are rarely made on the cheap. And yet, filmmakers all have to begin somewhere, and for many aspiring moviemakers, that “somewhere” is their mom's basement, or someplace equivalent.
Often filmed in the auteur's own home and using their friends and relatives as cast and crew, sometimes these micro-budget movies are more than just proving ground; sometimes, they showcase filmmaking talent that goes on to achieve much bigger and (arguably) better things, while other times, they establish something that's too out-of-the-ordinary for a bigger film to have embraced at the time.
Whatever the case may be, these horror flicks filmed on shoestring budgets have stood the test of time and become a part of the genre's canon. Vote up the ones that managed to achieve the most with their meager resources.
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Budget: $15,000
Paranormal Activity holds the distinction of being the most profitable movie ever made, a fact that counts double when you consider that the franchise it spawned has racked up nearly $900 million worldwide. The first movie alone, however, earned more than 400,000% of its meager $15,000 budget.
How did director Oren Peli manage it? The found-footage format didn't hurt, and Peli saved money by filming in his own home and paying his lead actors a mere $500 each. He was also willing to help generate word of mouth by embarking on a tour of college campuses.
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Budget: $35,000 - $60,000
Until the Paranormal Activity franchise came along, 1999's The Blair Witch Project enjoyed a reputation as the most profitable movie ever made. Of course, “profits” are often difficult to pin down, especially in Hollywood, where budget numbers are notoriously imprecise.
But whether The Blair Witch Project was made for around $35,000 (the figure from before post-production) or closer to $60,000, the film was undeniably a box office juggernaut, bringing in more than $140 million in domestic ticket sales alone. This doesn't even account for the variety of tie-ins and merchandising.
What's the filmmakers' secret? Casting unknown actors and filming in the woods on a shoestring budget didn't hurt, but what was really ingenious about The Blair Witch Project was its promotion, both through word-of-mouth and on the still-nascent internet.
Low cost, big impression?Budget: $30,000
These days, most folks are probably familiar with The Little Shop of Horrors thanks to the Broadway production of the same name, which was so popular, it was made into a big-budget Hollywood musical directed by Frank Oz.
Both of those owe their origins, however, to the much-cheaper 1960 original, one of the lowest of Roger Corman's many low-budget films. An inveterate penny pincher, Corman was able to make The Little Shop of Horrors for an especially meager sum, in part because he had access to sets from other movies that he could film on.
There was just one catch: He only had two days in which to do it. The result is an enduring horror comedy about a talking, man-eating plant that has become a part of our shared cultural identity. Not bad for something that cost about as much as a used car.
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Budget: $10,000 - $100,000
Pinning down just how much David Lynch's career-defining debut cost to make is tricky, in part because filming costs and delays stretched the film's production out over years. Looking online, one can find numbers ranging from a mere $10,000 to 10 times that much.
One thing is for certain, though: Eraserhead cost a lot less to make than the amount it brought in at the box office, and perhaps more importantly, the experimental film's budgetary investment was a drop in the bucket compared to the effect it would have on the cinematic landscape - not to mention on David Lynch's subsequent career.
Low cost, big impression?Budget: $5,000
Not quite John Waters's first film - though it is his first “talkie” - Multiple Maniacs is nonetheless an absolute ode to gonzo DIY filmmaking.
Filmed with a 16mm camera borrowed from a local TV news crew and using a budget borrowed from his father, Waters's opus stars a cast comprised mostly of his friends and features credits written on shelving paper. The film is, of course, filled with the kind of counterculture sleaze you might expect from the trash auteur's later filmography.
Despite all that, the film helped make Waters a cult-film icon and made its way into the Criterion Collection - not bad for something with such humble origins.
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Budget: $25,000
By the time he filmed the Lord of the Rings movies, Peter Jackson was already something of a household name in horror circles, thanks to some much-cheaper films on which he got his start.
Those don't come any cheaper than his splatter horror comedy Bad Taste, which Jackson and some friends made for around $25,000 over the course of four years.
By the end, the New Zealand Film Commission may have swooped in to bring that budget up closer to $235,000, but by then, much of the footage of Bad Taste was already in the can, thanks to a variety of inspiringly DIY solutions, such as $20 homemade Steadicams and makeup effects that Jackson baked in his mom's oven.
Low cost, big impression?
