I tired of reading about movies that costs hundreds of millions of dollars to make then don’t even break even at the box office. They usually feature some big name actor or actress that gets at least $15 to $20 million for the film.
Yet, there are four low budget horror flicks that did the opposite. All four of the films I am going to talk about in this blog were filmed for less than a million total – $837,000 to be exact. Yet, the worldwide take has been more than $300 million combined for these films and that doesn’t even include the many sequels most of them spawned. All are now all considered to be classic horror flicks.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
It all started back in 1974 when a low budget horror named Texas Chainsaw Massacre was released. It opened to mixed reviews and was even banned in a few countries due to the violence, but would become the grandfather of a new age of horror, eventually being ranked the greatest horror film of all time in a Total Film poll.
Budget: $140,000
Gross Revenue: $30,859,000
Halloween
Released in 1979, Halloween helped birth a new scream queen (Jamie Lee Curtis) while scaring the heck out of babysitters everywhere. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Jamie Lee’s mom was Janet Leigh, who herself was a scream queen in Psycho. Another link to between the films was the fact that Donald Pleasence’s character, Dr. Sam Loomis, was named after Janet’s boyfriend in Pyscho.
Budget: $300,000
Gross Revenue: $60,000,000
Ah, one of my absolute favorites. Written and directed by Sam Raimi (he would later go on to do all the Spiderman movies), this is a little tale about some friends that go to cabin in the woods that just happens to be haunted. Much of it is filmed with what Raimi called “the Shaky-Cam” (two guys running with a camera mounted on a two-by-four), it gives you the feeling of actually being there. What could be worse?
Budget: $375,000
Gross Revenue: $29,400,000
The Blair Witch Project
I actually saw Blair Witch Project in the theatre and didn’t enjoy it. Whereas I loved the Shaky-Cam in The Evil Dead, it seemed to make me sick in The Blair Witch Project. But, someone out there obviously loved this little mockumentary about three filmmakers who get lost in the woods looking for the dreaded Blair Witch.
Budget: $22,000
Gross Revenue: $248,639,099