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Few genres excel with low budgets as constantly and reliably as horror. Oftentimes, keeping things minimal and grounded adds to believability, which can make a fictional story on screen feel more visceral and intense. Since the breakout success of The Blair Witch Project, plenty of low-budget horror have adopted a found footage/mockumentary style, becoming hugely profitable.
But low-budget horror certainly doesn’t end with found footage movies; the best can use their limited budgets to inject a sense of immediacy and realism into the proceedings. The following are some of the greatest horror movies made with low budgets that don’t belong to the found footage subgenre; each cost less than $1 million, not taking inflation into account here to not overcomplicate things.
10 ‘Eraserhead’ (1977)
Of all the strange movies David Lynch has directed, there’s an argument that Eraserhead is his strangest. This surreal nightmare follows a young man living in a strange and uncaring world and his torment when forced to look after an unusual and inhuman-looking infant.
Eraserhead might be Lynch’s strangest effort because it was also his feature-length debut. Shot in black and white and with a limited cast, it cost only $100,000 all up. Still, it remains supremely upsetting and disturbing despite – or perhaps because of – the minimalist approach.
9 ‘Pi’ (1998)
Somewhat like David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky is a filmmaker who’s no stranger to unsettling his viewers while subjecting them to confronting disturbing themes and stories. He established this with his feature-length debut, Pi, which had a budget that only just exceeded $100,000.
It’s perhaps most definable as an experimental psychological thriller, but it digs deep enough into paranoia and other intense ideas to also work as a horror movie. If not, then, at the very least, it’s a disquieting thriller of the highest magnitude and works wonders with a small budget and scope to tell the story of a mathematician driven to madness over the titular mathematical constant.
8 ‘Sleepaway Camp’ (1983)
A movie nowadays most notorious for its ending, Sleepaway Camp was released at a time when the slasher genre was at its popularity peak. It kicked off an entire series, though the original remains the most well-known, and takes place at a youth summer camp rocked by a series of gruesome murders.
Some might argue the film was chasing a trend and might not be the most original thing out there, but no one can deny it was made on the cheap. Sleepaway Camp cost only $350,000 to make and ended up being very profitable. It’s still remembered today – for better or worse – mainly because of its bonkers ending.
7 ‘Open Water’ (2003)
Keeping things simple with its cast and premise, Open Water predominantly focuses on two individuals and sees them fighting to stay alive for most of the movie. The story follows a couple stranded at sea after being left behind by the group of people they were scuba-diving with.
Open Water is all about survival, particularly when it becomes apparent to both the couple and the audience that they’re in shark-infested waters. The movie remarkably only cost $120,000 to produce and went on to make many times that amount at the box office; something like $54 million worldwide, to be more precise.
6 ‘You’re Next’ (2011)
Adam Wingard might be best known nowadays for his more high-budget stuff, given he was behind 2021’s explosive, over-the-top Godzilla vs. Kong. But Wingard made his start in the horror genre, specifically with low-budget efforts like 2011’s You’re Next, his breakout film.
It’s a small-scale slasher movie that only cost about $1 million and revolves around a family reunion that turns deadly when masked assailants attack. It’s all very straightforward but works well considering the size of its budget. Tense and riveting, You’re Next is arguably one of the better slasher movies released in the last decade or two.
5 ‘The Hills Have Eyes’ (1977)
There were a surprising number of great horror movies released in 1977, including the original The Hills Have Eyes. One of many iconic movies written and directed by Wes Craven, the film focuses on a family getting lost in the desert and being targeted by a group of cannibalistic murderers.
Sources vary on how much the film actually cost, with it being as low as $350,000 or possibly as high as double that. Either way, that’s under $1 million, and neither budget could be called high in any conceivable manner, making The Hills Have Eyes rank among the scariest low-budget, non-found footage horror movies out there.
4 ‘Halloween’ (1978)
Few horror movies are as iconic as the original Halloween, which ranks among the greatest movies of the 1970s. John Carpenter certainly made more ambitious and expensive movies after this one, but fans could argue that none were quite as frightening or as consistently intense as Halloween.
It centers on a small town targeted by Michael Myers, a recently escaped patient from a psychiatric facility determined to claim as many lives as possible. Made for just $300,000, it’s remarkable how profitable the film became upon its successful release, earning about $70 million while kicking off a genuinely huge horror franchise.
3 ‘I Spit on Your Grave’ (1978)
Few low-budget horror movies are quite as confronting as I Spit on Your Grace, which was controversial upon release and remains divisive today. It centers on a young woman attacked, degraded, and abused by a group of depraved young men before being left for dead. However, she survives and sets on a determined mission to seek revenge against her attackers.
I Spit in Your Grave shows horrible violence for long periods, making it a challenging watch designed to provoke and cause debate. It made a true impression on audiences (and remains notorious today) despite its very small budget of about $80,000.
2 ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ (1974)
Though it’s not the only chainsaw-heavy movie out there, 1974’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the most famous of the surprisingly popular horror subgenre. It’s an iconic picture that follows a group of young people who have to fight for their lives after crossing paths with a group of dangerous family of cannibals.
Despite its title and reputation, the film is surprisingly subdued regarding blood and gore, implying a great deal more than it shows and arguably being scarier as a result. It’s another example of a low-budget horror movie that did well financially and became iconic, costing only $140,000 while grossing over $26 million at the box office.
1 ‘Saw’ (2004)
Saw is the original movie in what’s become a very long-running franchise and remains the best. It works just as much as a crime/psychological thriller movie as it does a horror film, with the plot centering on a mysterious killer who forces his victims to play a series of grisly games for a chance to survive his various death traps.
The budget could’ve been as low as $1 million or as “high” as $1.2 million, but either way, it was far from costly and ended up being greatly profitable, grossing nearly $104 million. Considering how much money the (still fairly cheap) sequels have also made, the Saw series stands as a pretty remarkable achievement from a profitability perspective.
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