Low Budget Horror

Catherine f -

Hello! I’m doing the same thing as last week, trying to get everything edited and fix any audio and visual problems. I’m hoping to try and start the PowerPoint presentation next week and almost have a rough draft of the documentary done. That’s all for updates this week since I’m doing one thing that just takes a while so let’s talk about the massively popular Halloween franchise and low budget movies.

The movie Halloween was shot with a budget of $300,000 with a group of novice filmmakers. The budget being low meant that there were multiple things they had to do to stick to it. A lot of the budget was used on specific cameras in order to make the movie look high quality and get a lot of those long walkthrough shots. The iconic Michael Myers mask was actually a really cheap part of the budget as it was a Star Trek Captain Kirk mask that they just shaved the eyebrows off of and painted. To continue keeping that budget low, they ended up shooting a lot of scenes at the Myers house in reverse, shooting the deteriorated version of the house first and then painting over it to get the nice shots of the house that are in the first scenes of the movie. These are just some of the creative ways they thought of to maintain their strict budget for this project. This movie was made on a low budget and is now one of the most well known and recognized horror movies with many sequels. It had a strict $300,000 budget and managed to gross over 70 million dollars, gain a devoted fan base, and become one of the most popular horror franchises that is both recognized and referenced.

One of the great aspects of horror is that low budget filmmaking is encouraged and a major aspect of it. There is a whole genre of horror that is made around budget constraints. That genre is found footage, made from a single point of view from one person recording. There is really only one camera needed for this type of movie. These movies are very accessible to make and are often made on a shoestring budget and like Halloween have the potential to make it big. The best example of this is The Blair Witch Project, a movie made as cheap as they could with minimal resources that managed to make $248.6 million world wide.

Horror is a great genre when it comes to accessibility in filmmaking. Low budget movies are common within the genre and in some types of horror films are encouraged. Not only is it accessible but many of these low budget films have managed to find great success, showing that a big budget isn’t necessary to make great movies, you just might have to get a little creative.

Thank you for reading!

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    liam_k
    Hi Catie! That was a really interesting post! What are the biggest costs when it comes to making a low-budget horror movie?
    April 9, 2025 at 2:09 pm - Reply
      catherine_f
      Most of the time the biggest cost is equipment. Good camera set ups can get really pricey really fast whereas things like practical effects can be kept fairly budget friendly if the filmmakers get creative. Costs for cast and crew can also contribute a lot of the expenses as well as the possible cost of distribution but that depends.
      April 9, 2025 at 2:25 pm - Reply
    riley_b
    Hello! What is the average cost it takes to make a horror movie? What would be an example of a really expensive horror movie?
    April 14, 2025 at 10:09 am - Reply
      catherine_f
      Hello! You can’t really pin point an average cost to make a horror movie. That’s too broad of a scope and budget can vary extremely between different movies. Bigger studios will usually have bigger budgets and independent films will usually have lower budgets. It just depends on who is making the movie and what type of movie it is. As far as really expensive horror, I think World War Z had a pretty big budget and a lot of really popular franchises like Alien will get bigger budgets as they continue making more and more popular movies.
      April 14, 2025 at 11:19 am - Reply
    cindy_h
    Hi Catie! I didn't know that such low budget movies existed; my perception was always that movies costed millions and millions of dollars, so this was definitely very interesting to read! Why do you think low budget movies have such a big market in horror, as opposed to other genres? Does horror tend to have less funding possibly? Thank you!
    April 15, 2025 at 11:41 am - Reply
      catherine_f
      Hi Cindy! I think that low funding is absolutely part of it. Horror is a genre that when compared to others has a lot less popularity with the exception of a few popular directors and studios. It also is a genre that people create movies for knowing that they won’t necessarily be popular which provides a lot of freedom and less pressure to create something that will appeal to a large audience. It can also be made cheaply. With found footage, for instance, all that’s really needed is a few good actors and a single camera. That is way cheaper than an action movie that needs big stunts especially when they are competing with other popular movies of that genre that have insane budgets. It’s always been a major part of the genre while other genres don’t necessarily have that low budget aspect as a core part of the genre.
      April 15, 2025 at 10:33 pm - Reply
    katie_b
    Hi Catie! I was wondering if you knew any examples of really high budget horror movies that ended up performing very badly and losing money?
    April 16, 2025 at 3:38 pm - Reply

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