10 Horrifically Profitable Films
As Paranormal Activity scares up $100 million from a budget of loose change, we look at history's lowest budget horror hits
Oren Peli's debut feature Paranormal Activity -- an ingenious horror movie set in a house as a young couple attempt to capture a spectre on camera -- was made on video for a tiny budget of just $15,000. But with a smart marketing campaign and viral word-of-mouth from audiences that propelled it from limited release into wide theatrical distribution, the shoestring fright flick has now taken more than $107 million in the US alone. What's more, it marks an all-time record return on initial investment. As the film finally arrives (on a wave of hype) in the rest of the world, we decided to take a look at 10 other profitable horror films throughout history. After all, it's the genre to be in if you really want to make a low-budget killing.
Cat People (1942)
Not to be confused with Paul Schrader's '82 skin-flick remake with Natassja Kinski, this wartime classic from producer Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur is a masterpiece of horror-noir mood and suspense scares. The story of a feline fatale cost just $141,659 -- a small budget even then -- but grossed $4m over the next two years and saved the studio, RKO Radio Pictures, from the financial ruin incurred by releasing box-office flops like Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and his follow-up, The Magnificent Ambersons.
The Blob (1958)
Independently produced by a savvy operator named Jack Harris, who coughed up the $300,000 budget himself, this perennial favourite B-flick has alien jelly invading a small town, with the most memorable scene having The Blob ooze its way into a movie theatre packed with teens. No doubt the kids of the day thought it was a blast, daddy-o. A young jobbing actor named Steve McQueen was tapped for the lead and offered a choice: he could take a $3,000 fee upfront or get 10 percent of the gross box-office. Figuring The Blob would be just another creature feature, he opted for the former. Bummer. The movie grossed an astounding $12m, which would've earned McQueen $1.2m and set him up for life.
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Long before sophisticated marketing campaigns and the Internet, George A. Romero started the whole zombies-feast-on-the-flesh-of-the-living genre with this incredibly tense horror flick. Shot on B&W with an amateur cast in and around Pittsburgh for $114,000, it nevertheless found wide independent release thanks to word of mouth and took $12m at the box-office and another $18m internationally.
Eraserhead (1976)
David Lynch's debut feature remains a stark surrealist nightmare that defies explanation. What we can agree on, though, is that with its high contrast black-and-white industrial hellscapes, affectless hero, oozing chickens, splattering sperm-like creatures and radiator ingénues, it's quite terrifying. The movie beguiled audiences on release, too, clocking up $7m in ticket sales -- many from midnight screenings -- which was pretty good for a $100,000 budget eked out of Lynch's own pocket.
Halloween (1978)
John Carpenter's movie about a knife-wielding psycho stalking Haddonfield on October 31 was an immediate fright-flick sensation due to its emphasis on suspense over gore. It was produced for a mere $325,000 but took $47m -- and inspired literally hundreds of sillier and gorier imitators, including 1980's Friday The 13th, which, made for $700,000, earned an also-impressive $37m in ticket sales.
The Inner Circle on 12-2-2009 09:44 PM
Halloween still is one of my fav films